How I got my son eating lettuce

My son is generally a reluctant salad eater.  He will eat coleslaw, occasionally some cucumber but anything leafy is a flat refusal on the salad front.

This got me thinking... what if I chop it smaller?  What I often say to people with fussy kids is to try cutting up the food or serving it in a different way.  I should say here, all parents think their kids are fussy sometimes and they'd be right.  All kids at least go through a fussy stage or have something they flat refuse.

So this was the outcome.  A few lettuce leaves, some cucumber, raw peas... mix this up how you like and you could even add some chopped apple if your child isn't much of a fan of savoury food.  Radish might be nice, as would grated broccoli stem (might sound odd but it tastes cabbagey).

Chopped salad - makes at least 2 portions as a side dish

Ingredients

1/2 a Carrot, peeled
A handful of mixed salad leaves, the crisper the better
60g, 2oz Cucumber
A few raw peas (miss out or substitute for chopped sugar snap peas if out of season)
45g, 1.5oz Frozen sweetcorn
2 tbsp Mayonnaise (use commercial mayonnaise if feeding to under 12 months as it's pasteurised)
A squeeze of lemon juice

Method

Grate the carrot and put into a bowl.  Chop the lettuce up finely, less than 1cm / scant 1/2 inch if you can

Finely dice the cucumber and pod the peas.

Cook the sweetcorn in boiling water then cool immediately using cold water and drain.

Mix the carrot, lettuce, cucumber, peas, sweetcorn, mayonnaise and a squeeze of lemon juice.

Serve with a sandwich or alongside some sausages or barbecued meat.

'Creamy' Mushroom Tagliatelle for Toddlers

This is a very simple and not overly strongly flavoured pasta dish which might be pretty good for the pickier eaters among us.  Similar to my creamy mushroom pasta I posted as my very first recipe post but rather than cream cheese this uses eggs to create a creamy sauce.  This means it's a great source of vitamin D as eggs and mushrooms are two of the few dietary sources.

I say 'creamy' because this contains no cream, and so depending on the severity of the intolerance may be suitable for lactose intolerant kids (as hard cheese is low in lactose but not suitable for people with milk protein allergy); be guided by your medical practitioner.  The eggs are lightly cooked so not for under 12 month olds; use vaccinated 'Lion' eggs if in the UK.

Creamy Mushroom Tagliatelle - Serves 1 hungry toddler

Ingredients

1/2 tsp Olive oil
1 clove of garlic
60g, 2oz Button or chestnut mushrooms
1 Egg yolk
20g, just over 1/2oz Extra mature or vintage (extra sharp) cheddar
30g, 2oz Dried tagliatelle
Fresh parsley to serve (optional if your child isn't on an 'anti green bits' battle)

Method

Cook the tagliatelle in boiling water following pack instructions.

While it's cooking, fry the mushrooms and whole, peeled clove of garlic for approx 3 minutes in the oil.  Remove the garlic.

While the mushrooms are frying, grate the cheese and mix the egg yolk and 2 tbsp cold water and a tbsp of fresh, chopped parsley if using.

Drain the pasta reserving a little of the pasta water and add to the hot mushrooms.  Add the egg mixture and take off the heat immediately.  Stir until the cheese is melted and the sauce thickened and coating the pasta.

For adults, I'd be tempted to fry a little bacon off with the mushrooms or chose an interesting variety.

My son was a fan, although the green bits were not 100% appreciated.

Make it Thrifty:
It's tempting to buy the enormous 'value' packs of mushrooms but I always found I was throwing half of them out.  Much better and more cost effective to just buy 100g or so in a week loose to serve as a side vegetable or in dishes like this.  Although the cost per gram is higher, the overall cost is lower when you work out what you would have thrown away.
Using cheddar rather than parmesan in a dish like this is much more cost effective.  Use a very mature one though as a little goes a long way.

Watermelon Ice Lollies Great for Toddlers

If I can encourage you to do one thing this summer, which is setting out to be a scorcher, is buy an ice lolly mould.  Ice lollies are so expensive to buy and often full of sugar, artificial food colourings and other stuff which isn't all that great for kids.

