I’m Steph. The Mom, cleaner, writer, chef, wiper of noses, and everything elser.
I believe with a passion that at the end of the day, we’re (mostly!) all just trying to do out best. Sometimes that works out brilliantly, sometimes not, but we’re trying.
I’m not sure what brought you here. Maybe you want to lose weight. Maybe you’d like to help your child lose weight. Perhaps you just want to try one recipe and move on, and that’s okay.
I’m glad our paths have crossed.
If you want to connect with me please do it in person, I love hearing from you. If you’ve signed up to my newsletter you can hit reply and the email comes straight through to me, if you haven’t, you can find me at [email protected]
Share my work. Give my recipes to your friends. Add your own spin to them. Tweak them to work for your family.
See everything I create as a suggestion, not a rule, I’m a Mom cook, not a professional chef.
I write about Clean Eating (with kids) but we don’t always eat clean.
I never quit sugar and have no intention of doing so (this is why). I love my morning coffee(s), good quality chocolate (and sometimes bad quality chocolate). I’m not particularly great at anything but I try hard.
I’ve got fussy eater kids and one who’ll try anything. I could probably lose a few pounds. Or not.
The point I’m trying to make is this – I’m not perfect. And don’t strive to be. I write about what I know and what works for my family.
Give Clean Eating a go if you want to make your families diet a bit healthier. If something works for you, embrace it. If not, let it go. You don’t have to agree with with everything I write. I won’t judge you and I hope you will not judge me, there’s enough of that nonsense going round. I don’t have strict food views. I don’t cut out food groups. I post recipes we eat in our own home. Some of them 100% Clean. Others, mostly Clean.
My food Philosophy is simple, just eat Real food.
Michael Pollan still says it best: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
My Family and Clean Eating
A few years ago, our family was heavily reliant on processed foods. When I took a brutally honest look at our diet, it was practically all we ate.
Most of the food I served my family was refined, flavored or overly processed in some way. It was cheap, easy and the kids loved it. Yet back then, I honestly didn’t think it was that bad.
I was struggling to lose my post baby weight gain, hating everything about myself and didn’t know why.
I had fallen into that busy trap of cooking to please my kids and letting them choose the family mealplan based on their likes and dislikes. Supermarket prepped and refined, over processed foods were our every day normal.
The thing is, once you become aware of how scary many of the foods are that we are feeding our kids, you can’t ‘unknow it’.
But secretly, even though I sometimes felt guilty serving up those nutrient deficient frozen chicken nuggets to my little kids, I doubted my ability as a Mother to actually teach my children to eat vegetables.
I already felt overwhelmed in so many areas on my life, this just felt like one more thing I was setting myself up to fail at.
The thing with Clean Eating is that it’s not a Black and White / Right or Wrong lifestyle.
It’s up to you how ‘Clean’ you want to eat. I recommend starting small, maybe cooking healthier Dinners made with Clean, Whole Ingredients a couple times a week. One Real food meal a week is better than none.
What you will find on this site:
- The Beginners Guide to Clean Eating (and why it’s the last diet you will ever need)
- Why processed foods are bad for us, and how you’re being tricked into eating them
- Plenty of tips on how to get your family eating clean (even the fussy members of the household)
- How to stock your Clean Cleating Pantry and set yourself up for success from Day 1
- The Kitchen Essentials you will need to have on hand for healthy food prep
- Real life Clean Eating Weekly Meal Plans (that I use in my own home)
- Finally, over 100 Delicious Family Friendly, Clean Eating Recipes for every meal
It can feel a little overwhelming trying to change your family’s eating habits.
But let’s be honest – the modern diet of processed, refined and artificially enhanced convenience foods are not good for us or our children, and we know it. But sometimes it’s hard to know where to even begin changing it.
Getting Started With Clean Eating
- Read through my Clean Eating Beginners Guide for more info on what Clean Eating is all about.
- Sign up for my FREE 7 Day Clean Eating Family Challenge – this comes with a printable meal plan, recipes and shopping list. Plus I’ve thrown in a few extra goodies.
- Try out some of our delicious Family Friendly Clean Eating Recipes
- FREE PRINTABLE: The 12 Clean Eating Rules
- Learn how to Plan and Organise a Real Food Pantry
- Find out Why it’s Important to Ditch Processed Foods
- FREE PRINTABLE: Clean Eating Grocery Shopping List & Pantry Inventory Checklist
- Real Food Shopping Tips and Tricks
- How to Eat Clean on a Budget
My Recipes
The recipes you find on this blog are genuine, family friendly real food recipes that I feed my family regularly.
I try to not use ‘trending’ ingredients or cook something just because it’s in fashion or looks cute on the plate. We’re not vegetarian, Paleo, Keto or low carb. And (shocker alert) we still eat Sugar (read more on that here).
Nothing annoys me more than wasting time and ingredients on ‘healthy food’ that looks pretty but tastes crappy and ends up being tossed in the bin.
Everything I cook is made from whole, REAL FOOD ingredients that you will know and recognize. I believe in feeding my family a balanced, sustainable diet.
My recipes are tested at our dinner table. I try and keep things simple because I’m a Mom cookin’ meals for my family in my kitchen. Every single day. Sometimes I’ll see a new ingredient we’ve not tried and I’ll use it. Mostly, the food I cook with is the same food that’s been around for an age. Simple food.
- Get our Free Clean Eating Meal Plans. They include all breakfasts, snacks, lunches and dinner recipes. All recipes have been tried and tested by real life families and are made using everyday ingredients you can find just about anywhere.
- Search through over 100’s of Real food recipes and try something new this week.
- FREE PRINTABLE: 50 Clean Eating Snack Ideas to stick on the fridge.
- Systematize school lunches with my FREE PRINTABLE: Lunchbox Planner. It will take the stress out of school mornings and seriously make your mornings flow a little easier.
- FREE PRINTABLE: Meal Planning Template this is a basic, easy to use meal planning page with plenty of space to write in.
Clean Eating & Real Life
Real life happens. There will be birthday parties, Easter egg hunts, school functions and plenty of special occasions that will rock your clean eating boat.
It’s OK. Have fun, try not take it all too seriously. The fun happens in the messy bits.
You can read a bit more about our families Real food make over in these posts below:
- 5 Things that we found really hard when we started eating Clean. These are the things we struggled with as a family when we first began eating Real foods.
- The 80/20 Rule we use to keep us Real.
- The problem with processed foods (aside from the obvious fact that aren’t good for you) is that are unfortunately really convenient. As a busy Mom, convenience matters. When you start eating Clean you are suddenly aware of the fact that you need to spend a lot more time cooking at home. I’m not that Mom that makes everything from scratch. For Clean Eating to work for our family, I had to learn to take a few shortcuts where I could. This is a list of the Real Foods I buy vs What I make.
- Our Real Food Story (The Ugly Truth) and a little peak inside our pantry BEFORE we started eating Clean.
Before you jump into your new clean eating lifestyle, please remember:
- Everyone is different
- Don’t compare yourself to other people
- Do what works for your family
- Don’t be too hard on yourself or your kids
Whether it’s a couple of easy tweaks or a major diet overhaul – Remember – any positive change you make, big or small, is a step in the right direction.
Most Popular Recipes On The site
- Two Ingredient Pizza Dough
- Clean Eating Chicken Enchiladas
- Chocolate Chia Seed Pudding
- Banana Pancakes
- Chicken Noodle Soup
Grab a FREE copy of the downloadable Meal Planner right here
