I recently purchased what has become my favourite cookbook of all time. I generally buy cookbooks just to drool over the pictures, rarely do I actually cook any of the recipes in the book. But this book is different.

The book is called basics to brilliant by Donna Hay. I love Donna Hay’s recipes, she makes the best peanut butter brownie cookiesand her nut slice is to die for.

It was only when I was looking at the gorgeous photos in the book that I realised that this was actually a TV series that aired at the end of 2017 that focussed on getting kids outside in nature and teaching them about where food comes from (which made my heart sing). You can check out some of the behind the scenes from the show at her website

I often found and still do find it hard to think of simple quick meals that I know the kids will like and in the past I would often turn to processed or can foods that I knew weren’t good for them but were easy. Each time I would watch the way my eldest son’s behaviour changed after easting these highly processed foods and I instantly wish I hadn’t done it.

Going through this process with him and with my own health as I have started to scale back my outrageous chocolate addiction has made me really conscious of the message that I want to send to my kids, the values that I want them to grow up with and the healthy habits that I want to establish in them so that they aren’t faced with the challenges that I have experienced changing my diet as an adult.

But there’s so much noise out there about what’s right and wrong and which super foods are better blah,blah,blah that is sometimes hard to know where to turn for trusted advise. Which is exactly what I loved about Donna’s book. It is simple, it cuts through the crap by going back to basics. REAL FOOD that tastes good.

If this is the kind of habits you want to create in your house. Then this beautiful Cookbook is a great place to start. Click the link below to purchase.