No added sugar banana French toast; great for babies, toddlers and adults

This one had been in the ideas bank for a while.  French toast without the sugar, but with added fruit.  It just seemed right and so great as an idea for babies or toddlers on finger foods.  The only reason I added the icing sugar on the photo was to make it look pretty.  I know, I failed.  Without bacon and syrup, French toast photography is surprisingly hard!  Especially in artificial light at 6:45am!

This is surprisingly sweet reward for my early cooking antics though.  I was expecting to serve it with drizzled honey but none was needed.

Texturally this was pretty similar to American style pancakes so a little more floppy than regular french toast but without having to open a pack of flour.  If you keep bread in the freezer; a few slices defrost easily within 15-20 minutes at room temperature meaning this is a great way to avoid waste too.

Banana French Toast - makes 3 slices

Ingredients

1 banana (see 'make it thrifty')
1 egg
2 tbsp milk
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
3 slices of sliced bread (use wholemeal or 50/50 bread for more fibre.)
Spray oil or butter to cook

Method

Peel and blend the banana with the egg, milk and vanilla.  Make sure it's fully blended with no lumps.

Pour into a bowl.

Preheat a non stick frying pan and spray with spray oil or butter.

Dip each slice into the egg mix then cook in turn until browned on both sides.  A medium heat seemed to be best.

Delicious on it's own or serve with extra sliced banana.

Make it Thrifty:

This is a great way to use up over-ripe bananas that you don't fancy eating as they are and by freezing sliced bread and using either straight from the freezer or defrosting, you are much less likely to have wasted bread.  About 40% of bread I bought in this house used to be wasted!  No longer!

If you like this you might like this Vanilla French Toast:

Great Quick Post Parent and Tots Food

I don't know about you but for years I was going to Parent and Tots groups which finish just before lunch.  My son has never been great at hanging on for food and for a long time also went down for a nap straight after he'd finished his plate.  I thought I'd put together a short roundup of great things to make when you're really short of time and have a hungry, tired baby or toddler who needs food quick followed by a long snooze!

I love pasta for quick food.  A great one for this is bolognese sauce made in a slow cooker; prep in the morning over breakfast, come back and it's done.  Pasta only takes 10 minutes to cook from dried or even less if you're using the quick cooking kind or fresh pasta so this means you're ready to eat in no time and no standing over a stove to get there.  The other great thing when they're really small is you can run the cooked pasta under a cold tap then mix with the hot sauce so that the overall dish cools down super quick.  I remember those days of jiggling a hungry baby saying "it just needs to cool down".  Pasta is also pretty popular with kids in general and the great thing about my bolognese recipe is it's a fantastic source of hidden vegetables and iron as it contains beef and chicken livers.  Alternatively if you grill the peppers in advance, this amazingly tasty and gorgeous looking sausage pasta is a about a 12 minute job.



Sandwiches.  Yawn!  Yes I know but especially if you're going on somewhere else they are the portable lunch.  Just keep an eye on salt content, especially for babies.  My son though has been particularly partial to a pate sandwich since he was about 13 months old.  It's amazing what strong flavours kids love.

Alternatively mix it up a bit by making Quesadillas.  You can put almost anything in these as long as you include cheese (a great way of hiding vegetables.)  Make it more interesting for you by adding some salsa on the side.

But then we come back to comfort food.   Anything on toast!  Why not try low sugar and salt baked beans?  (Chose the type without added sweeteners though.)  Or perhaps scrambled egg?  Although these might not look like healthy options, beans count towards one of your five a day and eggs are one of the few dietary sources of vitamin D; a nutrient many kids are short of.

Alternatively, scrub some jacket potatoes, prick and put in the oven with a timer to come on.  Just don't forget to set the heat to come on too!  (I once managed to do this and came back to raw, hard potatoes which was very disappointing!)

I came up with the idea for Sweetcorn Fritters when I was stuck with less than 10 minutes before complete hunger related meltdown!  I must have made them fifty times or more now and they always go down well.  I can't believe I didn't think of them earlier because it's a great idea to have in the back of your mind when your child has had one of those days where every vegetable gets refused (they all have them!)

Then think about leftovers.  What can you make in an evening to eat hot and have cold the next day once you come back from your playgroup?  Sausage plait is a great idea.  Or why not make small hidden vegetable sausage rolls or even vegetarian 'sausage' rolls?

