Tag: real food

Once Upon a Time…

Once upon a time there was a Mum whose baby just didn’t seem quite right. He wasn’t doing the baby stuff that all the other parents said their babies were doing, he hated being fed, he loathed sleep and he cried a lot. Like screamed, all the time, way more than babies usually do. His Mum had never been a parent before, but deep down inside she knew that something wasn’t right, so she visited doctor after doctor trying to explain that she felt in the pit of her stomach that her baby’s body wasn’t happy and perhaps it had something to do with what she was feeding him. Only to be told, that what she was experiencing was normal. After a long time, someone finally listened and perhaps agreed that he might be reacting to what he was being fed, but only because his weight on the chart now reflected that he should be investigated further. From then on the Mum decided to listen to her gut more often and follow her instincts, and mostly, they lived happily ever after.

Twice upon a time there was a Mum who had learned to listen to her gut for the health of her baby. She gave birth to her second baby, who very quickly became unwell and in a lot of pain. She visited the doctor, again, even though she had very broken trust from past experiences and suggested that she knew her baby was reacting to food she had eaten. The doctor completely squandered her suggestion and told her that it was rubbish, and to eat whatever she liked and sent her on her way. The mum knew herself, she knew her baby, and she followed her instincts. And it turns out, she was right (again!). For two years she fought for the health of her son, and not only was she heard in the end, but she lifted his health above and beyond what was ever expected and used her experience to help inspire and empower other Mums who were also fighting to be heard. And for the most part, they lived happily ever after.

Thrice upon a time, there was a Mum who could tune in to that quiet inner voice, deep within her gut, the one full of doubt, but reason, despite being broken over and over. She trusted herself and her baby to lead them through the right path to health and happiness. When her third baby was a few weeks old, covered in fiery, sore skin, on her face, all over her back and down her arms. she ignored the suggestions of hormone rash and cradle cap, and she found a strange suggestion in the voice in her gut. (The voice told her that her baby was reacting to coconut, which really sucked because she was already dairy free and all the yummy treats were made from coconut!) She listened to it, and within three days her babies skin was miraculously clear. She continued to tune in to her most inner Mum voice and her baby has been the happiest and healthiest of all the children, and in fact at two years old has never needed to visit the doctor. And so far, they lived happily ever after.

The moral of the story? That voice inside your gut is there to be listened to, it knows more than you could ever imagine. No one is more expert on your child than you are. If someone tries to tell you it is normal, and you know it’s not, tune in to that voice and search for the answers you are looking for. If you are going to trust anything, trust that voice that holds your Mum instincts. Sometimes you might need to gently peel away layers of fear, or pride, or anxiety, to hear it properly, then when you get that niggling message, make sure you don’t ignore it, it’s trying to tell you something important.

Kayla2 Comments

Pumpkin Soup


You Need

1 whole crown pumpkin
1 onion
3 cloves garlic
3 rashers bacon
400ml stock or broth (water also works if you have neither)
1-2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp natural sea salt

What to do

Wash any dirt off the pumpkin and put the entire pumpkin skin, stalk and all into either your slow cooker, pressure cooker or oven.

Slow cook: On high 4-6 hours, low 6-8 hours.

Pressure cooker: Add 1 cup water pressure cook 30 mins and leave to rest 30 mins.

Oven – 180 deg c for 2 hours

Once the pumpkin is cooked, leave to cool. Then peel the skin off – it should only take a minute to get all the skin off and should come away like paper. Pluck the stem out and then cut in half and scoop out the seeds and discard.

Add the flesh to a large stock pot along with the rest of the ingredients and cook until bacon is heated and liquid is simmering. (Usually I pop the lid on and leave to simmer 10 mins).

Blend everything until smooth, I use my vitamix and blend in batches.

Serve with more salt, cracked black pepper and a dollop of yogurt or sour cream if you can have it. Fresh herbs that lend well are parsley, chives & coriander.

Notes:

If it seems bland or unbalanced it usually means it needs more salt.

Sometimes I cook the pumpkin then store the cooked flesh in the fridge to make soup later in the week. Sometimes I save some flesh to put in baking (like these muffins or waffles) or to hide in other dishes like mince (my kids don’t like plain pumpkin).

Kayla

Why we left behind our quarter acre dream

While most people tend to outgrow their houses when they add to the tribe, our family of five has just downsized! We have left behind a quarter acre land with chickens, bees, fruit trees, berry bushes, veggie garden, outdoor kitchen area and plenty of (neglected) grass and sheds, and large 1920s bungalow. Instead we have downsized to a section half the size and a nice tidy little house across town (that’s five minutes away, for you city folk!)

While leaving behind a lifestyle that enabled us to supply our own eggs, honey, fruit and veggies was a little sad, while we were there we were left with little time to focus on the things we love most. Our house was enormous but cold, drafty and old. we spent a lot of time sorting fire wood to heat the place and it took ages to clean and tidy even after we decluttered nearly half our possessions. I am often home alone with the kids, for sometimes weeks at a time with little notice, I just didn’t have time to upkeep such a big section, all the pets, and the house, let alone keep the kids alive and make sure they have allergy friendly food made for each meal. It was really stressful trying to juggle everything.

Our new house still has enough backyard for the kids and dog to play, for a small veggie garden and a green house (and maybe a couple chooks if I can convince Chef Dad 😆). The neighbors behind us have land with fejoa trees along our whole fence line 🙌. Our house is warm and dry and easy to heat and set out so i can watch the kids play outside while I’m in the kitchen. Really hoping less space means less maintenance and upkeep and therefore more time to do the things that we love. Which for me is blogging, cooking and writing! And of course spending time with the kids without having to worry about the wall that needs painting and the fence that’s going to fall down.

