We are proud to announce that Count On It labels are featured in this month’s Eat In magazine, the monthly magazine for food lovers and aspiring cooks everywhere.

If you’ve not got your copy yet, check this out to give you a flavour of what’s in store.

http://www.eatinmagazine.co.uk/in-this-issue

Thank you ‘Eat In’ and food lovers everywhere, if you want to make good use of your leftovers, why not click on our Count On It link here to buy some labels to try.

Count On It labels, the easy peel, freezer label is featured in Eat In magazine. These removable labels are perfect for jars, freezing leftovers and baby food storage. No need for Sharpies, Count On It labels can be used on freezer bags, food storage tubs and glass storage containers. Ideal for safe food storage, the make First In First Out super simple.

My very good friend, Little M and his mami, were kind enough to review Count On It® labels early this month.

As any ’switch-on’ little guy or gal knows, keeping an eye on baby’s food (and parent’s) is something we should all do. But with busy lives, it’s not always that easy.

Ta-dah – Count On It® labels

To see what Little M and his readers thought, pop over to his award-winning blog here ‘Mummy’s Busy World‘, you’ll be glad you did.

Thanks again, Little M – you’re a star!

p.s. – not as cute I know, but I’ve also reviewed Count On It® labels across at our new parent site, www.queenofeasygreen.co.uk do pop over to the new site and let me know what you think.

Thanks,

Lyndsey

Count On It labels, the easy peel, freezer labels are reviewed by Little M at Mummy’s Busy World. These removable labels are perfect for jars, freezing leftovers and baby food storage. No need for Sharpies, Count On It labels can be used on freezer bags, food storage tubs and glass storage containers. Ideal for safe food storage, the make First In First Out super simple.

I am so excited to announce, that after months of planning and anticipation, the Queen of Easy Green™ website  www.queenofeasygreen.co.uk is launching today.

As the Queen of Easy Green™ my mission is to help busy households save time, money and waste in the home, effortlessly.

Sharing my fun, practical, money-saving tips and advice, I will help you get the most value from your food, time and money, whilst also reducing unnecessary waste.

‘Rising food prices tops consumers worries, with 50% of consumers anticipating higher food bills in the coming year … with almost 70% of consumers searching for ways to save money when food shopping.’ (Mintel, 2010)

Rather than preach unrealistic, austere budgeting measures, the Queen of Easy Green™ is all about effortless, opportunistic money-saving tactics, savvy tips, ‘easy to be eco’ products all delivered in a down-to-earth practical manner from a fellow busy mum’s perspective.

To help us all live an easier, greener lifestyle, as the Queen of Easy Green™ my tips and advice include topics such as:

• Savvy food shopping, eating local, frozen food, eat seasonally
• Grow, make and pick your own
• Econvenient food preparation and storage
• New, innovative time and waste saving gadgets and gizmos
• Quick, easy family recipes – make once – love twice, loving your leftovers, storecupboard saviours
• Energy saving, ethical, environmentally-friendly products
• Simple ways to reduce, reuse and recycle

The Queen of Easy Green™ is not about being penny-pinching, it’s about being money wise. With any extra money saved, I believe we should treat ourselves – why not, life’s about having fun with our friends and family – now what could be a better incentive than that?

To keep up with the last eco-easy news, advice and hot products, pop over to www.queenofeasygreen.co.uk and join in the conversation, or just let me what you think about my new site. With a little bit of savvy saving and canny know-how, together we can make 2011 our easiest, greenest yet.

See you there,

Lyndsey

Eco easy is the trend for 2011 and if you, like me, want to ‘green-up‘ your life, but don’t want to comprise on durability and quality,  the good news is that there is an ever-growing choice of stylish, superior products out there – more of which I will be sharing with you over the coming months.

In the meantime, fellow eco-lover and guest blogger, Jillian Gile, shares her favourites here:-

Gifts and Gadgets to Make Your Kitchen Smarter

The best gifts are those you tailor to the recipient. So what do you get for someone who loves to cook? Chances are, they already have the fanciest gadgets, so why not try for something fun? These kitchen gadgets are useful, fun, and will also help reduce waste in the kitchen, which makes your gift three times better.

Bamboo Anything

Bamboo is quickly becoming one of the most popular woods for kitchen gear (as well as flooring, clothing, etc). Bamboo grows quickly, so it’s the ultimate renewable resource.  Even better – bamboo products are gorgeous enough to give as gifts. Bed, Bath & Beyond has a line of bamboo cutting boards, salad bowls, salad servers, utensils, and more.

