Parsnip Mash

I came up with this recipe for Parsnip Mash on my new blog but thought I'd would share it here as well because it would be absolutely fantastic for babies too.

Minestrone Soup for all ages

Soup might not seem like the most summery recipe but with a drizzle of olive oil, this really hit the spot, especially when the weather is less than you'd hope for.

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.

Honey Ginger Glazed Tuna

Glazed tuna, a pretty tasty invention, I have a feeling this would work with any kind of robust oily fish.  The idea is you add the flavour after the cooking so you don't get issues with the sweet sauce burning in the pan.  I enjoyed this and have made it twice already, what's more, fresh or frozen tuna is a great source of Omega 3 (tinned isn't).  It's also great to make something like tuna the star of the show when so often it's just bunged in a sandwich as a cheap protein source, although I have to admit my favourite way to have tuna is sushi but with the sweet gingery notes, this still hits the mark.

This isn't mad spicy so should be fine for kids but no babies please as it contains honey.

Gluten Free Pancakes

Chickpea pancakes might sound like an odd proposition for breakfast but bear with me.  Chickpea (garbanzo bean) flour or 'Besan' has a distinctive, savoury taste but there is something delicious about that served with syrup, just like that salty sweet combo of bacon and syrup is something fantastic, so was this.

The amazing thing about chickpea (garbanzo bean) flour is it has over double the amount of protein compared with wheat flour which makes them amazingly filling so a great start for the day, and, handily for coeliacs (or people choosing to avoid gluten), it's naturally gluten and wheat free.

The verdict was "nice but not quite as good as the normal ones" from the household, I disagreed.  I really liked them and I felt seriously full until lunch.

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

7 a day challenge: Carrot cake Bircher Muesli

The things I learned the most in my first day of trying to have 7 fruits and vegetables in my diet were:

• It takes organisation
• I need to buy more fruit and veg urgently (so much so after only buying some on Monday I went out for more today)
• A 'portion' is bigger than I thought so it's not just about variety but about quantity
• It's a bit confusing what a portion size is for a child so for my 3 year old I aimed for variety and didn't get too hung up on how much he ate
• I'm going to get very bored weighing ingredients very, very quickly...

Today was a day at home with my son.

Breakfast

My first day of 7 fruit and vegetables in 7 days started with a Bircher Muesli.  It might look like a bowl of mush (ok it is kind of a bowl of mush) but it's also a great way to get raw fruit and vegetables into your breakfast.

As I said yesterday, I think the key to getting to 7 in a day is to include fruit and vegetables into every meal.

I didn't add any sugar or honey and you could if you like but both my son and I liked it as it was  ("it delicious!")

Carrot Cake Bircher Muesli - Makes 1 adult portion

Spanish Sausage and Beans

I did think about calling this "Spanish Cassoulet" but, well it's not really but that's what it was inspired by.

For various reasons I'm currently running down my freezer and I had a pack of raw chorizo style cooking sausages in there.  I also had an enormous pack of dried haricot beans in the cupboard which have been there for more than a year (if you read my Britmums Cassoulet post you might see why!)  Anyway, I do love the combination of the sausage and beans in cassoulet and wondered if I could mix it up a bit.

Fish and Cauliflower bake, great for all ages

I had thought for a while about making something which was like a fish pie meets cauliflower cheese.  Fish pie is great but it would be great to include some more vegetables.

This recipe has two vegetables and is a source of omega 3.  My son described it as 'delicious'!  Although he didn't eat as many peas on the side as I would have liked, can you tell there are four different vegetables on this plate?  Nope?  Neither could he!

Goats cheese frittata, great for kids

My son eats pretty well, I know what you're thinking, "My kid won't eat goats' cheese and they're certainly not fans of broccoli!".  They can and they might just surprise you.  My 3 year old is a bit of a cheese fan (as am I) and I do love quiches.  The thing is, calorie wise and salt wise the pastry adds loads and, although I'm a fan of crisp, buttery pastry, the filling is where it's at with a quiche anyway and you know what?  I can be bothered to make a quiche about once in a blue moon.  By making it as a frittata, it's mega quick, easy and tasty and the result looks like you've spent ages over something dead simple.  I'd happily serve this to adults and it would make a pretty nice starter with a spinach salad dressed with walnuts and vinaigrette.  Also, cunningly, by excluding the crust, this recipe is now also wheat free as well as being vegetarian.

As a result of this love of the frittata's taste, ease and convenience you might notice I've been messing around with frittatas made like crustless quiches (i.e. in the oven) a lot recently.  I've always been a fan of goats cheese quiches so tried making a frittata along similar lines. It was meant to be beautifully arranged circles of a small goats cheese log, but that didn't turn up on my food order (the perils of ordering food online) so the presentation isn't quite as pretty as I hoped it would be but it was really tasty.  I mean REALLY tasty.  I'm definitely making this again!

Baked Vanilla Custards - suitable for babies, children and adults

A very simple and not massively unhealthy pudding.  Less than 2 tsp sugar per serving.  Pretty thrifty ingredients too!

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 salt free poultry stock and how to make gravy

It's Christmas Eve Eve (i.e. the 23rd) and I picked up our goose yesterday from Seldom Seen farm.  Yes, goose is an extravagance but even at the pampered free range prices you're looking at less than £3 per portion for each meal we will eat it for.  You can't even get a meal in a Toby carvery for that!

So we're having goose but even if we have turkey I always make stock a day or two in advance.  I've been warned though that although you get masses of fat (great for roast potatoes) juices can be a bit thin on the ground with a goose so I'm making some stock.

Stock is stupidly easy to make.  Think about it as bones and water and you get the idea.  At other times of year I make stock from left over roast bones (especially chicken) but for Christmas it gets a bit special, albeit not expensive.

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.

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.

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.