My mother had one of my brothers when I was just 10 years old, and from that point on, I just knew. By 12, when my other brother was born, I was a mini-mama. I would feed my baby brother before school, rock him to sleep in the afternoons before homework, and could change nappies like a pro. I taught them both their ABCs and I felt strange if I was sitting on the couch without one of them hanging off me.

I moved out of home fairly young, but I never lost the urge to have my own kids. I was distracted in my 20s by partying and studying, fitting in all the things I wanted to do before settling down and raising my own. Many of the people around me had children young, and always implored me to wait, to go and see what the world had to offer before I made such a momentous decision. And so I did.

I used to put little things away for my future babies after I got married, under the pretence that I just really liked this kind of stuff. I found this 1966 game of Memory at an op shop well before I was ever pregnant and squirrelled it away for “someday”. It was exactly the same kind as the one I played with at my nana’s house when I was little, and I really wanted my own children to play with it too. Hopefully loving it as much as I did. After six or so years sitting in the cupboard (with my giant stash of board games, oh my god I’m obsessed) it finally came out to play.

I have rarely made a decision since I was 10 that didn’t have me wondering what kind of impact it would have on my future family. Lots of the choices I chose had that end result in mind – I wanted to have a job where I could stop and stay home with babies, and then return around their needs and schedule. I wanted to be flexible and I wanted to make it to every sports day, every school assembly, every canteen duty.

When I worked in newspapers, I realised journalism was a game for the young and hungry. It was not a game for a mum who wanted to do sport on the weekends and be home to make dinner by a reasonable hour. So for at least four months before I fell pregnant, I would spend my morning’s walk trying to figure out what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be so by the time kids came, I’d be in a position to live how I wanted. I considered everything a journalism degree would get me, what kinds of work I could do around baby nap times, how and where I could make money on my own terms and be able to put my family first for as long as I wanted or needed.

Before I started my degree, I finished a certificate in education support and worked for five years as a teacher aide and after-school care facilitator. When I had kids I was going to be the first mum to volunteer to help at reading time, and I was going to be a PTA superstar. You need a school fete stall manned? I’m your… man. I bought art supplies and craft items for future collage needs, kept pencils and crayons in a little box, knowing that one day soon they would be used by chubby hands drawing me endless pictures of technicolour elephants.

Before I was a mum, I was already a mum. I was just biding my time.

My sister convinced me to try it on a cracker once, and I was pleasantly surprised. Given my propensity to avoid white wobbly food, I had steered clear thinking it would be tasteless goo that gave me the willies. I ate it once and then forgot about it again.

That is until my nutrition guru Katie 180 gave me some protein tips for my breastfeeding diet. Super-important she said, and rather necessary for veggies like me. She recommended I add cottage cheese to my usual avocado and tomato on toast for an extra boost and so I did. And now I’m a little bit hooked.

I haven’t been very successful finding an organic cottage cheese anywhere, so when I was reading my favourite baby food cookbook, I spotted a recipe for how to make my own. As if I wasn’t going to try that! All I needed was some milk, yogurt and lemon, which was easily made organic, and certainly a great deal cheaper than buying cottage cheese ready-made.

I am still trying to get the consistency right, the few batches I’ve made have given me quite a firm cheese, which I can cut. But I quite like the curdy bits (I know, who even AM I?!) of regular cottage cheese, so I’ve still got some experimenting to do. But this is great in its own right, and I think I will keep making it like this for the firmer version. I will not be so quick to squeeze all the liquid out, and perhaps pour a little organic cream into the resulting curds, instead of following this recipe to the T. But I will give it to you as it appears in the book, and you can be your own judge!

*recipe from Cooking for Your Baby, by Laraine Toms.

Homemade cottage cheese

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Ingredients

• 6 cups milk
• 6 tablespoons plain yogurt
• 2 medium lemons, juiced
• 1 pinch salt (to taste)

Directions

Step 1

Bring milk to the boil.

Step 2

Remove from heat and stir in yogurt, lemon juice and salt. Leave for about 5 minutes.

