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Knowing how to correctly store and look after food products can give you a lot of confidence to buy it and use it!

Coconut oil will change its state from solid to liquid in different temperatures and how to correctly store it is something I commonly get asked about. My home country New Zealand is typically quite cool, temperature wise, for most of the year with the exception of a couple of months...

Ingredients

400g (or 2 small jars (195g) of almond butter

8 Tb of coconut oil (well softened)

2 heaped spoons of honey

1 dash of vanilla essence

Note: You can easily make this with half the mixture (almond butter can be expensive) you just need a small tin to set (if you want it high) or personally I found when I did a thin layer in the square cake tin it was more than enough as this is quite filling!



D...

We are now firmly in the thick of the festive season. This brings along with it a lot of family and social occasions. As many of you know I spend a significant portion of my time presenting and being in front of people. Getting presentable for such engagements is not an easy task when covered in children! This year in particular I have spent a lot of time on the road, little monkeys in tow and...

I am on a little bit of a roll at the moment with creating healthy alternatives to my favourite chocolatey treats. This recipe required no baking at all, and uses Nairn's Chocolate Oat Biscuits to form a healthy base with significantly less sugar than other biscuits. Perfect for Christmas, or a special occasion or just a little something after dinner.

Ingredients:

Base

1 Box of Chocolate Nairns Oat...

Sleep.....

Do you have a far off memory of what that was?

Five years and counting and sleep still is not what is was like in LBC (life before children). However that first year when bubs arrives into this world hands down takes the cake when it comes to sleep deprivation.

An area of sleep for little ones especially before their first birthday which is not often discussed is the relationship between...

I love a good brownie....actually I love anything that comes in a 'chocolate' form....so I am always on a mission to create new healthy versions of my fav sweet treats. You just have to look through my dessert blog recipes to know this!. A healthy brownie recipe has been on my 'hit-list' and finally after a few attempts I nailed this on the weekend.

I really wanted to create a brownie recipe that...

Learning to eat is messy business….for those that have not yet starting solids I am sorry but it is coming!

Having navigated starting solids now with both of my two boys something that I had not yet found a solution for was a spoon to help  learn that crucial motor skill of hand to mouth action.

When I look back on videos (I have a tone on you-tube for your viewing pleasure) with the tradition long...

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...

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...

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...

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...