Soup isn't just for winter either.  This tomato and pesto soup takes 10 minutes to cook and my son is always pretty keen when he has it.  Not sugar free but a small amount when you take into account the portion size.








Anything noodles is great and these Singapore noodles are interesting, different for kids, tasty and less than 10 minutes start to finish.

It might not sound healthy but fried rice is a cunning way to get your child to eat more healthily.  Yes, really!  Use some spray oil so it's not really fatty if you like and you can cunningly sneak the vegetables in.  I love this mushroom fried rice and sometimes get some peas in too.  It's one of my son's favourite meals; if you use easy cook basmati, it takes no more than 12 mins to cook!





So I hope I've convinced you, there is no need to reach for the toddler ready meal or jar and, if you think about the wealth of meals you could have in your freezer; from meatballs to soups and stews, you need never be short of a decent meal!

Delicious home made food is possible and absolutely within your reach in minutes!

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!

Broccoli and Goats Cheese Frittata - makes enough for two but any leftovers are great cold

Ingredients

110g, 4oz Broccoli (see make it thrifty below)
3 Eggs
2 tbsp milk
1 tbsp cornflour (cornstarch)
30g, 1 oz Extra mature (extra sharp) cheddar
90g, 3oz Rinded goats' cheese, often called 'chèvre blanc'

Method

Preheat the oven to 180oC, 350F, Gas mark 4.

Chop the broccoli into very small florets or pieces (include the stalk, see below) put in boiling water on a hot hob for 4 minutes, then drain and rinse with cold water

Mix the egg, milk, cornflour and cheddar together.

Line a 7 inch round cake tin with non stick baking paper.  Spray or grease with oil.  Pour in half of the frittata mixture, scatter on the broccoli then pour the rest over the top.

Thinly slice the goats' cheese and arrange on the top.

Bake for 17-20 minutes (it took 18 in my oven). 

Leave to cool for a bit, it's better served warm or cold rather than hot.  Is the humble frittata the ideal dish for busy parents to cook?  No harm is done if your baby cries out for your attention just as you're taking your first bite.  Even better if you don't get to eat (we've all been there), leftovers are just as good kept in the fridge and eaten the next day.  Don't say I don't think about you busy parents too! 

Make it Thrifty:

Make this recipe cheaper by making use of the broccoli stalk as well as the florets.  Just trim off the end and cut into an approx 1cm / half inch dice and cook with the normal broccoli florets.  

This post is an entry for the #ShortcutEggsperts Linky Challenge sponsored by British Lion Eggs. Learn more and find recipes at www.eggrecipes.co.uk

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!

Baked Vanilla Custards - makes 2

Ingredients

1 tbsp sugar
2 Egg yolks
150ml, 5 fl ounces, 2/3 cup Semi skimmed (2%) milk
1/4 tsp Vanilla extract or paste

Method

Preheat the oven to 180oC / 350F

Mix all the ingredients together, pour into two ramekins.

Put in a bain marie (a baking dish with water from the kettle in it which you set your dishes inside).  Bake for 15-20 minutes or until set with a slight wobble.

Leave until only just warm or cold to serve.  If serving later, store in the fridge.

Make it Thrifty:

The best way to save money while making this recipe is to make sure the oven is fully used so cook alongside other things although this is a pretty thrifty recipe as it is because it uses no cream.  

A way to use up the egg whites (although it's a pretty naughty treat) is to make a pavlova.  You can easily reduce the size of my pavlova recipe and make a smaller one or use the two egg whites make mini pavlova recipe meringues (cook for the same time as the original recipe.)  Alternatively use the egg white in a recipe where egg is only there to 'bind' ingredients or as a 'glue' like in chicken nuggets as that way you don't miss the flavour of the missing yolk.

Thrifty Sunday Lunch Options

Please excuse some of the photography on this post, some of the recipes are quite old on my blog (and I'd like to think my photography has improved) but I thought I'd run through some of the things I like to make for Sunday Lunch without breaking the bank.  Tomorrow it's going to be Game Pie but I will blog about that later.  In the meantime, here are some other delicious options without spending £20 on a joint of meat.

Toad in the Hole.  Ok, it's not all that healthy but there's something about putting sausages into batter which makes it more of a "sit around the table and have a long lunch and a natter" kind of food.  That, in my view is what Sundays are all about!

Pot roast.  I love pot roast (and I love my slow cooker).  What's even better about having a pot roast though is the leftovers made into the easiest and tastiest cottage pie in the world (in my opinion!)  Brisket is also a pretty cheap cut, much cheaper than a straight roasting joint.