Step 3

Line a large sieve with a double thickness of cheesecloth, pour in milk mixture and let it drain.

Step 4

Wrap the cloth around the curds and squeeze out all the excess water.

Step 5

Compress the cheese with a heavy weight and leave it overnight until it is firm and compact.

It has similar ingredients to my tonic, but in a baby-friendly package. There’s nothing like a bit vitamin c boost when your immune system is down, and the sweetness of apples helped to balance out the ginger and apple cider vinegar. Although my first batch was a bit mouth-puckering and Pepper didn’t care one whit. Tough kid.

To 6 medium peeled and chopped apples, I added a grating of ginger, a squirt of lemon juice, a big teaspoon of apple cider vinegar, two peeled and chopped kiwi fruit (a vitamin c powerhouse) and simmered over low heat for about 20-30 minutes until soft enough to blend. I added a little water when I could see it was getting dry but the apples hadn’t totally softened yet.

If your kiddo is a little older,  you can also pop in a dollop of raw honey for its antibacterial properties.

Abby isn’t into eating anything that’s not a sandwich, so turned her nose up at this. I made her a green smoothie instead, using pretty much the same ingredients, but with banana in place of the apple and some Loving Earth Rainbow Superfood Blend. She will drink anything in smoothie form! She loved it.

I also mixed this with a little coconut yogurt to change it up a bit for Pepper and she loved that too. So did I, just quietly!

xx

Oh is there anything that will stop your house from being a priceless showpiece more than having kids?

Not that I’ve ever had a priceless showpiece of a house… ever. But I didn’t mind myself a bit of a tidy abode from time to time. I am inherently lazy so sometimes it was a bit of a struggle, but there’s such a good feeling to be had when you’re sitting on the couch surrounded by cleanliness and order.

Matt and I lived in the grottiest share house known to man when we first got together. So grotty in fact, that before I began living there, I broke in one day when everyone was at work and scrubbed the bathroom. The house was OLD, and a bunch of dudes lived there. I got tuberculosis from just looking at the shower, let alone stepping into it. There was nothing I could do to make that house look anything other than old and like a bunch of dudes lived there, so I learned to live with it. Someday I’d have a fancy house!

Our next stop was a tiny little shack by the beach, which also was old but bereft of a bunch of dudes. There was only us two, but still there wasn’t much that could be done to make the place look nice.

Now we live in a larger house that is slightly more modern, but still old. So no matter how hard I try, the laundry still looks awful, the bathroom tiny and ancient, and everything else just a little bit blah. It’s super-hard to be motivated to keep it looking nice if all efforts are going to fail anyway. We moved in before Abby was born, and I figured we could spruce it up once I recovered from that whole having a baby business. But then I had another baby and the house still doesn’t look much different! One thing I did do though, was go through the house and purge everything that I didn’t think needed to be around. I knew I wasn’t going to get much cleaning or tidying done with a newborn and a toddler, so if there was less clutter then it would take a longer time to get to the point where it was in such disarray I couldn’t stand it any more.

I have only just gotten the urge back to be houseproud (I’m a firm believer of letting the housework fall by the wayside when you have babies), and I totally blame Beth at BabyMac with her damn Beverley magazine. Here I was, innocently reading and enjoying myself until I spotted a vignette of some corner of her house artfully decorated and with fresh flowers in a pretty vase. My house did not look like that. My house has no vignettes and it certainly had no fresh flowers. I didn’t even own a vase. Something stirred in me that afternoon as I looked at the page, and remembered how shiny Beth’s floors always looked, and how much she enjoyed creating a beautiful space for her family to live. I immediately got up and scrubbed the mould off the back of the laundry door that had been there for a month.

It feels good to be houseproud again. It felt good to be inspired. It is a lovely sight to see an clean dining table and a clutter-free bench. Now, our house is super-small so all it needs is one coffee cup and it looks disorganised and messy, so it’s a bit of a work in progress. And I don’t mind toy mess – that’s a constant with kids. What I loathe is dirty dishes, dirty floors and unmade beds. I kept up with those pretty well the last seven months, but it really has taken me this long to take the next step and work on other areas of the house!

