Stuffed Mushrooms

Stuffed mushrooms are one of those foods people think are difficult to make.  "Life is too short to stuff a mushroom" a phrase apparently coined by Shirley Conran.  Stuffing a mushroom does sound difficult, or fiddly but I promise it's not.

 

This super simple stuffing also makes it easy (and delicious).  I just had this as an adult meal for one but my son, a fan of both mushrooms and cheese would love these.  Do include the herbs, after all, without them they'd be a two ingredient recipe and that feels a little bit lame!

Cauliflower Pakoras; great finger food for kids

Cauliflower pakoras are something I'd never made before until recently, but as part of my 7 a day challenge I made some vegetable pakoras using peas and loved them.  When I moved house a few days back and restocked my cupboards (including buying some gram flour), the helpful assistant in the shop suggested cauliflower was pretty good and, in fact her favourite.  She also said that fresh spinach was, in her opinion much better in Indian food than frozen.

I always like a bit of advice when it comes to cooking so I gave it a go.  The jury is out in the spinach.  In my opinion frozen is just as good but the great thing about baby spinach is you can use it as a salad vegetable or cook with it and it just so happened I had some in my fridge so I went with it.

Spinach and Carrot Cannelloni

Cannelloni is a surprisingly easy dish to cook for one.  I had made some tomato and pesto soup the other day and the leftovers were in the fridge.  It occurred to me that it would also make a really good pasta sauce. 

But I had no cream cheese, no goats cheese, no mince, nothing traditional for a cannelloni filling in the house.  So why not vegetables.  Why not?  You know what, it didn't just work, it was delicious!

A great idea for fussy kids not keen on vegetables (or even adults!)

Chocolate Custard (low sugar)

Custard.  I never make it from scratch but I do make it from custard powder.  It occurred to me when making some custard from custard powder the other day that custard powder is simply cornflour (cornstarch) natural flavouring (vanilla) and colour (normally a natural colour like annatto).  I don't have much annatto floating around the house and there feels like something wrong about making white custard even though that's the colour it would be if not made with eggs, so my idea was to make chocolate custard.

This would be great hot with chocolate cake, poured over banana (if you want to keep on my 7 a day routine), on it's own or allowed to cool in small pots and eaten cold like blancmange.  It's pretty low sugar too with only 1 tsp added sugar per portion.  There's more sugar in a fromage frais!

7 a Day Challenge; Day 3 - Vegetable Pakoras

7 fruits and vegetables a day is a bit harder than I thought.

A few days ago, I set myself a challenge to eat 7 fruits and vegetables minimum in 7 days to see how it affected me, my wellbeing and how hard or easy it might be.

I'm on day 3 now and I need to find ways to liven things up!

Breakfast

I was at work early today so took breakfast of rice crispies and a banana.  This is actually far more than I'd normally eat for breakfast so I ended up saving the banana for mid morning.  I will definitely be stretching myself more from a culinary point of view at the weekend when I have more time!

Lunch

Lunch was Gazpacho again (2 portions of vegetables) due to making a double batch yesterday with watermelon and a satsuma afterwards.  I was up to 5 of my 7 after lunch but felt the need to 'retox' with some chocolate cake.  A girl needs something unvirtuous!

Tea

Ok... this week has been harder (even by day 3) than I expected.  I needed fried.  So wrong.  I know, I had chocolate there was even some sugar on the rice crispies.

But the problem is I'm just so full!  Maybe I don't eat big portions but 7 lots of vegetables, in the portion sizes recommended really limits what else you can eat.

So I needed fried.  I needed something which felt wrong even if it was full of vegetables.  Pakora it is!

Vegetable Pakoras - Makes enough for two

Spicy Chicken Goujons

After making my crunchy mackerel strips, it occurred to me the same treatment might work pretty well with chicken and, lo and behold, it does!  The sweet chilli sauce lends flavour and a lovely sticky base for the coating.

I've suggested serving with some gingery noodles but this would be just as much at home with salad or as a beer time snack.

I've not tried my son with this yet but I think he'll be a fan.

Sugar Free Apple Scones

I'm sorry, these must be the ugliest scones ever made but they do taste nice.

My son used to have this huge thing about dried apple, then, overnight, with a huge bag left in the cupboard, he decided he didn't like it anymore.

So I tried these for size and I think they're lovely (if extremely ugly!)

Sugar Free Raspberry Mousse, great for babies and toddlers

It can be easy with toddlers to ease up too much on the 'naughty' snacks and treats.  I'm certainly more relaxed than I used to be but occasionally I try to challenge myself to cut back a bit on the sugar again so I made this mousse with all natural ingredients and no added sugar or sweeteners.  The result was creamy and gently sweetened.  My son said it was "fantastic".

This would be great for all ages including babies.