A good beef stew with Yorkshires takes some beating.  Again, by using a cheaper cut of meat, you get all the flavour of beef for Sunday lunch and all of the trimmings without spending a fortune on a cut of beef.  Cheaper cuts have much more flavour and cooked gently for a long time, end up much softer too.  Great for kids who can find the texture of meat off-putting.

Baked glazed gammon can be a really thrifty meal and the leftovers in sandwiches are amazing.
When I was little, my Mum always used to serve this with a cheese sauce so we didn't complain about the lack of gravy!

This roasted lamb shoulder always gets a huge number of hits on a Sunday.  Surprising for the terrible photography but trust me, it tastes great and it's a great way to have lamb when you have a small family.  A leg of lamb is just too big for most people nowadays.

If you have roast chicken a lot (and why not, one chicken can do several meals), this recipe is a way to jazz it up a bit with a herb butter.

Or more thrifty and easier still, by doing a tray bake, you get all of the flavour of a roast chicken but in smaller portions and the vegetables cook at the same time.

Not the thriftiest option but still cheaper than a lot of meats, keep an eye on the price of duck.  If you do get one at a decent price, slow roasting it means the skin alone is totally worth it.

And last but not least, don't forget the roast potatoes!  Why do people buy frozen roast potatoes?  They are genuinely easy to make.

Roasted roots

You may have seen a slightly unusual accompaniment to my smoked mackerel fish cakes the other day.  Yes, they were roasted carrots and radishes!  Two things we don't often roast but I'd given my son boiled carrots earlier in the day and we were a little low on vegetables so didn't just want to give him the same.  I'd seen roasted radishes in gastropub type menus and thought "why not?"

I often say to parents who have children who are fussy; "try cutting or cooking things differently".  For example, when my son was a baby he went off halved grapes.  I tried slicing them one day and he liked them again!  He went off broccoli for a while so I tried it in my monster mash and he loved it again.  Get the idea?  So although my son loves carrots, I thought I'd try and mix it up a bit.  If your child is less keen on carrots, they might go for this and the radishes lose all of their 'heat' on roasting meaning they end up just tasting of lovely roastiness.  Is that a word?  Probably not.

Roasted roots

Ingredients

1 medium sized carrot
Approx 4-6 small red radishes
1-2 tsp olive oil

Method

Top and tail the carrot and give it a wash.  Rinse the radishes and take off any leaves.  Halve the radishes and cut the carrots into sticks.

Toss in the oil and roast in a baking dish at 200oC / 400F / Gas mark 6 for approx 40 minutes.

My son asked for seconds of the radishes!

These would be great finger foods for babies.  Just check they're cooked for long enough and are cool enough to handle.

Make it Thrifty:

Cook in the oven at the same time as other items, like my fishcakes to cut down on energy costs.

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!

Smoked Mackerel Fish Cakes - made 6

Ingredients

1 Potato (mine weighed just over 200g, 7oz before peeling)
85g, 3oz Butternut squash (peeled weight)
1 tsp mild, grainy mustard
25g, 1oz Hot smoked mackerel (i.e. the type which is ready to eat)
Spray oil

Method

Peel the potato and cut the butternut squash into chunks and then boil together in water for approx 20-25 mins or until fully cooked.  Drain well then mash together using a potato masher.  Allow to cool.

Flake the mackerel into the mash mix and add the mustard.  The mix might be a bit soft but once you get your hands in it should be pretty mouldable.

Mix well then shape into fishcakes and put on a lined baking tray.  Cover and chill until ready to cook.

When ready to cook, preheat an oven to 200oC, 400F, gas mark 6.

Uncover and spray the tops with spray oil.  Bake for 25-30 mins or until brown.

My 3 year old ate 4 of them (he asked for seconds).  I think that's a hit!

Make it Thrifty:

Try using leftover vegetables to make this to keep costs down and why not cook something else in the oven at the same time?  Like sweet potato wedges to have on the side (or roast carrots and radishes like I did if you're feeling more adventurous) or a crumble for pudding?

Here are some other great oily fish recipes for your family:





Tuna Meatballs

Fish Pie











Herb crusted Salmon

Baked Salmon Fishcakes







January's Family Foodies challenge is all about 'hidden goodies' and this recipe has hidden veg and Omega 3.  I've submitted this along with a few other recipes to Bangers and Mash and Eat your veg's challenge:

My Favourite Healthy Smart Swap Recipes

Well we're thinking on with it being New Year; time for change, renewal and as many people do, dieting.