Well, except the washing… man, that is the worst chore ever.

So tell me how you do it – is your house old and impossible to make fancy? do you have a cleaning schedule? How do you make a small house not look like a refuge?

And can you come mop my floors?

Sometimes they are advertisers, sometimes it’s just stuff I have found and want to share.

Let’s high-five them, shall we?

Y’all, stop what you are doing right now and go check out these kiddo sweaters:

Are they not the best?! Made by Broken Tricycle and made from organic cotton, they are super-soft and just right for snuggling your babe this winter. The brolly is only $35.00, and the house is a steal at $24.00 (on sale).

Ok, now that I’ve got that out of the way, I’d like to introduce you to the shop that carries this range: Bean and Me. Rochelle came up with the idea of an online store after becoming mum to little Jenson a while ago, and wanted a place where people could find organic, Australian-owned, Australian-made, unique clothes for kids.

Like these amazing skull leg warmers! I almost bought a pair for Pepper, but they don’t come in her size

My other favourite things are these organic cotton dollies by Dandelion. The cotton is grown without pesticides or other toxic chemicals, therefore reducing exposure while also supporting sustainable farming and environment protection. They also use a variety of fabrics and colours to provide sensory and tactile stimulation, and are filled with a natural corn fibre filling. These dollies are machine-washable, and will not clump in the washing machine (a pet hate of mine!). The corn fibre is a natural, renewable resource. And the dollies are adorable! They are  $23.99 each. This is A BARGAIN.

A bargain, I tell you.

Among my other favourites at Rochelle’s store are the Baobab range, and Master and Miss – a 100% Australian owned children’s fashion label specialising in pure organic children’s clothing. Their bibs are to die for!

And, if like me, you buy things online according to the child’s age only to have it arrive at your house a vastly different size to what you were expecting – Rochelle has extensively measured each and every item in store to give you real-life measurements and what is likely to fit. I have found that to be incredibly handy – I can see at a glance what will fit and what won’t, and I have seen quite a vast difference between clothing brands.
There are also plenty of bargains to be found on the Bean and Me Facebook page, both discount codes and a heads up on when new stock is coming so you can pre-order. Rochelle is a doll, and will sort you out for whatever you need! Everything is packaged beautifully (you should have seen the care she took with a little Baobab dress for Pepper – even snuck in a present for me!) and offers gift-wrapping if needed.

And the best part? 10% off for Veggie Mama readers if you enter the code “VEGGIE” at the checkout! Shipping is free for orders over $70, and she has a bunch of cute stuff on sale here. Come along and save a bundle!

Bean and Me is an advertiser. Thanks so much for supporting the sponsors who share here at Veggie Mama. We love you!

It’s not the first time I’ve had a tofu recipe on the blog (that would be this smoky barbecue kebabs one), but if you’ve been around for a while, you’ll know I’m not much of a fan. Too white, too wobbly, too tofu-tasting. I have a habit of looking at vegetarian food through a carnivore’s eyes and a lot of the staples just do not seem palatable. I’ve had much success with other things, but tofu and I have been at a stalemate. A couple of victories, a lot of fails.

But oh are tofu and asian flavours just not a match made in heaven or what? I think with enough marinade you can make tofu work (but there will be people who will just never be swayed) and dare I say it – even delicious. I’ve got a couple of favourite tofu recipes, and this one is my brand-new one.

The secret? Hoisin sauce!

It’s not something I’ve ever really used before, but boy was it that one unique thing that made this soup great.

I’m sorry I doubted you, Hoisin. I shan’t any more.

As always, I’m keen to hear of other tofu successes – please send me in the right direction if you know of any!