In our case, bigger isn’t always better. Sometimes it might sound like someone is living the dream, but you just don’t know, behind the scenes what sort of stress is being created to upkeep that life. It was a huge decision to admit that we were in too deep, and there was blood sweat and tears involved in the buying, selling and moving process. In fact I think I’m still in fight or flight, but Just in this short week post move, I’m realising how much of a valuable decision we have made. So here’s to onwards and upwards, moving on to bigger (but actually smaller) and better things, and hopefully more free time to do the things that matter to us most.

Kayla

Confessions of a Healthy Food Blogger

I share a fairly popular recipe for zucchini cheese – but I never make it myself, and always buy that super expensive vegan cheese from the supermarket.

I don’t like Brussel sprouts, I think they taste like farts. I live with three males (five including the cat and the dog) yes, I know what farts taste like.

My kids won’t eat frozen peas, in fact they won’t eat frozen mixed veggies either. Purely to make my life difficult. Except this one time I told my friend that my kids don’t eat peas and my 1 year old then stole and ate all the peas from her sons lunchbox.

Ashton, just Ashton. Ashton is incredibly fussy. He has the most ginormous list of foods he won’t eat, and bunch of finicky food preferences that I often comply with because I hate the moaning at the dinner table. If you want a winge-fest serve roast chicken (unless it’s a supermarket rotisserie basted in all sorts of non allergy friendly crap that he shouldn’t eat), or potatoes, especially mashed, roasted is marginally acceptable but only if they are cut into 1cm cubes, and crisp, but not too crisp, heaven forbid. Or try soup – if it’s soup, it’s inedible. Make sure you have you best gag face at the ready to make a performance at the table on soup night. Also if its marginally spicy, it may as well be poisonous. Someone save me from this kid he is a healthy food bloggers worst nightmare.

My kids won’t eat my homemade hummus, the two little ones just straight up won’t touch the stuff while Ashton will only eat “Lisa’s” hummus original flavour.

Sometimes I eat proper crisps for breakfast … and let the baby join me.

None of my kids eat raw carrot sticks, but I put them in their lunchboxes all the time because they look good in photos.

When I was a kid I used to steal meal mates crackers from the pantry and eat raro juice sachets like it was sherbet.

My mum buys the kids allergy friendly biscuits and chocolate and I eat it all myself.

Our children are allowed pudding once a week. But every night when they go to bed we eat chips and chocolate and mug cakes.

Most of my blog photos are taken on our bed covered in white sheets, or on the floor of our snail infested sunroom (best lighting in the house 😆)- I peg an upside down piece of scrap vinyl to a portable clothes rack to bounce the light off. Once I spilled a milkshake all through the bed during a photo shoot.

Sometimes I lie to the kids about what they are allergic to, so they don’t eat too much sugar, because I can’t handle the meltdowns.

Anyone else got anything to confess?!

Kayla

Chocolate cake – allergy friendly, indulgent & healthy

Well, as healthy as the word goes with cake! Better than many options and yay this one is coconut free!

Having three kids means not only three birthday cakes a year, but I also have to make cake every time someone else has a birthday celebration so my lot don’t have to miss out. My usual go to cake has coconut oil and coconut flour which I can’t have this year because I’m breastfeeding our baby with a coconut allergy. I love the wacky cake recipe for its allergy friendliness using gluten free flour. Not so much all the sugar though. And quite frankly I feel like I’ve made about ten wacky cakes this last year due to ease and it being a fairly fail safe and crowd pleasing cake. But for Hazel’s first birthday this year I wanted to make her a cake with a little less sugar and a little more goodness.

So here came this recipe, gluten free, dairy free, soy free (though the chocolate I use in the ganache does contain soy lethicin, which we are ok with), nut free, egg free, coconut free, refined sugar free and contains vegetables. Now that’s a cake I’m happy for miss 12 months to scoff. And me, I was also happy to scoff this cake. It was truely delicious. It freezes well, so you can make ahead. I doubled the mixture and divided it into three, to make a three layer cake.

Ingredients

1/2 c cocoa or cacao powder
1c gluten free flour (I used Edmonds gf plain flour)
2 Tb psyllium husk (most supermarkets stock this in the health food section)
2 tsp baking soda + 1 tsp cream of tartar (OR 2 tsp baking powder)

2 c Kumara (purple skin) or carrot finely grated
1/2 c maple syrup (or make a syrup with 1/2 cup sugar + 1/3 cup boiling water, then cooled)
1/2 c water
1/2 c oil (I used light olive oil)
1 t vanilla extract

what to do

Preheat oven to 160 deg fan forced (180 deg regular).

Measure out the wet ingredients + grated veg and add them to a bowl. Sift over all the dry ingredients and mix together. Let it sit for a couple minutes while you grease your cake pan, it will thicken as it sits. Pour into very well greased or lined cake tin (recommend a spring form tin).

Cook for approximately 35 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. And it feels the same to touch in the middle as it does round the sides.

Cake notes:

If doubling the mix and dividing into three cakes, cook each cake for 20 minutes.

I make a chocolate ganache using two blocks of Whittaker’s dark chocolate, melted with 3/4 cup of almond milk and spread this between the layers with refined sugar free raspberry jam and also used the ganache to coat the outside of the cake to make it smooth for the white fondant icing over the top.

To make this cake, after I assembled with the ganache, I rolled out ready made white fondant icing and placed it over the top of the whole cake. I made two plaits with the remains and curved them into a circle on the top. Then added the fresh berries just before serving.

I assembled the cake and ganache then froze the whole cake overnight before adding the white icing on the day, then let it to sit out and thaw until later in the day.

Kayla