Green Bags

If the cook on your gift list loves to work with fresh produce, Green Bags might be the perfect gift. These bags store fruits and vegetables just like any other zip-top plastic baggy, but are created from a material that absorbs the ethylene gas – the gas that makes produce rot. You can get green bags from the company website, EvertFresh.com. The pack of three would make a great stocking stuffer.

Canvas Shopping Tote

If you love to cook, you also have to learn to love the grocery store. To get the best produce and other fresh products, you may even have to make multiple trips a week. Make your cook’s shopping life a little easier by getting them reusable canvas shopping tote bags. There are hundreds of varieties available, so you can even customize the bag to fit their interests. You can find these bags almost everywhere, but you can stop here first.

Apartment Compost Bin

Cooking scraps are an inevitable part of life, but there’s no reason to throw them in the trash and add to the world’s landfills. For cooks who don’t have a lot of space, and who you know would appreciate it, try an apartment-sized compost bin. As they usually involve creepy-crawlies like worms or grubs, you might want to check first to see how receptive they might be to the idea. Attractive models are available for sale, like this one at Amazon.com.

Jillian Gile lives in Washington State, where she acts as an amateur cook and freelance writer. She is a guest writer for My Dog Ate My Blog and a writer on accredited online colleges for Guide to Online Schools.

As a lover of ‘easy to be eco’ products, I am always on the look out for kitchen gadgets and accessories that can help us live an easier, greener lifestyle – and a little while ago I was fortunate enough to stumble upon these little gems – eco designer cleaning cloths from Jangeus Design.

These beautifully colourful cloths combine design with environmental responsibility and awareness and are very eco-friendly as they are made of cellulose (a by-product from paper making) and recycled cotton then printed with eco-friendly ink.

Inspired by Sweden’s crafts and design culture, these fabulous cloths are available in seven different colours – blue, turquoise, green, purple, black, yellow and red – and eleven different designs: a heart; two different flowers; leaves; doodle flower; stars, stripes, cups, spots, fish and a bird. All eleven designs are available in blue and black, ten designs are available in green, turquoise, purple and red and nine designs come in yellow giving a total of 71 different variations to suit every home.

Prices range from £1.75 – £2.50 (depending on the number of cloths you order) with delivery is free within the UK.

They also offer a subscription service for £25 and will send a new cloth to you every month. You can choose to have all your cloths in one colour or you can have a mixed subscription and get a selection of colours throughout the year.

As well as the beautiful designs, what I also loved about the cloths is that they are highly absorbent, perfect for general cleaning and for wiping up spills. They can be popped in the washing machine when dirty, minimising the risk any germs. Then, when they are finally worn out, rather than filling up your bin, you can simply pop them in your compost heap as they are 100% biodegradable.

I absolutely love my cloths, they are fun, funky and eco-friendly – kitchen cleaning has never been so glamorous. To see all of their gorgeous designs and to find out how you can get yours, pop along to www.jangneus-design.com

A little while ago I saw a product that I wished I’d had when my little chaps, were babies, the Koo-di ‘Fridge to go’.

The reason I wanted to trial the product was because when I used to go on day trips with my boys, I’d always find that any expressed or bottled milk that I’d took with me always seemed to ‘warm up’ quicker than I had expected. On several occasions, I threw it away – which is absolutely sickening, considering how long it’d taken to express – but I just didn’t want to risk it. Yet again more unnecessary and expensive waste, which could have been avoided.

However, the Fridge-to-go does away with this problem, as it’s patented chilling technology means that it works like a refrigerator and can keep food and drink cooled and safe to eat for up to 12 hours.

Although it looks like a regular cool-bag, the Fridge-to-go uses ice packs which are zipped within the lining of the bag and surround the contents in ice-cold temperatures, which take longer to cool down than ordinary ice blocks AND they don’t leave your food and bottles soggy and wet.

So rather than take Koo-di’s word for it, I decided to test it out for myself, but instead of bottles of milk and weaning foods, I opted for icecream – to see if it was just as good as it claimed. Here’s how it went:-

To test the Fridge-to-go I put a couple of scoops of icecream in a glass and popped it inside, at the same time, I put another glass of icecream in a regular cool bag and set the stop watch running.