Hoisin tofu soup and rice

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Ingredients

• 200g medium-firm tofu
• 1/2 cup hoisin sauce
• 4 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 piece ginger (about thumb-size), grated fine
• 5 drops sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon palm sugar
• 500ml stock
• 500ml water
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1 small carrot, diced
• 1 cup mushrooms, sliced
• 1/2 small capsicum/red pepper, diced
• 1/2 small head of broccoli, cut into florets
• 2 cups cooked rice, to serve
• 1 handful each chives and coriander, to serve

Directions

Step 1

Dice your tofu into whatever size you like. I like... dice. heh. Put in a flat glass dish with half the hoisin sauce, soy sauce, ginger, palm sugar and one clove of garlic. Add a couple of drops of sesame oil and stir to combine. Leave to marinate however long you want - overnight is always best.

Step 2

Heat a large frying pan over medium-high heat and add a little oil. Fry the tofu cubes until cooked through and beginning to brown. Set aside.

Step 3

In a pot over medium-high heat, add a little oil and fry the onion, other garlic clove and remaining ginger until onion is translucent.

Step 4

Add stock and water, and remaining hoisin sauce, soy sauce, palm sugar and sesame oil (and a squirt of lime, if you so desire). I also add the remaining marinade. Heat until boiling then turn down to a simmer. Simmer as long as you like for the flavours to meld.

Step 5

Five minutes before serving, add carrot, capsicum, broccoli, mushrooms and cooked tofu. Check for seasoning, it will probably need salt, depending on your taste. Add some rice to serving bowls and ladle soup over. Top with chopped chives and coriander.

When I was pregnant, I was adamant that my child was going to eat a wonderfully healthy diet at all times, without any crap. In reality, it’s not always that easy to get a 3-year-old to eat every meal I pour my heart and soul into. Apart from sucking it up, what I find works a treat not only for her but for my sanity, is to make sure her snacks are super nutritious.

Other hot tips: It’s all about the fat and protein!

Vegetables and fruit are of course vital for vitamins, minerals and other delicious phytonutrients, but fat and protein are the key to keeping blood sugar levels stable and crankiness at bay. Don’t be frightened of giving your child fat. It is absolutely essential for growth and development, immune function, digestion, nervous system development, and later on for hormonal development. It also comes loaded with vitamins A, D, E and K. Of course when I say fat, I mean good fats such as eggs, full fat dairy (if you can tolerate it), nuts, seeds, coconuts and coconut butter/oil/milk, sea vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and fish and other organic meat if you subscribe.

Protein is the other crucial piece to the puzzle, if you like that whole making muscles, nerves, organs and hormones thing. The above foods would be your go-to foods for protein also, with the addition of lovely complete protein grains like quinoa and amaranth.

This is not to say that carbohydrates aren’t important, just aim to make them complex carbs – from a wholegrain and not refined.

So, I’ve applied these principles in the following snack suggestions – hopefully you will find them useful!

hommus

- A classic. Pimp it up with with dulse flakes and sesame seeds. Winner! Now you have a high protein dip that has had a vitamin and mineral injection thanks to the dulse flakes and seeds.

Note: Dulse is a sea vegetable, and it is high in calcium, iron, zinc, iodine and vitamins A, C, E and B viatmins. You can buy the flakes at health food shops. Sourcing sea veg from clean waters is important. They will be more expensive, but you only use tiny amounts.

You can also do fantastic versions of hommus with either beetroot, pumpkin, spinach, or just add a bunch of fresh herbs.

Popcorn and friends

We all love popcorn. Next time you make a batch, cook it in plenty of coconut oil as it is extremely heat stable and is a wonderfully nourishing fat for kiddies. Supercharge it with the addition of chia seeds, dulse flakes, sesame seeds, nuts (if applicable), goji berries, some organic dried fruit, and cacao nibs if you’re feeling generous. Toast some coconut flakes in the oven for a few minutes and throw them in too – DELICIOUS!!

Goji berry trail mix

Instead of a packet of sultanas, mix it up with some goji berries which are chock full of antioxidants, along with vitamin C, vitamin E, B vitamins, and essential fatty acids. Throw in some pepitas and sunflower seeds for good measure.

