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Showing posts from August, 2016

Lemon and Garlic Chicken Drumsticks

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This recipe will be sure to impress with flavours that sing together and of course - it's super simple!! Perfect for Fathers Day (we know just how much men love their meat) but actually it is also an easy yet super tasty dinner which children will love and can be really easy to add to a puree for little bubs. Ingredients: 700 grams of chicken drumsticks 6 tb of olive oil 3 tb of garlic 1 lemon 2 tsp of paprika 2 tsp of dried thyme (or mixed herbs) Handful of fresh coriander Salt Directions: 1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. 2. To make the marinade, in a large bowl add the olive oil, garlic (you can do 2 tbs if you wish), paprika and thyme.  Finely chop 2-3 tb of coriander and add to the bowl then squeeze in the juice from half of the lemon. 3. Place in chicken drumsticks and coat well in the marinade. Cover and set aside in the fridge for at least an hour (can leave for a few hours). Just take chicken out of the fridge 30 minutes before baking (to ensure even cooking). You can ei

To My Husband On Fathers Day

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In the chaos of life as two working parents with two very active toddlers often I feel that just how much my husband means to me and just what an amazing job he does as a father gets lost in translation - now more than ever (am I the only one?). Yes he drives me crazy half the time and we have the most pointless arguments like who is the most tired (seriously?!) and sometimes I feel like I have three children not two (eye roll) but I still think he's the best father I could ever have asked for our boys...so hubby this one is for you. I See You I see you when you are so beyond excited that we are pregnant – excited for both of us because I am basically an emotional basket case after weeks of hormone treatments. I see you at the all the ultrasound, midwife and hospital appointments. I see you when your face lights up (like enough to light up a Christmas tree) because you felt our baby move in my belly underneath your hands. I see you excited...nervous...anxious...hopeful...when I go

Daffodil Day - Special Blog

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Daffodil Day in New Zealand is Friday 26th August here in NZ. It's one of the most important awareness and fundraising campaigns for cancer in the country. As yet we do not yet have a cure for cancer, research and medicine have come a long way and early detection is absolutely key - and one of the main message of Daffodil Day. Both my dad and my husband's mum have survived cancer due to the disease being found quickly and fast acting treatment - we know we are very lucky. To start educating our boys about cancer this year we made a cake (my Sugar-Free Banana and Date Cake) together and took it to the Skin Institute in Silverdale, local to us and the amazing staff, doctors and medical team there treat patients daily. It was a very moving experience to be able to do this and start educating our boys on this - I see it equally as important to teach them the full picture of health and well-being and also a very small way to give back to those so dedicated to fighting this disease.

Gingerbread Muffins - For Morning Sickness

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Ginger is well known to help ease morning sickness so I have an easy homemade muffin recipe packed full of ginger plus other helpful ingredients AND free of refined sugar (#winwin). Actually this muffin recipe is awesome even if you are not expecting! I named the recipe 'gingerbread muffins' simply because I thought it sounded cool (please don't tell me if it doesn't!). It is nice and light so for mornings when you really can't face food having a batch of these already made may just do the trick! Keeping food and fluid levels up even when it's hard to keep down is still really important. You can check out my blog on morning sickness here. Ingredients: 1/2 cup of coconut oil 1/4 cup of molasses (this is available in the baking section of the supermarket) 4 tb of honey 1 egg 1/2 c of yoghurt (Greek or plain unsweetened) 1/2 c of milk 2 tsp of ground ginger 1 tsp of cinnamon 1/2 tsp of nutmeg 2 and 1/2 cups of wholemeal flour 2 tsp of baking powder 1 tsp of baking

Pumpkin Soup - NutriBullet Style!

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From raw vegetables to warm, healthy soup in less than 8 minutes? It is possible with the amazing NutriBullet ! It's fair to say I am a little more than obsessed with this with this must-have kitchen appliance...you will see why when you watch the vlog on Facebook tonight! I love pumpkin soup - it is really cost effective, an important source of potassium and the color is always amazing! The following is a version of my Pumpkin Soup with a Twist recipe but NutriBullet style! Ingredients: 1/4 of pumpkin, chopped roughly 1-2 potatoes 1 cup of chicken stock 2-3 slices of onion 1 small glove of garlic 1 carrot (optional) 1 tsp of paprika Directions: Place all ingredients into the Souper Blast pitcher. Place on the NutriBullet and hold down the main button until it turns red (this is what turns on the soup heating function). After exactly 7 minutes it will stop automatically. Done! It really is that easy! And it's the perfect temperature to enjoy straight away! P.S We hav

Sensational Soup - 10 Reasons to Love Soup!

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The cold has well and truly set in - here in New Zealand anyway - for our community members on the other side of the world we are rather envious right now! Winter is all about warm hearty meals and you cannot get passed a good bowl of soup on a cold winter’s night! So why do I praise soup so much? 1. Vegetables!!  You can jam-pack soup full of vegetables. In fact you can pretty much turn any vegetable into a fabulous soup with little cooking skills! 2. Cost effective – in fact I could go as far to say  soup is a very affordable meal. For example you can turn a pumpkin (which costs approximately $2) into a meal for the whole family. 3. Reduce food wastage – soup is a great way to use up meat bones, left over stock and vegetables lying in the fridge keeping your food wastage to a minimum. 4. Cook once for many meals – a massive pot or slow cooker soup will make multiple meals ensuring lunch/dinner for days to come and is great to freeze. 5. Child friendly – children right from babies

Healthy Toasted Muesli

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Muesli is a great go-to breakfast, however most packaged options are really high in sugar and low in nutrients. My toasted muesli is packed full of goodness, high in omega 3s, and uses minimal natural sugar from honey. The smell of this toasting will be hard to resist. The real secret (well not soooo secret) ingredient in there is coconut - both coconut oil and coconut threads. This lifts the sweet flavour of the muesli without being laden with lots of dried fruit (which does have a lot of sugar). The goji berries add a really nice colour (and you will find little ones like these too). Ingredients: 2 cups of oats (not milk oats) 1/2-3/4 cup of coconut threads 1/3 cup of pumpkin seeds 1/3 cup of walnut pieces 1 tb of honey 2-3 tb of coconut oil (softened) 1/3 cup of goji berries Note: these are approximate serving sizes,  I find you can experiment a lot with these ingredients! Directions: Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees and line a shallow tin (brownie tin) with baking paper. Put

Mum Bods - Strong is the New Skinny

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This was about 7am Saturday morning. Hubby took this photo as he was like "you are not seriously taking them all out" – ah yes - the boys had been up at 5am and needed the park (so did our fur-baby and his friend we have been looking after). I didn’t want to post it as I thought my thighs looked really big. I have always had a thing about my thighs, as I am a pear-shape and have been quite sporty so never really had well…sticks for legs and certainly no ‘thigh-gap’. Of course I went and saw the movie Embrace that afternoon by the founder of The Body Image Movement and mentally slapped myself. This movie spoke of the 91% of women who HATE their bodies. Who wished their bodies looked something different. Looked like bodies which are NOT EVEN REAL – photo shopped and edited and cropped and colored all to an ideal that does not even exist. Seriously what ‘perfect-body’ am I trying to aspire to?  Look at what I about to do - push a million kilograms to the park at 7am in the mor