Mum Reviews...

Blooming Delicious by Sophie Wright - Book Review

Delicious, Beautifully Photographed Recipes for Glowing Health, From Pre-Conception to Post-Baby

When professional chef and highly successful catering business owner Sophie Wright discovered she was pregnant, like many-mums-to-be, she decided to take a closer look at her diet. However, instead of keeping all her wonderful recipes to herself, she made the decision to publish them to help others also improve their diets from pre-pregnancy right up until post-baby.

Blooming Delicious is just that - a beautiful book bursting full of tasty, nutritionally balanced recipes, which, with the help of top nutritional therapist Henrietta Norton, ensure that both mother and baby will be carefully nourished. Alongside each section of the book Sophie has included lots of interesting information about what is happening developmentally to both mother and baby, before introducing many relevant recipes for the stage at which the mother to be has reached.

The Five O'Clock Apron by Claire Thomson - Tasty Meals for Hungry Families

 

The Five O'Clock Apron

Claire Thomson works as a chef in her busy Bristol restaurant, Flinty Red where she is co-owner. She is also the author of one of the loveliest recipe books I've had the pleasure to review, The Five O'Clock Apron: Proper Food for Modern Families, a book which tackles the never-ending dilemma facing many parents every evening - what to feed her own three hungry young children! 

This is something I completely relate to as I have four children each with very different tastes of their own and much as I enjoy trying to feed them healthy home-made meals, often it's easier just to reach for a bag of potatoes, a few carrots and a packet of fish-fingers or chicken nuggets.

Many evenings I lament the fact that I rarely get to experiment with food these days as more often than not someone will find fault and spend the entire meal picking out minute slices of onion or pushing the tenderly prepared chicken to one side. Not quite what I want to see when I've laboured for half an hour peeling, chopping, cooking and wishing I hadn't bothered when I see the resulting pickiness!

As you might imagine therefore, I was delighted to have a beautiful book full of wonderful fresh ideas for mealtimes and all put together by a professional and highly successful chef! 

Catch-All Lentil Soup

For my first meal I flicked through the book, which is teeming full of absolutely gorgeous photos of highly tempting meals, feeling spoilt for choice. Should I try the delightfully fresh Summery Fattoush, the temptingly colourful Piperade or perhaps go for an old favourite such as Egg Fried Brown Rice? In the end I settled on a rather lovely sounding Catch-All Lentil Soup, one of the recipes in the book which didn't have a photo but for which I knew I did have all the ingredients.

 I set to work following the well-written and cohesive instructions. As I chopped and measured and finally began cooking the soup, the smells in my kitchen were most definitely stomach-pleasing and the resulting soup was a great success with all the family, much to my delight. The children used words such as tasty, delicious, scrummy and yummy when describing it for me and hubby and I thought it tasted beautifully rich and very moreish. In fact it was thick, flavourful and filling, like a well-made stew and could definitely be served as such if you are careful not to add too much liquid.

Already I have marked out several pages for meals to try over the next few days and weeks and am planning to make Roasted Crisp Chickpeas this afternoon for the kids to snack on before our dinner which this evening is Green Pea Pesto served with Pasta!

The Allergy-Free Baby and Toddler Book by Charlotte Muquit & Dr Adam Fox

The Allergy-Free Baby and Toddler Book is the guide that worried parents have been waiting for.

Written by Charlotte Muquit, a mum whose own son has severe food allergies, and Dr Adam Fox, one of the country's top allergy specialists, this book explains everything you need to know about allergies, from navigating the diagnosis process to the practical steps you can take to manage allergies in the longterm.

Find out how to:

- Identify the source of an allergy
- Treat reactions
- Communicate with GPs, nurseries and playgroups
- Enjoy social events without worrying
- Adapt weaning and diet to avoid reactions

You'll also find 30 delicious allergy-free recipes for everyday and special occasions. Comprehensive, accessible and informative, The Allergy-Free Baby and Toddler Book gives parents the knowledge and reassurance they need to stop allergies getting in the way of a fun, full and active childhood.

Published 3rd April 2014 by Vermilion and priced at £12.99

Bump - How to Make, Grow and Birth a Baby by Kate Evans

Acclaimed cartoonist Kate Evans delivers a no-nonsense illustrated guide to the joys and pains of getting pregnant and giving birth in a much-awaited sequel to her breastfeeding bestseller, The Food of Love.

Evans deftly handles the physical and emotional changes that come with being pregnant, looking at the practicalities of every stage as well as the challenges that may arise. Her straightforward, funny and accessible text is illustrated throughout with detailed artwork to guide the reader through the intricacies of human reproduction whilst her customary laugh-out-loud cartoons demystify the complexities of pregnancy and birth.

What midwives and mothers say about BUMP:

‘Informative and empowering. This is an epic work of love and deep understanding.’
‘This is just so wonderful – such a lovely way to describe how your body is designed to birth.
I felt relaxed just reading it.’