Tamari seeds

Take some pepitas (pumpkin seeds) and sunflower seeds and spread out on a baking tray, Splash with a little tamari and pop into a moderate oven for 8-10 minutes, or until just slightly browned. Allow to cool and enjoy! You can add some coconut oil prior to cooking also if you like, or smoked paprika is lovely too.

Smoothies and ‘ice cream’

A sensational way of cramming in some goodness. Use coconut milk for extra fatty goodness, and add in chia seeds for extra nutrition. Berries, banana, stone fruit, pineapple and mango, are all good bases. Don’t be afraid to add greens like spinach or mint too. I have a few more ideas here. Pop any leftovers into an icy pole mould or a paper cup, put a stick in it, and you have a whole new ball game! Check out here for some more ideas for homemade icy poles and dairy free ice creams.

Sliced apple with nut butter, try it, it’s delish.

Other ideas like beetroot chips, kale chips and roasted sweet potato wedges are fun too!

P.S. A note on natural food colourings

We recently had a birthday in our house, for which I make these cutie-patootie cupcakes.

I am very proud of the bees. My daughter decorated the frogs. Good times. Anyway, It is an example of how easy it is to do fun colours with no fake. The green – spirulina, the yellow – turmeric, the red – a squeeze of raw beetroot juice, just grated and squeezed. Go crazy – blueberries are great, as is red onion skin apparently though I haven’t tried that yet as I was concerned about stinky cupcakes! No one likes stinky cupcakes. I’d love to hear what others have used too!
If you want a particular colour that you are having trouble with, ‘Hopper’ do amazing all natural food colourings that are preservative and artificial everything free.
So there you have it. The moral of the story? Get some dulse flakes and add them to everything. Ha! x

You can find Meg on Facebook here, Pinterest here

I’m still here: back online after a year without the internet

This one caught my attention because there is a lot of talk about pulling back from the internet to indulge in more real-life pursuits. That an online life pales in comaprison to a living, breathing, flesh-and-blood one. Well, like most things I believe in moderation and I for one am thrilled the internet exists and won’t be getting rid of it any time soon. I will WK for you, Internet! This story had me nodding my head as I felt very much the same way Paul does at the end of the tale – that the internet is part of his life. I learn so much from the internet, I am a voracious reader and I’m forever Googling or Wikipediaing or whatever about every topic that takes my fancy. I can see places I’ve only ever dreamed of. I can read books and magazines previously unattainable to me. I can keep in contact with friends and relatives I rarely see. Sure sometimes the internet sucks and it can be a massive time-waster, but I have never found it to be a negative in my life. I think maybe because I got my addiction over and done with in the late ’90s when I was so stoked I could find all these things I loved that I was on it 24 hours a day. I have now harnessed it to my advantage. Sure sometimes I spend an hour pinning crochet patterns instead of actually taking the time to crochet, but I’ve got a good balance overall. Internet FTW.

The Retro Wife

This was an interesting one from New York Magazine. I originally found it through this article on Babble that claimed the story was skewed and the people in it misquoted. I had to see for myself. As someone with a reasonably untraditionally-genderised family unit, I read with great interest. I do have a desire to bake cookies and stay at home, but there’s also a part of me that thoroughly enjoys my teaching job one day a week. My husband does more laundry than me and is so hands-on with the kids, Abby doesn’t even know I’m her mother. We both have careers that mean we spend great swathes of time with our children while still bringing home the facon. I don’t mow, but I’ll hammer anything you like. Matt doesn’t clean the bathroom, but he will change the linen on the girls’ beds. Sometimes we fall into traditional roles, sometimes we don’t. He would love to be a stay-at-home dad. I see no reason why he shouldn’t do that if he wants except I want to do it too! We are flexible and uncategorisable – just the way I like it. This article was great for a bit of self-reflection. How does it make you feel?

Never Let Go

This one I found after my friend Rick tweeted about it. A Pulitzer Prize finalist – the tale of a baby born four months early, and the incredible journey her mother went on in the ensuing months. One of those reads you can’t put down until you get to the end and you know what happens… then you go hug your kids til they squeak. This one left me grateful.