Crispy Mackerel Salad

So this was a meal for one and a delicious one at that.  It can be difficult to motivate children to eat well but I find my own diet can sometimes be lacking, especially when I'm eating alone.  This is a source of omega 3, tasty and delicious, even if you're a touch reluctant when it comes to oily fish.  Most importantly though, after a long day, it's quick.

Egg Free Pancakes - great for all ages

It never occurred to me that you could make American style pancakes without eggs and you wouldn't be able to notice the difference.  The only way I knew was, one time when making my normal sugar free pancake recipe, I made it as normal then got confused thinking I had more eggs in the fridge than I thought.  I was convinced for years I'd miscounted, but, this morning I gave it a go again and I was right, you don't need the egg!

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with eggs at all and they're a great source of vitamin D but they are also a common food allergy and, if you don't have eggs in, you can still have delicious pancakes!  Result!

Smoked Mackerel Fish Cakes

I may worry (probably unduly) about my child's nutrition but it can be difficult to encourage kids to eat oily fish. Oily fish is an excellent source of Omega 3 oils.  Omega 3 are a group of oils which, although the jury is out on the specific health effects; it's generally believed they're pretty good things to have in your diet.  Sources include things like salmon, herring, sardines, mackerel, fresh tuna, pollock (at lower levels) etc.  There are other sources but oily fish is the most concentrated.  This might not look like a lot of mackerel in the recipe but there's about five times more omega 3 in mackerel than there is in cod.

So how to get this goodie into your child's diet?  A challenge and I've linked some other oily fish recipes at the end if you'd like some more ideas!

Simple Baked Southern Fried Chicken

Ok, sorry to remind you but we're approaching New Year and the time for those resolutions.  What will yours be this year?  Lose weight?  Stop smoking?

Have you ever noticed how resolutions are always about what we don't want rather than what we do want?  That's a bad thing because we're not wired that way.  Don't think about a pink elephant.  Go on, think about ANYTHING else apart from pink elephants.  Don't think about it.  You're thinking about it aren't you?  You can't help yourself!

Anyway, in general, I'm always of the opinion that a bit of what you actually fancy is better than 101 diet products.  Let's face it, if you buy diet biscuits, you eat more biscuits don't you?  Go on, we all know the truth...  So although I'm not a huge fan of dieting per se, I also managed to lose quite a lot of weight in the last two years.  You didn't know that about me did you?  I am now a shadow of my former UK size 16/18 self and am now a comfortable size 12, size 10 in Fat Face or White Stuff on a good day with a fair wind behind me (and size 8-10 in US terms which is even better!)

I can't pretend that I'm healthy all of the time either.  It's not true.  I do exercise but I also occasionally eat chips and, very occasionally, fried chicken.  But that said, I can't bring myself to actually fry chicken at home, I can feel my arteries hardening at the thought and there is something a bit gross about the extreme fattiness of it.  If I ever do buy fried chicken (from a certain well known High Street chain), I always drain it on the paper towels to make it a bit less greasy before eating.

So this recipe is good all round.  Lower in fat but also much less greasy which is a good thing and makes it tastier.  No frying smells to stink out the house and you can feel slightly more virtuous for having your cake (or chicken) and eating it!  Just don't eat 10 pieces because it's 'healthier'!

No added sugar, nut free Granola

I find commercial granolas a bit too sweet if I'm honest and although my son loves things like this for breakfast, they're also pretty expensive and, as a three year old, there is still a choking risk on larger nuts.  Not of course if you make it yourself and control what goes in!  This is refined sugar free!

I have to be totally honest and say the chunks weren't all as quite as big as I would have liked but I suspect I might have to add more honey to make that happen.  There were some satisfyingly large bits though and a tasty and pretty healthy option for breakfast.

This should be for over 1's only due to the honey but also be guided by your child and their ability to chew the delicious chunky bits!  My son has been eating things like this since he was around 2 years old.

Turkey Sliders for all ages

A slider, so I'm told is a small burger.  I've mixed these up by making them with turkey (seasonal) but also sneaking in some hidden vegetables (why not) and a bit of spice!  These are super easy and healthy because they're made with white meat and baked not fried.

I do have a bit of love for sweet chilli sauce.  Although when my son was under 1 I diligently avoided giving him sugar as much as possible, I eased up as he got older.  Sweet chilli as an ingredient is a great way to introduce some gentle spicing in a way that is more predictable than using a small amount of chilli.

He tried some of my sliders with sweet chilli sauce but on balance preferred his served with ketchup.  Had I got any in the house, I would have served these with baked sweet potato wedges but I didn't so I served with cooked carrot sticks instead.  Might seem a bit strange but he loved it!

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 :-)

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.

Gingerbread men

...or considering the time of year... Gingerbread Mummies!!!

I posted a recipe for Gingerbread men a while back (or ninja bread men, I do like a play on words!)  This though is adapted to give a lighter result which is less dominated by anything other than the ginger flavour.  I found the treacle in the old recipe tended to drown out the spicy warmth.