Mums United and a healthy heart challenge

Life, in the most part, has been overtaken lately with a flurry of fabric, needles and thread. Miss Goodie Two Shoes has been a life changing and exciting challenge, but as my business has evolved my healthy living has been the first to drop off the list. Gone are my early morning walks and weekly sessions at the gym, to be replaced with bleary eyes, a strong coffee and evenings spent sewing arms and legs. Healthy lunches for the family have been slowly replaced with muesli bars, peanut butter sandwiches and arrowroot biscuits... beans and spaghetti have featured on the dinner menu more often then I would like to admit. With the weather warming I have been promising myself a return to healthy eating and daily exercise, but where is the motivation and enthusiasm when bedtime is rarely before 1am?

Then came a very exciting offer from Soup Marketing to take part in an exciting new challenge hosted by the Heart Foundation. Mums United is encouraging Mums across Australia to unite in their quest to raise a healthy, active family. Through my project with Soup I have been asked to set some healthy living challenges and to report on my progress, the perfect opportunity to remain motivated! We got off on a good start today, replacing our usual sugar laden morning tea with some sliced fruit and these delicious raspberry muffins from the Heart Foundation website.

Raspberry Muffins

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups self-raising flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 cup caster sugar

1/2 cup blueberries

60g (1/4 cup) margarine spread, extra

1 cup (250mL) reduced fat milk

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla essence 

Directions 

1. Preheat oven to 200°C. Line a 12-cup non-stick muffin tin with muffin cases.

2. Sift flour, baking powder and cinnamon into a bowl. Mix in sugar and blueberries. In another bowl, combine margarine, milk, egg and vanilla. Mix the wet mixture into the dry ingredients until just combined, using no more than 16 strokes. Spoon mixture into prepared tin. 

3. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out cleanly. 

I hope you too are having a healthy start to the week. Be sure to keep an eye on my blog for details of how you can join me in Mums United, and be in with a chance to win $350 in Myer giftcards thanks to Soup!

Cooking with the Heart Foundation

I recently took part in my first Soup marketing project, and boy was it fun! "Soup is Australia's first word of mouth marketing agency, and is for people who love having their say and want to be involved in shaping the future of brands and products". Does that sound like you? Well pop on over and become a Soup Mama too!

I was chosen to participate in the Heart Foundation project about saturated fats. The challenge was to cook some tasty treats using margarine instead of butter and see what my family and friends thought of the results. What a perfect excuse to have some friends over for morning tea!

Soup included a book of yummy recipes to try out, so Oscar and I have had a fabulous time cooking cakes, scones and quiches for our friends. As someone who has never cooked with margarine, I was surprised by how delicious the food was, and how well margarine replaced butter in some of my favourite recipes. I'd always thought margarine was highly processed and no good for you, turns out I was quite wrong. Some brands of margarine have less than 15% saturated fat, a mere drop of the 50% or more saturated fat found in butter!

An unexpected bonus of this project is I've been making a lot more of Oscar's snacks from scratch instead of relying on store bought fruit bars and rice cakes. Not only have our morning teas been delicious and healthy, we've been having so much fun cooking together. 

I thought I'd share with you one of Oscar's favourite recipes from the Heart Foundation project, I hope you enjoy baking and eating it as much as we do! 

Apple and Sultana cupcakes

Ingredients

2 medium green apples, peeled and grated

1 3/4 cups self raising flour

3/4 cup caster sugar

1/2 tsp bicarbonate soda

2 tsp ground cinammon

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/4 cup low fat milk

125 g salt reduced margarine spread, melted

1/2 cup sultanas

zest of one lemon

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius. Line a 12 hole muffin tin with cupcake papers.

2. Beat margarine, sugar and eggs using an electric mixer on medium speed. Beat for about 5 minutes or until thick and creamy.

3. Add the grated apple, milk, sultanas and lemon zest. Beat on low until combined.

4. In a separate bowl sift together the self raising flour, bicarbonate of soda and cinammon. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and beat until thoroughly combined. Do not over-beat as this will toughen the mixture.

5. Spoon mixture into cupcake papers, filling each about three quarters full. Bake for 20 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Remove the cupcakes from the trays immediately and cool on a wire rack.

6. Most importantly, ENJOY more then one!