Much better is to make your own lollies out of fruit or fruit juice with a little added sugar if needed.  Even if you do add something to make it sweeter, it's still far more natural, lower in added sugar and can count towards their 5 a day!  In fact, one of these ice lollies contains 60g of fruit and only around half a teaspoon of added sugar.

So here is my latest ice lolly recipe.  My 3 year old said "I like pink lollies best" when he had one of these and was upset when I wouldn't give him one at 6:30pm because it was bath time!

Low Sugar Watermelon Ice Lollies - made about 5 but depends on the size of your moulds

Ingredients

300g, 11oz Watermelon, preferably the seedless kind or the type with only soft seeds or see method
1 tbsp Caster sugar (may need slightly less, depending on how sweet your melon is)

Method

If you have a watermelon with seeds, you may find the majority of them are in a single layer.  To save hassle, cut this layer out, otherwise you have a little bit of a job picking out the black seeds.  If the seeds are soft and whiteish then just leave them in.

Cut up the flesh into small pieces and put into a blender.  You need 300g / 11oz of cut up fruit.  Add the sugar and blend.  You might need to shake it a bit and poke it down to get it going but once it starts, the watermelon will blend really easily.  Don't be tempted to add water.

Once you have a smoothish slush, pour into the moulds and leave to freeze overnight.

Help to remove from the moulds by running the outside of the mould under warm water and easing out the lolly.

The Best Salads

I do like a good salad but when I was growing up, "salad" meant some cucumber, some little gem lettuce and a flavourless hard tomato, with salad cream if you were lucky.  Nowadays shops, palettes and awareness of alternatives have all caught up so the humble salad is now not quite so humble even if my son did say recently (while eating a piece of cucumber) "Girls eat salad!"

Salads are a great way to increase the amount of vegetables in your diet fairly easily.  There aren't many of us who manage 5 a day on a regular basis but put a salad in your lunchbag instead of a sandwich and you're well on your way.

Seeing the weather is unseasonably warm in the UK right now, I thought I'd share with you some of my favourite "more interesting" salad recipes.

My favourite has to be Goats Cheese Salad.  Goats cheese is pretty rich but the dressing and slight bitterness of the nuts offsets it nicely.

Also brilliant if you're trying to cut down on carbohydrates with lots of healthy oils in the olive oil and nuts.

Believe it or not, people actually buy coleslaw.  It's so easy to make yourself and much nicer too I think.  Adding a little apple also makes it much more popular with children and it's a great barbecue side dish, just keep in the fridge until the food is ready.

Indian salads are mostly ignored in UK restaurants but I've included three Indian style dishes.  The classic Kachumber, Indian carrot salad and chickpea (garbanzo bean) salad.

A great way for Indian food to not feel so heavy and rich.

Please excuse the photo I think I took this on my phone but my Vietnamese style salad which is a kind of cross over of two Vietnamese recipes is just lovely.  Great warm or cold for lunch the next day, you'd never guess no fat is added to this and that the chicken is cooked skin off.

It is courgette (zucchini) season right now and a simple salad makes the most of this vegetable you might not have considered eating raw or why not have a tomato salad in your lunchbox?

Salads are also a great way of using up leftovers as you can see from this old recipe for a Salmon pasta salad.  It's a great thing if you're thinking "that salmon portion is too big to cook for my child".  Simply cook it but only serve half and save the rest for tomorrow.

Don't forget the kids though, this recipe for potato salad was something I was serving when my child first started on foods with more texture.  A great way to make a dish to take out that's easy to serve wherever you are.

As kindly suggested, below I've linked this up to made from pinterest and another linky here.

Sausage Pasta for the Whole Family

I'd always been really nervous about cooking sausage pasta, too many memories of student meals made with value sausages but I was inspired by the Salsiccia Pasta at my local Italian Caffe to give it a go, this isn't an attempt to copy the recipe and anyway it's not a patch on the pasta Alison D'Angelo sells at Caffe Italia, but I hope she wouldn't be embarrassed by my efforts!

