Raw Black&White Sweet Snack

Don’t we all know the feeling when you want something sugary, something you can have with your coffee or in between… you go to the kitchen and start checking every cupboard in a search of something sweet and tasty… And don’t we all know the feeling when you realize there is nothing there?

If you know what I’m talking about, this recipe is for you!

There are no crazy expensive ingredients here. Most are cheap and easily available to make sure that everyone can afford it (including me:)) In addition, recipe is simple and easy to make.

This approach I try to follow in all my recipes. So if you like this one, you might want to check out the Sunflower Seed Nut Butter recipe and a 5 Step Vegan ‘Snickers’ Cake.

White Layer:

• 3 cups of desiccated coconut
• 1 tin of coconut cream
• 1/2 cup of coconut oil (make sure its in a liquid state)

Mix all the ingredients very fast using a food processor, a spoon or just your hands. Because desiccated coconut will immediately start to soak up the moisture you need to put all that into a dish you want to use for it and press the coconut mixture down as much as you can to remove all the air from it. It takes no more than 5 minutes to prepare it. Once you finish stick it in the fridge and move on to the white layer.

Black Layer:

• 4 cups of soaked dates (pour hot water over them and leave for 5 minutes)
• 3/4 cup of coconut oil (make sure its in a liquid state)
• 1/2 cocoa powder (can be less if you want)
• pinch of salt (if you want to)

This part is as fast as the previous one, but now you do need to use a food processor or a blender- I don’t have a food processor so I always use a blender, its just harder to clean it afterward. Put drained dates, liquid coconut, cocoa powder and optional salt to a food processor, mix it until smooth. Put the mixture over your coconut mixture and leave it in the fridge.

The hardest part of this recipe is that for best result you should leave it in the fridge for few hours before you start eating it… You than can cut it to a desired shape and leave

Enjoy a fast, simple, healthy, affordable, homemade, sweet snack 🙂

‘Parenting Is Not Expensive’… Really?

There is a common perception that raising a baby is very expensive, and until I became a mum I was convinced that this is the case. These are the lines that usually  come to your mind when you think about having a family:

• Babies need loads of expensive things, from prams to cots to baby food!
• I want the best stuff for my child!
• Its so exciting to buy new things for your baby!

The need for new and expensive products is powered by corporate advertising. And if you can’t afford it, this powerful marketing machine might make you feel guilty that you are not able to provide the best for your child. Read my post and act back with a smile.

The first thing you need to do is to remove the stigma of ‘second hand items being poor quality’ from your mind because most of the time (as you probably know), all the new stuff people buy for their children is used only a few times or sometimes not used at all, simply because babies grow and develop so fast!

So, if like myself, you are not happy to conform to the corporate way of living, be it because you can’t afford it, or you are trying to reduce your  consumption, or you are starting your child’s college fund early, or any other reason, check out my tips below.

Some tips are Auckland specific, but the general gist of my approach will work anywhere to save you thousands of dollars over a couple of years.

Furniture and other bits

Why second hand? Because you can buy a wooden baby cot for $30 instead of $400, you can buy a feeding pillow for $20 instead of $100, you can buy a Moby Wrap for $15 instead of $80 and many more. Just there, you saved over $400 alone 🙂

• Trade Me  was and still is my ‘best friend’ for buying things second hand. I found it so convenient because I can browse and find exactly what I need without having to drive around different shops, and it is full of cheap but good second hand gear.
• Charity Shops (Dove Shop in Glen Innes is the best) are another fantastic option option. These are great places to find real bargains! Often cheaper than on TradeMe as well.

Baby Clothes:

On average baby clothes prices will vary depending on the shop from $10 to even $50 per item. Buying second hand you can have a baby bodysuit, a grow suit, a top and a per of trousers for a total of $2-$4 instead of paying a minimum of $50 for the above set. There you go, another way to save hundreds of dollars.

• Plunket Shop on Lincoln Road, Auckland. I think this one is awesome, you can buy baby clothes for as little as $0.50 per item, you really cant go wrong with that! They only have clothes in good condition, so no stains and rips, all are washed and nicely segregated by age and type, so it makes it really easy to shop there.
• Community Sales, community swap. Watch out for these, as they are a great way to buy some cool baby stuff. Like for example, the one organized by a Titirangi Community House go and grab yourself a bargain and support other mums at the same time.
• Charity Shops can be also really good for baby clothes, my favorite is Dove Shop (I know again…) in Glen Innes, Auckland. Its big, clean and well organized and clothes there are washed and in good condition. You pay $1 per baby clothing item.

Nappies:

By using reusable nappies for the 2 1/2 years of your child using them, you can save up to  $4000 just by using the reusable ones. Disposable nappies are costing you a fortune and create a massive non-recyclable mess in the process. If you want to know exactly how much you can save on nappies, check out FAQ part  on The Cloth Nappy Website or check out the Nappy Facts from the Waste Free Parenting workshops and you will be shocked.

• Cloth nappies are your answer, and don’t grin thinking: No Way! Before you make a decision go to a Nappy Lady Waste Free Parenting Workshop first. The Nappy Lady that runs it is amazing and will tell you how much exactly you are spending on normal nappies, not to mention the damage it does to the environment. Its nt all doom and gloom as she will also tell you how to go about with those reusable nappies. Tickets cost $30 but that includes a $90 worth of ‘eco friendly’ baby stuff funded by the council (like reusable nappies, reusable food pouches and many more).

