reviews

… as you know, dear reader, belleau kitchen is a recipe blog and I try my hardest to bring you a mixed bag of sweet and savoury delights, many of which are my own invention, many influenced by my location and the seasons and on occasion I will include a key ingredient sent to me by a kindly brand eager to promote their wares… I try hard to seamlessly weave these lovely items into my recipes so that i’m sharing not only the product with you but giving you options on how to use it but on occasion I will be offered a lovely bit of kitchen paraphernalia that I simply can’t use in a recipe… so I needed to create a forum where I could share these items with you… be it a new book or a kitchen gadget, they will all be related to that which we all love… food… I will also try to be as discretionary as I can, there won’t be any old tat on here, so don’t worry, you won’t be bombarded by useless crap… I will also try my best to review products that are internationally available…

… all the items have been sent to me as a gift to review by the brands.  I get asked to review a lot of stuff but only chose to accept the stuff that I actually need or think will be useful in my life… the thoughts on these items are entirely my own… if at any point I get paid to review a product you’ll be the first to know about it…

Morphy Richards Accents Kettle

sometimes these things seem to come along at moments when you really need something for the kitchen but simply haven’t gotten around to doing anything about it… yes dear reader for the last few months Belleau Kitchen has been boiling water in a pan… so when the good people at Appliances Direct asked me if i’d like to review one of their products I quite literally jumped at the chance to choose this kettle… not only was it a reliable brand that i’ve bought from before but the colour… oh boy the colour… I think the design teams at Morphy Richards have been reading my blog, there can be no other explanation.  It’s a great kettle, boils fast and is cordless which is I think pretty standard these days.  It also has a contemporary retro look which I find very pleasing and suits my kitchen down to a tea… see what i did there…

Pukka Detox & Cleanse

as you’ll all remember, a while back I had a rather dreadful bout of diverticulitis, a nasty infection of the gut which had me laid out in hospital for the best part of a week… since then i’ve made every effort to change my diet to include more fibre and the right kinds of food… as you can imagine, with my somewhat erratic lifestyle this is not always easy to do so when the kind folk at Pukka Herbs gave me the opportunity to try a couple of products from their Detox & Cleanse range I was more than happy to oblige.  Both the Wheat Grass Juice and the Fibre Plus come in a powdered form which means you can dilute in water or sprinkle over food and each bottle lasts for a month, so if you forget to eat well you can simply down a glass of the good stuff… a word of warning however, there’s no easy way to put this but they both taste vile… but who cares, they seem to be doing the trick!

nakd bars

the very generous kids at Natural Balance Foods were kind enough to send a selection of nakd bars over to the office… as anyone who works in an office environment will tell you, for some reason snacking becomes not only an addictive ritual between breakfast and lunch or lunch and home-time but also usually involves sugary treats… I have piled on the pounds in recent weeks just sitting here snacking.  So it comes as quite a relief to have options that are actually healthy whilst being quite filling… we were sent a mixed case of their nakd crunch range which include flavours such as banana, cocoa, strawberry and apple and as you can imagine the cocoa ones went down really well… they also sent us what has now become my new favourite snack, the cola flavoured raisins which are essentially a throwback to my childhood love of cola bottles but without all the nasty pig gelatine!

ProCook Spectrum 6 piece knife set and acrylic block

as you can see i’m adding a lot of colour to the kitchen of late and fortunately I think the kitchen can take it… this knife set was a welcome addition to my lousy collection of knives collected over the centuries, i’m sure you all have the same utensil drawer as me which is essentially an assorted jangle of blunt rusting instruments that you literally risk your life every time you push your hand into… well this gorgeous Spectrum 6 piece knife set comes with it’s own clear acrylic holder that shows the knives off to their best whilst also providing easy and risk-free access to the blades of your choice… the blades are made from that wonderful new-fangled carbon steel material so they stay sharp for ages plus they have a lovely soft-grip handle… I love these knives so much that the good people at ProCook have given me an extra set to give away which I will be doing in a special post in early December… just in time for christmas… watch this space!

Renova Blue Kitchen Roll

talking of colour… these ridiculously blue kitchen rolls came to belleau courtesy of funky home accessories website red candy… they’re actually very electric blue but seemed to work well in the kitchen, in fact I think they were the most luxurious kitchen rolls i’ve ever used, very large and super-absorbant. They make a huge change from the regular and rather drab white kitchen rolls usually available and they were super-absorbant, my only critique would be that on occasion they felt a little clinical like the blue paper towels you get in hospitals but this is a minor flaw… although they did also send me a tube of electric blue toilet rolls which I think were a step too far for my pale pink bottom…

Topps Tiles

and finally i’d like to share with you a little article about yours truly featured on the Topps Tiles website… it’s a little random but hopefully you can glean some pearls!

eat and of course, enjoy!