Mushroom and Bacon Frittata

I started off making frittatas just for me and my son but it's a sign of a recipe which is a pretty good one when I start making it for myself when he's already in bed!

Another frittata recipe.  Yes, I know, but they are good value, delicious, great warm or cold and a fantastic way to include both eggs and vegetables in your diet.  For some reason my body was craving eggs and mushrooms today and I went with it.  I didn't twig until I'd finished my meal how I'd chosen two foods high in dietary vitamin D.  What could I be craving?  Sunshine of course.  Now the nights are drawing in, our bodies aren't seeing the light so much so what could be better?

Baked Cherry Custard

This isn't a sugar free recipe but at only 2 tsp added sugar per portion and a step towards your five a day, it's not terrible!

I started trying to think of a custard recipe, then thought "what fruit could I include" and before I knew it, it was almost a clafoutis except a gluten free one.  Best served warm or cold not hot.

Chicken Tray Bake, a thrifty meal for the family

A whole chicken is a great thing.  It can provide multiple meals like chicken pasta bake, orzotto, soup, pie, even more pie etc, etc.

But that said, not everyone wants or needs a whole chicken.  Sometimes it's a bit daunting as well for some people to get to grips with a roast (even if it's one of the easiest things to cook in my opinion).  So this is a roast for extreme novices and also handy for people on limited budgets.

Any vegetables which roast well would work here.  Just make sure you cut them to a suitable size so they cook in the time.  The longer a vegetable takes to cook, the smaller you cut it.  If you cut it too small, it might collapse a bit (like my butternut squash did here) but it's still tasty.

Don't add any oil to the vegetables, there is some fat which cooks out of the chicken which makes them taste yummy.

Child friendly Prawn Laksa

Laksa isn't an obvious choice for a preschooler but why not?  Most kids I know are fans of prawns and noodles.

I've toned this all down a bit to make it friendly for kids who aren't big fans of spice.  Although my son does have more spice in his food than he sometimes realises, last time his Dad cooked him a curry, he was less then keen and apparently ended up eating fish fingers so I went gentle (but noticeable) on the spicing here.

He looked at it.  Said "I don't think I like that"
I said "Have you tried a prawn?"
He said "Ooh, no"
Has a couple of bites, then starts eating the mushrooms and noodles.  I'm trying to photograph my portion while my stomach is rumbling because it smells pretty good (I'm not one of those food bloggers who cooks to photograph, I cook to eat.)
"Mummy this is yummy"
And indeed it was :-)

Borlotti bean, bacon and vegetable soup

It's soup season.  I've called it.  Over the past few weeks I've been grabbing a pack of soup from the freezer and heating it up at work.  It's like a warming cuddle in my day.  Not that I often get bored of tomato and pesto soup, but a bit of variety is good and although this contains bacon, it also contains a lot of lovely fibre.

Onion Bhajis for Toddlers and Grown ups

Onion bhajis or pakoras; is there a more convenient finger food?  They are so ridiculously easy and cheap to make yourself too and you can mix up the type of vegetables in them.  Here I've included a bit of carrot.

My son liked them but only the bits with smaller onion pieces, he found the long bits a bit stringy.  Next time I might make them with more finely chopped or grated vegetables.  He was a big fan of the spicy yoghurt dip though which surprised me.

Spinach and Potato Bites, great for babies and toddlers

I was out running this morning, as you do, and thought about something my Mum used to cook for us sometimes.  In retrospect I suspect it was a way to use up excess mashed potato but it was something I loved.  If I'm honest I was never a big fan of mashed potato on it's own and this mixed it up a bit.

So I made them smaller, added spinach and made these.  They were a big hit with my son.  I gave him 6 and he ate them all first off his plate, even before the fish fingers I served them with and he does love fish fingers (well we all need some time off).

This would be great as a first finger food.  They're still soft when baked.

Low Sugar Mini Cherry Tarts - Great for kids or grown ups

I'm showing my age now, the urge to type "damn fine cherry pies" was very strong.

As I said in my last post, I promised to write up a recipe for the pastry leftovers.  Because I don't know how much pastry you might have, the quantities are per tart.  Please adjust for the number you have!

This isn't sugar free.  Jam is laden with sugar but there is around 1-1.5 tsp jam per tart and only half of that is sugar, not massive amounts of sugar at all, much less than a commercial tart.

Chicken and Mushroom Pies

There is something great about chicken leftovers.  Something which is almost better than the original chicken (almost, I'm a sucker for crispy skin).  The other great thing about making your own pies is you can just stick with pastry on the top which cuts down on the refined carbs and fat and you can include some vegetables (or fungi) in the sauce.