Keep Calm - The New Mum's Manual by Dr Ellie Cannon

Keep Calm - The New Mum's Manual by GP and mother of two Dr Ellie Cannon  is a new parenting book which hails as "the perfect antidote to guilt-inducing parenting guides". Having four children of my own, I was keen to see what this book offers that is different from the multitude of parenting books I've already read over the years!

Upon opening the book I was immediately drawn to the fact that Dr Ellie stresses this book is about mums and about helping them to become happy and confident mothers. It's not a book that is going to tell us what to do, when to do it or how to do it! Refreshing, to say the least.

Dr Ellie is very keen to stress to mothers that they should enjoy their babies and that they should learn to trust their own instincts and trust their parenting skills. She believes most of us are simply lacking confidence in our own abilities and that we get worn down and stressed by all the things we think we are supposed to know and be doing. She's right. I've lost count of the many times I ran to others seeking answers only to realise that my first instincts were usually what I ended up following anyway!

The Blissful Baby Expert by Lisa Clegg

The Blissful Baby Expert by Lisa Clegg

As a first-time mother or father, having a baby often comes with a huge dose of the unexpected. How can such a tiny little being cause so much upheaval and mayhem and how on earth do they manage to thrive on what seems like next to no sleep? Do they really need so much stuff? How will I cope and bond with my baby in the early hectic days after birth? How and when do they need fed? When is the right time to wean onto solids and how should I do it? Is my baby developing at the right pace and what toys are useful during this time? 

Thankfully, a new book addresses all of the above plus many more of the concerns that millions of parents all over the world fret about every single day. The Blissful Baby Expert, written by mother of three Lisa Clegg, a qualified nursery nurse and nanny with over 15 years of experience, is teeming full of information that is written in such a way that you almost feel she is sitting at your kitchen table chatting to you over a cup of tea and slice of toast! The author comes across as knowledgeable, friendly and her advice is reliable and spoken in the tone of one who has been there, learnt the lessons and who is keen to pass on her wisdom.

Lisa helps parents of babies aged from 0 to 2years old recognise that each child is unique and to trust their own instincts, build confidence and to recognise what is best for their own individual child. With her help parenting will become a much more enjoyable and calm experience and you'll be rewarded with a blissful, settled baby!

To find out more about The Blissful Baby Expert, visit The Blissful Baby Expert.

Published by Vermilion, you can buy The Blissful Baby Expert now, priced at £10.99.

The Slightly Annoying Elephant - A Fun Interactive Ebook for Toddlers by David Walliams

Recently I had the good fortune to review a fun new ebook by David Walliams. With two of my older children aged 8 and 10 already huge David Walliams fans, I was interested to see how Sophia, my 2 year old, would take to the author's latest story, his first picture book.

Illustrated by the amazingly talented Tony Ross, this special edition ebook includes lots of fun animation, videos features and even an introductory video by the author himself!

The Slightly Annoying Elephant eBook

The Slightly Annoying Elephant (Special Edition) is a story about a young boy who goes to the zoo and ends up adopting an elephant. The elephant visits the boy's home and turns out to be a rather unwelcome house guest!

I'll not spoil the story, but needless to say, as with all of David Walliams' books, it's a wonderful tale, full of the quirky humour we associate with the author and my daughter absolutely loved it. In fact, it wasn't only Sophia who enjoyed the story, but her sister Sarah and her brother Jack also got almost as much enjoyment from it.

Unlike paperback books, this ebook is extremely interactive. In fact, it is crammed full of so many brilliant activities that it's hard for me to do them justice!

At the beginning you are presented with a choice of having David Walliams read the story to the child or your child can either read it themselves or have it read to them in the traditional way! But, in our house, every single time the choice was for the author to read the story. He has a great way of making even the most ordinary of sentences sound funny and this resulted in my children giggling together as they listened.

Each page of the story also offers children the ability to touch items or characters on the page to see silly things happen and this was perhaps my favourite aspect of the book. It quite literally brings the story to life and I can't even begin to imagine how much enjoyment this particular feature of the book would have brought to me when I was a child!

Aside from the story, the activity sections include:

Arty Elephant - a colouring in section which allows children to colour pictures of the elephant and to incorporate the finished piece into the story if they want to. My older children loved this as they could then see their own artwork hanging on the walls or appearing on the television in the story.

Jumbo Workout - a musical fun game which gets children to tap on coloured lights to make the rather funky elephant boogie. Sophia really loved this and nodded her head and danced along to the music. It's also a fun way of introducing or reinforcing the names of colours.

The Elephant in the Room - a jigsaw section with an easy, medium and hard jigsaw. I must admit to being slightly amazed at how quickly Sophia understood how to drag and drop the pieces into the right places! This is actually her favourite section and it would be lovely to see more jigsaws added to the ebook.

An Elephant Never Forgets -  a card matching game featuring characters and scenes from the story.

Trumpet Chorus - tapping on numerous elephants hats and trunks the reader creates their own own tune.

Sophia easily worked out how to navigate and use each of these features and found her way around the ebook with ease.