I've said before, I'm not 100% sure that dieting works; especially if you are substituting 'diet' products for regular.  I know this is a controversial attitude, particularly considering official government advice reported in the media today.  That said though, some people really are out of the habit of eating healthily and I know I get like that sometimes and need to give myself a shake up, wake up and start to realise how delicious healthier food can be.  So rather than swapping sugary drink for sugar free, these are MY smart swap recipes!

Not all of them are salads either (even if this goats cheese salad is delicious) I can appreciate some people reject stuff like this as 'rabbit food' and need a little more encouragement towards their 5 a day.

So here are some recipes which often contain fruit and / or vegetables and have something else about them which I think makes them worthwhile as a 'healthy' recipe depending on your approach.  After all, remember, everything is ok in moderation but the important word is 'moderation' not 'everything'!

Frittata is a great way to get the flavour of a quiche without all of the fat and refined carbohydrate from the pastry, also a great way to get vegetables into your family's diet.

Fresh tuna is an excellent source of Omega 3.  Most of us don't have the right kind of balance of these good fats in our diet and oily fish like fresh tuna is one of the best sources.  Not all kids are massive fans though.  No problem with these tuna 'meat'balls.  Don't get me wrong, I think encouraging a love for fish is a great thing but for the most fussy of kids who aren't keen; they won't even notice they're eating fish or why not try my baked Salmon fishcakes?

My son has always been a reluctant salad eater.  So I decided to practice what I preach as I often advise other parents to try serving up rejected foods cooked or even just cut a different way.  This chopped salad was a winner and I thought it was tasty too.  Or why not try my coleslaw?

I always think spice is a great way to add flavour without loads of fat or calories.  This baked spicy chicken is delicious, yet made with skin off chicken thighs.  Very easy to cook for one busy Mum too.  Or why not try my baked Southern Fried Chicken?

With British interpretations of Indian food, there are often loads of hidden calories in the accompaniments; naan breads, poppadoms, pilau with ghee.  It all adds up.  If you're smart, rather than loading up with the calories in the bits which don't add all that much flavour anyway, why not have a salad?  Kachumber is deliciously cooling and full of vitamin C.

Soups are a fantastic way to reach your 5 a day without much effort and soup is more likely to fill you up with fewer calories.  Tomato and pesto soup is my current favourite, only 10-15 mins to make and really loved by my son too.  I often make extra, freeze in individual portions and reheat for lunch at work.  Wonderful on these blustery days, maybe substitute for gazpacho when the weather gets warmer.

Talking of quick meals, making these sweetcorn fritters is an awesome quick dish.  'Fritters' might not sound healthy but use spray oil and these aren't bad and remember if you serve this alongside some vegetables or salad, you're well on your way to 5 a day.

It's worth keeping an eye out for raw frozen prawns on offer in your local shops, not only are they frozen quickly and don't go off, they are delicious and healthy.  Baked prawns with a tomato salad and some crusty bread feels like a luxurious way to live life but as long as you're not lavish with the baked goods, it will taste good and help you look good too.

While I'm on the theme of prawns; making prawns into this sweet and sour is a great way to up the vegetable content of the dish and reduce the sugar.  It's still sweet but without the sugary gloopiness of commercial versions and with fresh green peppers, fresh pineapple and fresh carrots, it's full of vitamins too.  Piece of cake to make and very cheap as well.







I also love these thai style lettuce wraps; again a great way to cut the calories because it's served with lettuce rather than rice.









But even breakfast can be more delicious than breakfast cereal and can have added fibre and fruit like these wholemeal pancakes.

We could all do worse than starting the day as our grandparents would have.  A boiled or scrambled egg used to be seen as an ideal breakfast then fell out of favour due to Salmonella and the cholesterol content in the 80's.  Little did we know back then that the dietary cholesterol in eggs has little impact on blood cholesterol and now UK eggs are vaccinated against Salmonella and eggs are a fantastic source of vitamin D, they are a great option.  Alternatively porridge is a great source of beta glucan which is known to help heart health.

It's amazing how much a proper breakfast like this keeps you sated too and less likely to snack.

So I hope that convinces you with these photos of delicious looking food that healthy isn't necessarily boring, in fact, it can be far more appetising than the alternatives and not difficult to make at all.

I hope you enjoy.  Good luck with your plans for New Year.

I've linked to Nomday Monday.