Sausage Pasta - Easily makes enough sauce for 1 adult and 1 toddler.

Ingredients

Approx 200g, 7oz Sausages (use garlicky Italian ones if you can get them, I couldn't, so I used good quality pork sausages)
2 Cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp Olive oil
1 Red pepper (capsicum)
Approx 250g, 9oz Passata
A couple of sprigs of fresh rosemary
A couple of sprigs of fresh parsley
A couple of sprigs of fresh oregano
2 tbsp double (heavy) cream
1 tsp pesto

Pasta and parmesan to serve.

Method

Before you want to start (you can do this hours before if you like), put the red pepper under a grill (broiler) at the highest setting and grill until the skin starts to blacken.  Put in a dish and cover with cling film (saran wrap) for a few minutes then push off the thin skin.  Scrape out the seeds and stalk and chop.  This can be stored in the fridge for up to a day.

When ready to eat, heat the oil in a pan, push the sausage out of their skins into large lumps and add the sausage and garlic to the pan, fry for a couple of minutes.  Depending on what kind of pasta and whether it's fresh or dried, you might want to put that on to cook around now.

Once the sausage is starting to cook and the garlic softening, add the passata, pepper and the rosemary.  Simmer for 5-8 minutes or until the sausage is cooked and the sauce is thickening.  Add in the cream, remaining herbs and pesto and simmer for a couple of minutes more.

Serve with cooked pasta and a sprinkling of parmesan if liked.

All gone!

A hit with both me and my 3 year old and really quick to make.

I've linked this here:

Honey Digestive Biscuits - no refined sugar

I'd been thinking about making a simple, no nonsense, "no bad stuff" biscuit for a while and I'd had some attempts at making some sugar free.  If I'm honest though, I was never happy with them.  Unlike a cake, a sweet biscuit is very difficult to make without sugar.

After a few attempts though I settled on this recipe.  Not strictly sugar free because it contains honey but no refined sugars and pretty low in sugar overall.  Yet it's still sweet but in that sweet / slightly savoury way that digestive biscuits are which make them as at home with a cup of tea or with strong cheddar.

I was impressed and will make them again.  Just keep an eye on them, the temperatures and times are for my oven and after I overcooked a previous batch, I lowered the temperature to what you see below.  You want to take them out of the oven when they're just starting to colour and firming up.

Obviously due to the honey, these won't be suitable for kids under the age of 12 months.

Honey Digestive Biscuits - Made 15-30 depending on size

Ingredients

2.5oz, 70g Self Raising Wholemeal Flour (or Wholemeal biscuit flour with 1tsp baking powder added)
0.5oz, 15g Porridge oats
1.5oz, 45g Butter - make with solid vegetable margarine or vegetable shortening if avoiding dairy
1 tbsp Runny honey
1oz, 30g Wheatgerm

Method

Preheat the oven to 170oC, 340F, Gas mark 3-4.

Rub the dry ingredients into the butter using a food processor.  Add the honey and process for a few more seconds.  Tip out onto a board and bring together with your hands.

Once in a ball roll out with some more flour until 2-3 mm thick.  Cut out the shapes of your choosing (hearts for me, no ninjas today) and put onto baking paper.  Bake for 6-8 minutes (7 in my oven) until browning and firming up.  Leave to cool on the baking paper for a few minutes then transfer to a cooling rack.

Serve as a snack or pudding for your child or with a cup of tea or cheeses.  Very popular with the little man.

Update: These are also great baked from frozen, just add on a minute and keep an eye on them.  A great way to have freshly baked biscuits!

What do I mean by "no bad stuff"?  I guess over the years, despite my science background I've settled on liking to eat foods which haven't been messed with too much.  It's not a hard and fast rule but certainly with my son I don't give him sweeteners, I don't give him a huge amount of sugar either.  I'm happy to give him animal fats but he also has plenty of olive oil in his diet.  Frankly I try and make our diets as "unfussed with" as I can.