These workshops are a great way to start. Come back home with your pack and start from one reusable Nappy a day and see how it goes! Not convinced if you will like it? See hundreds of  Nappy Lady YouTube videos she has on cloth nappies. My baby uses almost 100 per cent reusable cloth nappies and we love it. We only use normal nappies when traveling and for night time. And to be honest there is no way to avoid the poo and pee baby makes so why not save money and the environment while doing it.

Toys:

Here I will only say one thing: a Toy Library! This is like winning a lottery ticket, especially because the world of toys ‘has no end and no beginning’ and you will burn through your cash in no time. When your baby is small and is developing so fast, a new toy becomes old very quickly. So instead of shelling out hundreds of dollars for toys that have a life span of a of your average goldfish, renting toys out for 2-4 weeks is a win-win situation.

• There are 9 toy libraries in Auckland that come up on google search, that is not counting Plunket ones. I always use the West Auckland Community Toy Library where you can rent most of the toys for as little as $0.50 for 2 weeks!  You can’t go wrong with that can you? I rent 3 toys at the time and usually extend the rental to a month and by the time 4 weeks are up my little T is already onto something new.

Are you surprised? I surely hope so, because its a win on every level! This is what you are doing every single time you choose to buy second hand item or use a reusable nappy:

• You save huge amounts of money!
• You are significantly reducing your waste foot print.
• You give back to the community!
• You support a good cause!
• You meet like minded people!

So, go on and try even one of these tips and see how you get on. If you need any help, ask me. And if you like this post, check out Ways to exercise with your baby for less its a cool list of activities you can do with your little ones that are free or cheap in my other post, or a short piece on Baby Food.

Vegetable Muss: A Baby Food Recipe

Check this out, awesomely simple, packed with vitamins, easy to prepare baby food recipe. 4 Steps: Peel it; Steam or Boil it; Blend it; Freeze it and you are done 🙂

There you go, my second attempt to make food for my little T. We started giving him some food a few weeks ago and quite quickly I realized that boiling 1/3 of a carrot with 1/6 of broccoli every time he wants to eat won’t work. It takes so much time and effort for a tiny one-off meal. So, to make my life simpler I decided to act:)

Please remember that to make baby food you DO NOT have to buy special containers for storing homemade baby food, as they are ridiculously expensive! Instead, I used a variety of silicone trays I had at home. Some were for ice cubes, some for small cup cakes. Don’t worry if you don’t have them. Even the ice cube tray will do- we all have it in our freezer or a silicone muffin tray- just don’t fill it completely.

Why you should do it yourself instead of buying?

When done in bulk and frozen, it takes little time to prepare and its so handy.

It cost very little in comparison to store bought ready made baby food.

Its healthier!

You do not create any rubbish (many baby food packaging is non recyclable)

Recipe:

• 2 Organic Beetroot
• 3 Organic Kumara (Sweet Potato)
• 2 Organic Carrots
• 1 Cup Organic Lentils

1. Peel all the vegetables.
2. Steam Beetroot, Kumara and Carrots together.
3. Boil lentils without any spices or salt
4. Blend veggies together until smooth
5. Wash your blender and process lentils until smooth
6. Cool both mixtures down, put the paste in silicon forms and freeze overnight.

Next take them out of the form and put into a plastic bag and keep in a freezer:)

A short story of upcycled, handmade Christmas Decorations

Happy to announce that we spent our first Christmas and a New Year as a family. We made all our Christmas food from scratch and didn’t waste a crumb of it. We didn’t buy presents but instead spent time creating Christmas decorations together. We didn’t watch TV but instead spent time on simple things like talking, laughing, playing cards, swimming, walking and of course eating:)

There is a lot to say about the act of rewriting Christmas, about finding a true meaning of it, about stepping away from the purchase mania and finding happiness in just being together and about how others might perceive it. But that is for a separate post. .

Today, just just wanted to quickly share a little bit more about the Christmas Tree Project I had 🙂

Preparations for it started quite early, I was still pregnant when I started to pick different types of tree cones while walking in nearby parks or just along quite streets. It must have been a funny sight when I was trying to bend to pick them up having a big baby belly on my way:) Now, don’t think now that this preparation and cone collection was taking a lot of time! This could have been done in one day as well 🙂

So to the point, here is the summary:

Christmas Tree

• 8ft artificial, second hand tree bought on Trade Me for $40 from a lovely gentleman

Christmas Decorations:

• Oven dried apple and orange slices
• Homemade Ginger cookies
• Polyurethane pipe which I found in a shed, cut into slices, painted and sprinkled with glitter
• Various tree cones painted and sprinkled with glitter
• Tree top made of an old star-shaped chocolate box, painted and sprinkled with glitter
• Christmas lights, the only newly bought item $15

I already had some cheap acrylic paint and glitter from my earlier projects

Just to add to it my mum made Snowmen from old socks and rice and a desktop Christmas Tree from an old magazine:)

..yes I like glitter;  and yes the living room was in a mess when we were making all the decorations;  and yes we all had glitter everywhere in the house. But we had an enormous amount of fun while doing it and a strong sense of pride when we looked at the tree after finishing decorating it. That sense of pride was stronger each time someone looked at the tree and couldn’t believe it was all home made and/or upcycled.

See below, say what you think and share your own ideas 🙂