Overall, The Slightly Annoying Elephant has become a firm favourite in our house. In fact, Sophia enjoyed it so much that on the first day we got it she refused to allow any one else in the family to use the iPad. Since then she has worked out where it is stored (inside iBooks) and at every opportunity runs off with my tablet and starts the book up. On our first day of reviewing the book I managed to video her in action (see above!) refusing to let her sister Sarah have a go. You might even notice her kissing the elephant a few times throughout!

The Slightly Annoying Elephant ebook is published by Harper Collins and is available from iTunes, priced at a very reasonable £3.99.

 

Fretting over Baby Names? Never Fear, Best Baby Names for 2014 is Here!

Choosing a baby name, you'd think it would be pretty easy really. Go through a few lists, check out family names, find one that you like and bingo, your baby has a name, right? Wrong. For many prospective parents there's a lot more thought and consideration goes into choosing a name for their precious newborn and in some cases it takes a lot longer than most would imagine.

Take me, for example. As a mother to four children, three girls and one boy, I spent a long time choosing each and every name, with my husband of course allowed an input too! In fact, so long did I spend deciding upon our first baby's name that my husband ended up making the final decision. It was more or less the same story with each of our children, but the worst of all was picking our last daughter's name just a couple of years ago. It took me a full two weeks to finally settle on Sophia and even after deciding on it, I almost went through with officially changing it as I just couldn't settle myself as to whether or not it suited her. Thankfully, it grew on her and she is a perfect little Sophia now, but I must admit, knowing we were not intending on adding to our family probably made it harder for me to choose as I knew this was my very last chance.

Recently I received a copy of Best Baby Names for 2014 by Siobhan Thomas and it would have been very welcome in 2011 when our daughter arrived. Containing A to Z directories of 8000 traditional and modern names and their meanings, the first section deals with choosing the right name for your baby and has lots of useful tips about considerations such as matching first names to surnames, personal associations with names, pronunciation and spelling variations, choosing middle names, how to deal with hurdles such as your family, friends or partner disliking your choice, nicknames, common associations with names and even checking initials to ensure there are no unintended bloopers.

Bébé Gourmet - My Baby Recipe Book

Recently I reviewed Annabel Karmel's latest recipe book and it's certainly become one of our family favourites. Full of tasty and easy to adapt recipes, there's something to suit everyone's tastes in the family. So, I was excited to receive another baby recipe book to review recently, namely Bébé Gourmet - My Baby Recipe Book, by mother of two Jenny Carenco of Les Menus Bébé.

A stunning book to look at, it is full of tempting and very beautiful photos of delicious meals which aim to help parents raise adventurous eaters from the age of 4 months upwards!

I'm proud of the fact that none of my children have ever been particularly picky eaters, something I firmly believe breastfeeding has helped with, although that's not to say they don't have certain preferences. For example, my eldest daughter prefers plainer foods and also eats raw rather than cooked carrots whilst my son absolutely adores spicy foods. My second daughter isn't keen on mushrooms but will take them if chopped up very small. And Sophia, the toddler, well she'll eat anything and everything. Consequently, Bébé Gourmet looks like a good bet for us.

New Annabel Karmel Quick and Easy Toddler Recipes - Tasty Food for the Whole Family!

I've been testing out a lovely book this week, Annabel Karmel Quick and Easy Toddler Recipes, the first in her Quick and Easy series.

The book is a 144-page, 100 recipe full colour book teeming full of healthy, balanced meals aiming to make mealtimes easier for hard-working families.

With a great choice of breakfast, snacks, lunch and dinner recipes, many focusing on key food groups such as fish, pasta, poultry, meat, vegetables and fruit, as well as time saving tips and tricks to encourage children to eat well and experiment with different sweet and savoury flavours, this book is definitely one for the kitchen book shelf!

Having bought another of her recipe books in the past when my other children were younger, I was keen to try this new one to see if my latest addition would enjoy the meals I'd be preparing. And I'm pleased to report, so far so good.

With a family of four children and two adults, it can be difficult to keep everyone happy at times. My husband and I like lots of spicy foods like curries and noodle dishes, but as any parent can understand, the children aren't always so keen. I'm almost always presented with the dilemma of who to please at mealtimes and preferring for everyone to eat the same meal, rather than having to prepare two completely different meals, I tend to cook meals which everyone will eat rather than meals that everyone loves!

However, this week, with Annabel's guidance, we've all been happily sampling many new and interesting meals and with those I've prepared I'm thrilled to report so far everyone has been pretty happy.

The book, like others Annabel Karmel has written, has a huge array of meals ranging from snacks to main meals and desserts and is certainly a lovely looking book with lots of very appetising photos of meals within. To be honest, my main problem was actually deciding what to prepare from it as there is just so much choice. However, below are photos and rundowns of how I got on with several meals I cooked.

Hummus, Tomato and Cucumber Sandwiches

Hummus, Tomato and Cucumber Sandwiches

The first snack I chose to prepare was for the children coming in from school and feeling peckish. Normally, I'd make a few ham or cheese sandwichs or toasties, perhaps a shop bought pancake or scone but on this occasion I chose Hummus, Tomato and Cucumber sandwiches. Usually, I'd only serve hummus as a dip at parties so it was a novel and unusual combination which the children weren't too sure about at first glance.