kale crisps

Kale seems somewhat of a fad food right now, I've been seeing kale on blogs and recipe books all the time lately. Maybe it's relatively new to New Zealand, but I had never eaten it before but I was certainly keen to try. Kale is a superfood that is crazy high in nutritional value, it has high levels of vitamins K, A, C to name just a few and has antioxidant and anti-inflamatory benefits. There's plenty of reading around if you want know more.

I'd come across this recipe a wee while ago on My New Roots food blog and thought it would be the perfect first try. It actually took a request for Kale Crisps from Moo's daddy for me to get around to making them. I was delighted with the result, very addictive. 

We found curly kale at our local wholefoods store Harvest Wholefoods. Louise has informed me kale is crazy easy to grow, possibly the most hardy vegetable there is to grow. I will have to give it a go. 

KALE CRISPS: adpated from recipe by Sarah Britton on My New Roots

Ingredients
200 grams of kale (I used the curly variety)
juice of ½ lemon
1 tablespoon agave syrup 
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 teaspoons tamari
2 tablespoons olive oil
¼ cup sesame seeds

Method
1. Preheat oven to 100C. Line baking tray with baking paper.
2. Wash kale thoroughly and dry, trying to remove as much water as possible.
3. Tear kale away from stem. Each kale leaf should be torn into about 6 or eight pieces
4. Place all ingredients except for the kale into a bowl, whisk together.
5. Add the kale and mix together with your hands, gently massaging the leaves with the dressing.
6. Lay kale out on the tray and place in oven. 
7. At 30 minutes, remove from oven and gently unstick kale from pan if it has stuck and replace for another 10-15 minutes until kale is dry and crispy.
8. Allow to cool. Can store in fridge for up to a week.

healthy eating for the family

A few months ago I went to the 'Mash up' in store event at Nature Baby. Natural Ange was doing a talk about healthy eating for the family sponsored by All Good Bananas.
I was actually interested in going to ask her about why Mima vomits after eating bananas, but her presentation was fascinating, I believe a must watch for anyone with a small family.
For those of you who are interested and have a spare 20 mins here is the video version of her talk...

There has been a lot written lately about the dirty dozen and clean fifteen so I won't go on about it but below are the lists...

DIRTY DOZEN - buy organic, or even better grow your own
Apples
Celery
Capsicum
Peaches
Strawberries
Nectarines
Grapes
Spinach
Lettuce
Cucumbers
Blueberries
Potatoes
Green Beans
Kale and Greens

CLEAN FIFTEEN - buy conventional
Onions
Sweet Corn
Pineapples
Avocado
Cabbage
Sweet peas
Asparagus
Mangoes
Eggplant
Kiwifruit
Melon
Kumara
Grapefruit
Watermelon
Mushrooms

And for those of you wondering why Mima vomits after eating bananas, she has had enough banana from me! I probably had a banana a day while pregnant and breastfeeding, so she was getting plenty from me. I have stopped eating them while still breastfeeding and Natural Ange suggested trying her on them again when she is two. She said her children had similar sensitivities to fish and apples, foods she ate a lot. 

spring daffidols

Over the last few months Moo and I have been frequenting the Leys Institute Ponsonby Library every other week. It has a great children's section and is walking distance from where we live so it's a nice way to spend the morning. 

Moo has her own membership card to the Auckland libraries. It's really good if you are going to get kids their own card rather then using yours as the more kids with memberships, more funding gets allocated for purchasing new children's books.

"That's not a daffodil!' by Elizabeth Honey is a lovely story about a little boy who is given a daffodil bulb and the discovery involved with waiting for it grow. 

We were inspired to grow our daffodils. We brought the bulbs from the Ponsonby Plant Centre which is local independently owned garden store, the owner is so helpful too for a beginner like me.

The daffodil's have  bloomed just in time for Daffodil Day, perfect!

first birthday party : one

THE IDEA AND THE INVITATION

Mima is about to turn one! So I have been busy planning her first birthday party, it's really an excuse for a party, a celebration of the fact we have made it through the first year of Mima's life.
The first gift I ever recieved as an expectant mother was a board book of 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' from my boss. I loved this book as a child, who doesn't? I have read it to Mima most days since she was born and she loves turning the pages and looking at the book on her own too. So I felt this was the perfect theme for her party.
Since it is a classic lots of people have the same idea, so there was loads of inspiration on the internet, some of it quite amazing, I really won't be competing!
The first step is the invitation so I thought I would show you what I came up with...
A leaf.

With holes punched for caterpillar bites.

Next the actual party!

cardboard box: castle

FIT FOR A PRINCESS

To be honest when we embarked on this project I didn't have much of a plan, just that I wanted to make a cardboard box play castle that Moo could help with and decorate. 

We started off with two large cardboard boxes that I glued onto a large sheet of card. We cut an internal door to join them together. Moo helped draw the shapes to cut the windows and doors. 

We spent a few days painting, making flags and bunting to decorate.

It 's nicely located in our garage which is perfect place to play with her friends on wet rainy days when we can't really get outside and are sick of being stuck indoors. 

 It's now a cardboard box fit for a little princess or two.

a mobile for mima

Once I had finished work and was waiting for Mima to arrive I filled my days with endless hours of movies, TV shows and walks. I also had a special project, to create a mobile for Mima's room. 
First I drew each character and used these drawings as patterns. They are hand sewn in felt and stuffed to give a cuddly cute look. I had originally intended to bind a few sticks together until I found the perfect three pronged branch in the park near our house. I brought the candy striped bakers twine to hang everything with.

When Mima first came home the mobile hung over her change table and now it hangs near her bed. She really loves it, the way it moves and makes the characters move is a constant source of entertainment.

rainbow connection: two

RAINBOW PRETZELS

So pretty and so simple. I love the sweet and salty combination.

Ingredients
50g white chocolate
50g store brought pretzels sticks
3 tablespoons rainbow sprinkles

Method
1. line tray with nonstick baking paper
2. melt white chocolate either in a cup in the microwave for 2mins, stirring every minute or in a bowl over simmer pot of water stirring until there are no lumps
2. dip pretzels in melted and roll in sprinkles and place on tray until set. makes 50-60