JulieBhosaleAchive

The rich flavour of tomatoes, high liquid content and soft flesh make them great for turning into a sauce. You would be hard pressed to not find many households with some version of tomato sauce and kids really love it - in fact in terms of per capital consumption it is the leading processed vegetable! For the record too botanically speaking the tomato is termed a fruit due to it plant parts (but it is customarily used as a vegetable). With the increased awareness of the amount of sugar in processed foods however tomato sauce has come into the spotlight. Many of the traditional varieties contain significant amounts of sugar - in some cases it is the first ingredient listed not tomatoes (ekkkk). I have found some supermarket brands contain up to 40% sugar which is unbelievably high and certainly does not help the development of positive food habits especially for our little ones. To give you a little bit more background on how tomato sauce is made - the majority of packaged tomato sauce...

Let us be honest, potato chips are quite irresistible. However, heavy processing of them has effectively rendered a favourite snack or side dish with very little nutrients and a few nasties in there. This recipe of mine is not fancy by any measure but turns our humble potato, skin still on into a homemade version which will be gobbled up (by big and little people) in seconds flat! Ingredients: 2-3 Russet Potatoes 2 Tb Extra Virgin Olive Oil 1 tsp of paprika 1 tsp of coarse salt Directions: 1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees and line a baking tray with non-stick paper. 2. Cut the potatoes into slices (use my photos as a guide to how thick!) and place into a large bowl. Add the olive oil, paprika and coarse salt then mix together. 3. Place potatos in single rows on the baking tray (you may need to do two lots depending on how many potatoes you use and how big your tray is). 4. Bake for approximately 30-40mins until the chips go golden brown. 5. Allow to cool for a bit and you can add a ...

Our first baby turning five was a really big milestone and special day for us. I have always tried to hold parties for the boys but in true working mum reality there have been some times that it has just been too hard (cue end of doctoral thesis and also book publishing deadline as examples). While we are still very much in a busy period (is life ever not busy?!) we did plan ahead for this time as some things need to be booked well in advance AND I just did not try to do everything and have everything perfect. Holding a party at home is just a no-go especially as the boys are bigger, cleaning the house top to bottom is actually mission impossible AND space wise if it rains would be a bit of a nightmare. So we booked a local community at a local park which meant if it rained (which it did!) so the stress-factor was zero. One other planning tip that I found helpful was we had an afternoon party. I had not done this before but it meant that I had time in the morning for preparation which ...

Chocolate party crackles are something I remember from my own childhood. I have been playing around with a healthier version and found it quite simple to re-create with a few tweaks! We made these on Sunday morning for Arjun's party - he pretty much did them all himself - so they do really get the tick of being super easy. Free of refined sugar, with just a dash of honey for sweetness, they are also dairy-free and gluten-free! Ingredients: 4 Heaped tablespoons of coconut oil 1 Tb honey 1/2 tsp of vanilla essence 1 Tb of coco 1 and 1/2 cups of rice bubbles 1/2 cup of desiccated coconut Directions: 1. Melt coconut oil and add to a large mixing bowl. 2. Mix in honey and whisk well (don't worry how it looks at this stage!) followed by the vanilla essence. 3. Add in vanilla essence and coco (should look more like it now!). 4. Quickly add in rice bubbles and coconut and gently fold all together. 5. Place into cupcakes holders (in a muffin tray to give shape) and place in the fridge f...

Coconut oil is one of the most contentious foods of 2017- in one breath it is hailed as a miracle cure-all food and the next minute there are reports saying it will us serious harm (largely thanks to an article released in June from the American Heart Association). Maybe it is the researcher in me, always looking for a critical view at both sides of the coin but with few exceptions, I would rarely call a food ‘good’ or 'bad'. This puts a moral connotation on it which stops our ability to assess just what the food is giving us – recently this has very much happened to coconut oil. So let’s unpack the science a bit looking at just what it is coconut oil and what does it provide us. What is Coconut Oil? Coconut oil, or copra oil, is an edible oil extracted from the kernel or meat of mature coconuts harvested from the coconut palm. The oil is extracted using both dry and wet harvesting. What is the Structure of Coconut Oil? Coconut oil is 99.7% fat, and is made up mostly of saturat...

Like a lot of true-blue startups, our company was started at the kitchen table - which was to become my ‘work-station’ for a long time. While I have always had a desk at the university research office, a huge part of my work (research and business) has been done at home. With two young children this made the child care juggle easier as I could work when they slept and for a large part I was still breastfeeding both of them. Before our second baby was born I did have one of the rooms of our 3-bedroom place to do quiet work if I needed it…but I lost this after his impending arrival. When it came to writing my book ( The Nourished Baby ), just like my thesis, it was also largely written at the kitchen table late at night, as well as in a desk in our eldest sons room. This meant I could shut the door and forget the rest of the chaos of the house while looking out to at least something green. Not a long-term solution but one that worked in the interim and indeed I got the book done! Recentl...

Ah parenting…just when you think you might be getting a handle on this gig….something comes along to remind you that really you don’t have it all figured out! Last week as some of you know I took on flying with both boys on my own. There is a LOT of logistics behind the scenes of our nation wide tour at the moment and for our Wellington leg the most efficient and cost effective way was for hubby to drive down (with the car loaded with stock) and me to fly down with both boys. I was very glad that I had done a  practice flight   with just our big boy as it made me slightly more confident but I was still worried – could I actually do this? Would I end up with both of them running in different directions…actually this did happen! But travelling with the boys is a massive part of what we are hoping to create with our business so it was now or never! Step one – get to the airport! I thought I had timed things perfectly so that Sahan would sleep on the drive out to the airport….he stayed awa...

Constipation is very common in babies and toddlers. It is actually one of the primary concerns that parents will go to see a general practitioner or pediatrician about. It is most common in babies around the time of starting solids and for toddlers going through toilet training. For babies, the change in dietary intake can result in changes in bowel motions, which is why I do have a section on this in The Nourished Baby . The process of the gut maturing (which takes two years) can mean that children experience potentially a bit of constipation (and also loose bowel motions) from time to time - our Smushie would go through stages of functional-constipation - and might need a bit of extra help with this and/or potentially they may be having some foods which are causing a little bit of a blockage to occur. In toddlers it is a little bit more complex as dietary changes are a harder (cue toddler-brain) and it can often coincide with toilet training. By toddler-stage children can overrule th...