Jill Amery
Jill Amery is a mom of 2 small boys and the Publisher of UrbanMommies, a stylish digital lifestyle magazine filled with fitness, style, health, recipes and savvy mom advice to help you through pregnancy, birth, and raising your kids.
Not only is this recipe for easy fragrant chicken curry great for cleanup and flavour, but you can determine your children’s tolerance of spice. Know that you can always use yoghurt to make it milder. It’s also a winner for hiding a few extra veggies like yams and carrots..
The Anteater Bug Vac is certain to make sure they get hours of fresh air. This baby anteater has an appetite for collecting all kinds of insects and bugs. Lucky you mom. (You might want to invest in some jars with holes in the lids!) With the touch of a button, you can quickly and safely gather up bugs to observe in the anteater’s removable belly chamber. After you’re done viewing the bugs, please try to encourage your kids to release them back into their habitats unharmed… Note to kids: bedrooms are not their natural habitat. ($29.95, Ages 6+) www.mastermindtoys.com
Sweet Potato (also known as the yam) can be orange fleshed or ivory-white, though color is no particular indication of sweetness. Sweet potato puree provides a tummy satisfying starch as well as chill-beating vitamin C. Orange fleshed varieties are rich in beta carotene, the stuff which turns Flamingo feathers pink and, if eaten all the time, gives babies a ruddy glow. If your baby seems to have acquired a golden tan, lay off the orange colored food!
We like to freeze the puree in ice cube trays and pop the frozen cubes into labeled baggies or containers in the freezer. This allows you to always have an assortment of ‘cubes’ on hand. The recipe can also be prepared with a variety of other veggies (even canned pumpkin).. wink
Suitable for 6 months onwards. Makes 2 cups
Sweet Potato Puree
You will need:
1 pound Sweet Potatoes
Peel the potatoes and chunk into bite sized pieces and put into a pot with enough boiling water to cover. Return water to boil, reduce heat, loosely cover, and cook 20-30 minutes or until perfectly soft and tender. Drain – not too thoroughly – reserving a little of the cooking water. Mash (or use a food processor) to a puree with a little of the cooking water.
Alternately, you can use a steamer…
Serve and enjoy!
If you’re a gourmet-loving Mom, you have a great excuse to expand your repertoire. Jacada Travel gourmet tours take you to the tastiest corners of the earth. The Gourmet Series offers luxurious, private guided food-focused adventures featuring exciting itineraries to Peru, Argentina, South Africa, and Chile. Either as a girl’s trip or a family bonding experience (where everyone else learns to cook!) you will see and experience spectacular tastes and sights. And with summer’s line up for exciting festivals to bring forth the finest cuisine, it’s a great time to indulge in a trip created to appeal to all of your senses. You deserve it – take our word for it. JacadaTravel.
You just want to keep saying it over and over. BubbleBum. BubbleBum. Ok, maybe it’s just me. Giggle. The BubbleBum inflatable booster seat for kids aged 4-11 is the coolest thing to help busy moms since the invention of the pool boy. It checks in at less than 1 pound and inflates in minutes. When not in use, simply deflate the booster seat, roll it up and stow away in the trunk or backpack for the next use. Perfect for travel with rental cars, cabs, carpooling and restaurants.
BubbleBum ($39.99) is sold online at BubbleBum, Target.com, and Babies ‘R Us. It is also available in select Target stores nationwide.
I was a bit of a fashionista from early on. And a good shopper. Ski trips to Bangor, Maine always included a three-hour escapade to Marshalls, where my Vuarnet shirts, Esprit cords and Ralph Lauren polo shirts were found. (It was the 80s). Finally the day has come! Marshalls will expand across Canada this year with 13 new stores opening from Vancouver to Montreal, offering its wide selection of big brand fashions, accessories and boxed footwear for the entire family at well below department store prices. Can’t talk. Hyperventilating with excitement.
In addition to apparel and accessories for the whole family, every Marshalls boasts a huge selection of more than 8,000 pairs of designer and brand name boxed footwear. (Still hyperventilating). At 55,000 square feet, the new Toronto flagship store at Yonge & Gerrard is the largest Marshalls store in Canada. As of August 2013, all Marshalls stores will offer home and décor along with apparel and accessories.
The ‘Marshalls Comes to Canada’ store address and locations:
Toronto, ON – 382 Yonge Street
Vancouver, BC – 8137 Ontario Street
Winnipeg, MB – 110 – 600 Empress Street
Hamilton, ON – 1161 Barton Street East
London, ON – 3165 Wonderland Road South
Mississauga, ON – 3126 Argentia Road
Markham, ON – 8675 McCowan Road
Abbotsford, BC – High Street
So if anyone wants to do a Via Rail fashion shopping tour with me from coast to coast, I’m in. And I promise my style has matured since the ’80s.
If your kids are living with Type 1 diabetes, you’ve got a few extra challenges. We’re very excited about a Disney’s New Diabetes Resource from one of our favourite Disney sites. Disney Interactive has partnered with Lilly Diabetes to launch an online destination dedicated to help families affected by type 1 diabetes on Disney’s family lifestyle site Lilley Diabetes. Combining Lilly’s knowledge of diabetes with Disney’s robust parenting network has created a unique and powerful diabetes resource.
After a fruit-filled tropical March break, the family is completely hooked on two things: peaches and coconut water! Getting back into the school routine wasn’t easy, but breakfast is proving to be less stressful (and more healthful) than it was prior to the vacay. With a chill still in the Canadian air, I had resigned myself to using expensive, imported fruit. But then I was given a revelation: canned peaches are amazing! Their nutritional value is not only on par with fresh peaches, but they actually have 1.5 times more antioxidants and their Vitamin C levels are 3.5 times higher than fresh. California Cling Peaches are canned within 24 hours of delivery to the cannery, which ensures that the peaches maintain superior taste and nutritional value. The way to find them is to look at the various peaches in the stores to make sure they say Made in the USA – those are the California Cling Peaches. With this new information, I found a recipe that has quickly become a stable in the house (and at the office!).
Tropical Peach Breeze Smoothie
1 can 14 oz / 398 mL California cling peaches (slices)
½ cup coconut water or plain or vanilla almond milk
½ cup Greek vanilla, honey or peach yogurt, preferably 0%
1 tsp vanilla
¼ tsp ginger
tsp nutmeg
Honey or agave syrup (optional)
Prep: 5 min Total time: 5 min
Directions
Drain peaches reserving 2 tbsp (30 mL) juice. Place peaches, reserved peach juice, coconut water or almond milk, yogurt, vanilla, ginger and nutmeg in a blender. Blend until smooth. If you wish sweeten with honey or agave syrup.
Makes about 2 cups (500 mL) for 2 smoothies.