TOPAZ HORIZON

Today was all about babies for working mommy me. First, up early to get ready for a photo shoot for BABY Magazine. We featured the most adorable little girls wearing fashion inspired by iconic women. I can't wait for you to see the fashion editorial in our anniversary issue!

After the shoot, we—that's me and my bunso Piero—rushed to the launch of Belo Baby at Museum Café. Yes, skincare giant Belo Medical just entered the baby-care market with its own line of bar soap, hair-and-body wash, face-and-body lotion, and colognes.


Museum Café was transformed into a lush garden for our lunch. I'm guessing this is to reflect the fact that everything in Belo Baby's products are from nature.

There's a trio of colognes, too! As with the rest of the products of the new Belo Baby line, the colognes are also free from harmful ingredients like tetrasodium EDTA, magnesium sulfate, sodium tallowate, phthalates, parabens, sodium lauryl sulfate, formaldehyde, tetrasodium etidronate and dmdm hydantoin. Well, I am so glad I'm writing this down because I have no idea how to pronounce a lot of those terms I just typed!

Anyway! Back to the launch. I was late so I had just a wee bit of time to eat this salad and the main dish of fish. Meanwhile, Piero played and played and played.

Cristalle Belo Henares did a great job explaining how her new baby was created—with a lot of science and research! She really wanted to create a skincare line that cares for the most sensitive of skins, and she's proud of Belo Baby. She said she and her team did not stop until they created products that were far superior than the other baby brands available.

Here's our table with the dessert. Oh, I wanted to eat that fruit! But I was too busy with Piero and with taking pictures. Oh, what's in the bag? Suncare products! Everyone got a bag of sunscreen because it's summer. Although any dermatologist will tell you that sunscreen is necessary even when it's cloudy, raining, winter, and even when you're just inside your house.

We also got to see the rough version of the Belo Baby TVC that will be shown next month.

Belo Baby picked the hosts of online show, "Eat, Drink, and Be Married" as the ambassadors of their new baby brand. From left are Nicole Hernandez De Los Angeles, Patty Laurel-Filart and Kelly Misa-Fernandez.

I've been lucky enough to have interviewed these ladies for magazine articles—Nicole when she was still a college student, Patty when she was newlywed and then again when she was a new mom, and Kelly when she was a newlywed, too. So I know these women are smart, hardworking women who are also madly in love with their husbands and utterly devoted to their babies. Basically the pegs of most women today! Belo Baby chose well!

And here's Cristalle with the mombassadors.

All of us bloggers took home a set of the Belo Baby line plus a stuffed sleeping lamb. As I type, my three little boys are having their evening baths. They like their baths with Papa because Vince is fun while I'm mechanical haha. So I'll give a review (and maybe a giveaway? What do you think?) in my next post.

For now, do check out the new Belo Baby line. The website is www.belobaby.ph, the Facebook page is belobabylove, and it's @belobabylove on Twitter and Instagram. It's available at your favorite supermarkets and grocery stores. Soon, it will be at drugstores, online shops, and even sari-sari stores nationwide.

From time to time, I post photos and share recipes on my Instagram (follow me @topazhorizonblog and hashtag #MakeItJolly!). Some of those recipes feature Jolly canned goods, like corn, green peas, black beans, pimiento, and a whole lotta mushrooms. While I don't cook every single meal with canned food, I do stock up on a lot of canned goodness because I'm a very busy mommy. On days I need to whip up something quick, healthy and delicious, I go to my canned goods shelf.

Yes, canned food is healthy! Any form of fresh food is good for you. Yes, canned food is fresh! There are a lot of myths surrounding canned food and so lemme bust them for you.

Myth #1: Canned food is not fresh.
Well, it's definitely not corn on the cob that's sitting in your hand, if that's what you mean! But canned food, especially fruit and vegetables, are a step away from fresh in this sense: Fresh from being picked at its best ripeness, fruits and vegetables go straight to the cannery to be cooked and packed, usually within the same day. That's pretty fresh to me!