Two hours later, I checked on both of the glasses of icecream, in the regular cool bag I found a glass of melted icecream at room temperature. To my surprise in the Fridge-to-go, I found the icecream was still ‘firm to touch’, so I decided to leave it a little longer. Three hours later, I checked again and was amazed that although the icecream had melted, it was still very cold.

The ‘Fridge-to-go’ had completely wiped the floor with the regular cool bag and had surpassed my expectations with it’s ‘refrigerator-like’ capabilities.

So, although summer is a long way away, if you’re looking for something to give you peace of mind with your babies food, I’d definitely consider trying the ‘Fridge-to-go’.

Available in two sizes, Koo-di Fridge-to-go (two bottles) is £14.99 and the Maxi is £19.99, to find out more visit their website www.koo-di.co.uk

Collapsible Aquatina bottle

Whilst visiting Prince Charles ‘A Garden Party to Make a Difference’, I came across a fantastic product which could help put an end to the mass consumption of plastic water bottles in the UK– Aquatina.

Aquatina, is a new, sustainable, reusable water bottle, but unlike all of the other water bottles on the market, Aquatina has been cleverly designed to collapse when not in use, making it even more convenient to carry around with you.

Made from Low-density polyethylene (LDPE), which is a food-safe plastic and is BPA and PET free, it expands to hold 500ml of water and is light and portable.

With the average person in the Europe buying 85 bottles of mineral water a year, at a cost of over £100 and with 5,000 bottles being thrown away per second worldwide -150 billion bottles a year, the Aquatina pocket bottle has been devised to provide an environmentally-friendly and economical alternative to bottled water. Just refill from a tap or fountain and you’ll always have fresh water at hand – and it’s free!

To improve access to drinking water and to protect the environment from waste bottles and cups, the guys at Aquatina have also launched a not-for-profit campaign called ‘Find-a-Fountain’. The aim of the campaign is to increase the consumption of tap water by facilitating the installation, restoration and maintenance of public drinking fountains and encouraging shops, pubs, banks to provide drinking water. FaF have already begun to map places in London where free drinking water can be obtained, the locations and photos of which can be viewed at the proto website www.findafountain.org.

Despite the negative reaction Aquatina received on Dragon’s Den earlier this year, http://www.bbc.co.uk/dragonsden/entrepreneurs/guyjeremiah.shtml Aquatina’s popularity continues to grow and it has since received orders from High Street stores Blacks and Milletts.

I’m a fan too, anything which can help us reduce unnecessary waste should be applauded and Aquatina does just this. I always use reusable bottles in my household, but have grown increasingly concerned that even metal water bottles can be lined with BPA, and Aquatina bottles do not contain any of these nasties. The convenience of the collapsible bottle also means I can carry my bottle around with me wherever I go, I ‘pop it out’ when I need refreshment, when I’m done, I squidge it flat and pop it back in my pocket.

My children also love it and it’s great to hear that Aquatina are currently working on a new lid for the bottle, this time with a nozzle, which will be particularly popular with children and sports people, this will be launched in Spring 2011.

Aquatina 3 - The new nozzle

So there you have it, Aquatina, an inventive, fresh take on free water on the go.

www.aquatina.com

With the summer gone (boo hoo!) and Autumn definitely upon us, Stewed! ’s cookbook couldn’t have come through my door at a better time. This beautiful book, by entrepreneur and passionate foodie Alan Rosenthal, gives a modern twist to my all-time favourite dish, stew. The 80 pages of one-pot recipes are from all over the world, categorised into the Americas, British Isles, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. These economical, tasty, comforting and simple to make at home recipes are perfect for all the family and what makes them even more fantastic is that they use less expensive cuts of meat and, as we found, make enough for two family meals (we’ve yet to enjoy our second serving which is labelled up  in our freezer as I type).

We decided to opt for the classic Beef in Ale recipe and we wasn’t disappointed. All the family got involved, 5yo ‘chopped’ the carrots, 8yo fried the onions and OH sampled the Guinness! What I loved about it was that it introduced our family to beef chuck steak, which I must admit, I don’t normally buy. As Alan points out, stews and one-pot dishes are perfect for using cheaper cuts of meat as the slow cooking tenderises them beautifully and brings out their flavour.

What I also love about stews, is that they’re your classic ‘use up your leftovers’ kind of meals, those wrinkly carrots, bendy parsnips and mottled peppers (if only I could get some knobbly apples in, I’d be delighted – private joke!)