Your Hard is Hard

Oh how I love this one. I loathe the one-upmanship in life (and inevitably, parenting), and how even if you’re struggling with something difficult, there will always be someone else rolling their eyes and saying “you think that’s hard? try…”. Just because someone else has newborn twins and hasn’t slept in weeks, that doesn’t mean your own struggles with one child not sleeping is not legitimate. Or similar. I have always said all pain is relative – it sucks balls being the person going through it, regardless if someone else out there’s struggles are harder and longer and more intense. Your hard is hard. Their hard is hard. Sure yes, look at them and be grateful and give yourself a kick up the bum that it’s not as difficult as it could be and suddenly things are put in perspective – but sometimes shit sucks and you struggle. That’s ok. You deserve validation for that. When someone complains, how’s about we stop, forget the story we were going to tell about our awful thing that was worse, and just listen to them? They’re allowed to be frustrated and upset too, even if it’s something we would’t be frustrated and upset by.

The end. What have you been reading? Link me!

For the uninitiated, it is a vegan tumblr that talks about not eating overly-processed crap and gives recipes and tips for eating healthy, veggie-packed food. Only it is doing it with a bucketload of attitude and extreme swears. I cannot get enough.

It has only been around since late last year, but it has already won the Saveur Award’s Best New Food Blog. And with calls like “it’s taco time, bitches”, it not only cracks my shit up, but a bunch of others too.

I made the Sweet Potato and Pinto Bean Tacos, only I didn’t have no pinto beans so I used black beans. I soaked them all day and then cooked them for two hours, before following Thug’s directions. They were magical. We ate ours with avocado, onion, tomato and coriander.

You need these tacos in your life. I made corn tortillas to go with ours because I’d never made them before. I knew they had to be better than store-bought, because everything is! They were pretty fiddly and you have to do one at a time, so I can’t imagine I’d be doing them constantly! But the recipe (here) made heaps so I have a ton left over. They got easier, so who knows I might be a tortilla ninja more often.

It’s taco time, bitches.

I don’t often do reviews, but the first 24 hours after I applied Eco Tan to my skin, I knew I had to share.

There are a few things I look for in a tanning product (not that I use it often, but when I do I have conditions, you know?!): it can’t smell horrific and it’s got to go on easily with minimum streaking issues.

I’m happy to report Eco Tan fits the bill in both categories. Not only is it made from natural products including cacao, herbs, flower and fruit extracts, but it is certified organic and cruelty-free. They also (where possible) use veggie ink and recycled products in their packaging. And on top of all that, it has a mild tan scent and is actually a luxurious moisturiser that is easily applied, settling into a golden tan over the next few hours.

The first time I tried it, I was flying to New Zealand and knew that night I would be stuck on a plane and its recycled air for three hours. If there’s anything guaranteed to drive me insane in a situation like that is if something smells too strongly. Even as I was applying it I thought “wait, don’t do it now you idiot!” but I couldn’t help myself. And apart from catching a whiff occasionally when I moved my arms, I didn’t smell a thing. And when I did, it was very mild indeed.

The next day as I was getting undressed to get in the shower, I practically glowed. I was sold! A cruelty-free, natural and organic tan that didn’t smell and is hard to streak? Yes please.

I also tried the tan before my weekend in the Whitsundays last week and I loved it.

All up I tried the Invisible Tan for once-over applications, and also the Organic Winter Skin, which is a moisturiser that produces a gradual tan. I also received the Exfoliant Glove which can be used with plain water, reducing the chemical impact on your skin, but I haven’t tried it yet.

So their ingredients are:

And there are no:

My kind of product! The Eco Tan line is available here.

*Disclosure: Eco Tan is an advertiser on Veggie Mama. I received the Invisible Tan, Organic Winter Skin and the Extreme Exfoliator to test and review. My skin, my opinion!

Beach photos by Baby Mac.