Farm-to-table food is fantastic, of course. But for us living in the cities, that means hours, maybe even days, being transported from farm to market, and again hours and maybe even days sitting there on the shelf. Fresh fruit and vegetables are always great. Always. As long as you're sure they are actually fresh. If you're not sure, canned and frozen fruits and veggies are a good option. Better canned and frozen than none at all!

Myth #2: Canned food is full of salt. 
Sodium is a known preservative. So people think canned food is absolutely steeped in salt. Not true! There are canned food that need just a bit of salt and there are some don't need salt at all. Jolly uses citric acid for example. That's Vitamin C to us. If salt content bothers you, you can just thoroughly drain then rinse the canned food before cooking or eating.

Myth #3: Canned food is full of preservatives.
Okay, what do I mean about some canned food don't even need salt? So how is it preserved? Is it full of dangerous chemicals? Well, the process of canning means the food is cooked. High temperatures kill bacteria that can cause decay. This bacteria-free food is then sealed tightly in a can, preventing bacteria to contaminate it. Food is now preserved—no salt or chemicals needed.

However, always check the label for ingredients! That's why I choose Jolly. I checked the labels and all Jolly uses in its cans of fruit and veggies are salt, sugar, cornstarch, citric acid. That's it!

Myth #4: Canned food is highly processed.
Canning is not a modern invention. We've been putting food in jars and cans since the 1800s. It's a simple enough process: pick fresh food - wash - put in container - heat - seal. Not highly processed at all. Homemakers have been doing this food preservation method in their own kitchens for hundreds of years. Even little old me has done some canning in my past life (it was a high school project, if I must be honest).

And can we please stop being allergic to the term "processed food"? Lemme give you examples of processed food: cheese, yoghurt, dried fruit, cereal, bread and milk. These are perfectly healthy processed food!

Myth #5: Canned food has no nutritional value.
Remember how I said that canned food is fruits and veggies picked at their best quality? And remember how I said that they go straight to the cannery to be processed at their peak? And remember how I said that canned food uses little to no sodium or preservatives? That means not a lot of nutrients gets lost from canning.

In fact, USDA Food Quality Lab research plant physiologist Gene Lester, Ph.D., told Eating Well magazine, "While some vegetable and legumes lose nutrients in the canning process, others actually see their healthy compounds increase." Examples are corn, tomatoes and pumpkin. Heating them during the canning process releases or increases their antioxidants.

Now that we've busted these myths about canned food, let me share with you a dish my husband made this weekend. Enjoy!



This is a modified recipe from Tastemade's Bismarck Potato Pizza


Lots of bacon
1 large potato
Lots of Parmesan cheese
1/3 cup Jolly tomato paste
Jolly mushrooms (we used shiitake but you can use any Jolly mushroom)
3 ounces mozzarella cheese
1 egg
salt and pepper to taste

1. Fry bacon in a pan. Set crispy bacon aside.
2. Drain off the bacon oil (set aside for future dishes!) so that the pan is just greased.
3. Cut potato into very thin slices. Arrange potato slices in a ring patter in the same pan that cooked the bacon.
4. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese. As Buddy Valastro of Cake Boss says, "Don't go cheap on the cheese!"
5. Cover and cook on low hear for 5 minutes. 
6. Spread Jolly tomato paste onto the potatoes. 
7. Arrange Jolly mushroom slices and mozzarella cheese on top.
8. Crack the egg at the very center. Cover and cook on medium heat for 5 minutes. This should be enough to crisp up the potato crust.
9. Transfer the potato pizza onto a plate, pile the bacon on top. Serve!
10. P.S. I seriously think you don't need to add salt anymore because of the cheese and bacon but my husband said he sprinkled salt on the pizza.

Let me share with you a few of the thousands of photos we have of my boys. Only a few make it to social media! The rest we pore over obsessively, usually on those nights just before we go to sleep but the kids still aren't sleepy. So I show them their photos, I tell them the stories behind the pictures, and sometimes I make up silly bedtime stories a la comics style using their pictures.

Like this for example. We will call this story...