Alan has not only been busy working on this fabulous book, he has also launched Stewed! pots, ready to eat stews, which are available at Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Budgens, John Lewis’ food hall and Ocado.

I love the book and can’t wait to impress my foodie friend with the Pot Roast Pheasant with sausage, cabbage and ale – I am a Lincolnshire Lass after all and your can’t get more Lincolnshire than that – though possibly you could by adding a turnip!

So, if fancy some fabulous, wholesome, family dishes to serve up through our winter (ouch!), you’ll love Stewed! book, so what are you waiting for! (p.s. it’s on sale over there  ➜)

Cheers Alan and good luck with your fabulous ‘Circle Line’ inspired idea!

Thanks, Lyndsey

A little while ago I was invited over to the John Lewis Christmas launch where I first laid my eyes on the fabulous Cuisinart Soup Maker. Being a massive fan of kitchen gadgets that not only make fabulously tasty food simple, but save time and money too, the Cuisinart Soup Maker fits the bill perfectly.

Extremely easy to use, the innovative Cuisinart Soup Maker (£139*) allows you to make fresh hot soup, with no added preservatives in just 20 minutes from start to finish. To use, set your cooking time, select the low temperature setting and gently fry any base ingredients; such as garlic and onions until soft on the non stick cooking plate. Mix using the stir function and then add all your other ingredients; vegetable, stock and seasoning, mix again and then set on a high heat and bring to the boil. Once boiled reduce the heat to simmer, set the timer and leave to cook. Once cooked use the powerful blend function to get your soup to your preferred consistency. Then simply pour the hot soup from the glass jar into your bowls ready to eat and enjoy. The Cuisinart Soup Maker benefits from a rapid heating element, which allows you to get started in seconds and a non-stick cooking plate that helps stop food from sticking and makes cleaning easy. There are four blending speeds to choose from, as well as a pulse function and the timer and temperature can be adjusted throughout the cooking process, giving you complete control at every stage of cooking. The stainless steel blades ensure soup is served exactly as you like it, with texture or silky smooth. A handy measuring cup at the top of the Soup Maker allows you to measure liquids. As well as preparing soups the Cuisinart Soup Maker is perfect for; sauces, dips, dressings, purées, smoothies, cocktails and desserts, it can also crush ice.

With a garden full of potatoes, carrots and courgettes, I will definitely be putting this on my Christmas wish list (if not before). Soup is the perfect nutritious and convenient family meal and this makes kitchen gadget makes the job even easier.

For more information call John Lewis on 08456 049 049 or visit www.johnlewis.com

Oh, just in case you’re wondering, yes I will be making my soup in batches and freezing. ;0)

*Prices and products are correct at the time of writing but are subject to change and therefore I would recommend calling to check prices and availability before going to press.

Count On It Food Labels
Number of reviews: 2
Overall score: 5/5
Household Stuff
www.count-on-it.co.uk

Member reviews

Ease of Use: 5/5
Value for Money: 5/5
Quality: 5/5
Overall score: 5/5

“Fantasic product!”

When I first saw these advertised I thought it was a great idea, and they’ve lived up to my expectations. I’m forever forgetting when I’ve opened something and end up chucking food away that’s probably ok, and I’m sure I’m not the only one with things in the freezer that I haven’t a clue how long they’ve been there! Particularly with being pregnant at the moment I’m extra careful about not eating food that’s past its use by date, and these labels have been invaluable – it’s now really easy to check the sticker and see when it was opened, and far less food had ended up in the bin. I’ll definitely carry on using these to date batches of baby food and milk when my daughter comes along, and also for the pre-cooked meals that I have every intention of making and freezing before the baby’s here (yeah right!).
Member review by Emma – pregnant with first baby – review date 22nd May 2009

Ease of Use: 5/5
Value for Money: 5/5
Quality: 4/5
Overall score: 5/5

“great product”

I love these labels they are really useful for when i am making my son a batch of food to freeze you just scratch the date on them and then you allways know when its going to go off i would deffinately carry on using these they are useful for other stuff like freezer foods that have such big boxes which if like me you take them out the box to save room in the freezer you just stick one of the labels and then you dont have to worry about when it goes of because usually the going of date is on the box.
I will reccomend these to everyone
Member review by basak – mother of one boy – review date 19th May 2009