thegingerbreadmum

Creamy mushroom pasta sauce

Posted on May 21, 2012 by TheGingerbreadMum

Pasta. What child doesn’t love pasta? My Italian husband’s very happy that Nicholas absolutely adores pasta. And the amount of pasta Nicholas can eat in one sitting constantly amazes me. Lunch after his swimming class at the weekend was a chunk of lasagne at Carluccio’s, from their lovely children’s menu. A chunk of lasagne that looked like an adult’s portion. He didn’t eat all of it, but almost all of it!

While this isn’t a pasta sauce you’d make several servings of and freeze, you can whip it up very quickly in the microwave while the pasta is cooking.

CREAMY MUSHROOM PASTA SAUCE

Prep time: 5 mins
Cook time: 5 mins
Makes 1 serving

6 closed cup mushrooms
2 tbsp water
1 large basil leaf, finely chopped
1 tbsp plain yogurt

Chop the mushrooms into cubes about 0.5cm. Put them in a small microwave-safe bowl with the water and cook on medium for 5 mins.

Stir in the basil and yogurt until combined.

Serve over pasta.

Variations:

add a small squeeze of lemon juice
use fresh parsley instead of basil

Other uses:

eat with rice
use as a crepe filling for toddlers and adults

Chocolate fork biscuits

Posted on May 20, 2012 by TheGingerbreadMum

Happy World Baking Day! Although I should have baked a cake, I decided to bake something much quicker and that would last a bit longer than a cake – biscuits.

This is one of my oldest favourites, written down in the first notebook, when I left home to go to uni at 18, that became my first recipe book. I don’t remember whether it was a recipe I copied from my mum or from a magazine. It was long before being able to easily scour the internet for recipes. Can you imagine not being able to do that?!

The recipe says to stir in the flour, cocoa and salt, but I just add them to the food processor, after the sugar and butter have been nicely whipped,and whizz them up to combine. Most of your preparation time is rolling the dough into balls. I’ll definitely try to get Nicholas doing this job as soon as possible!

A lovely crumbly buttery biscuit, from the simplest of ingredients, they’re perfect to whip up for afternoon tea, for parents to snack on during playdates, to give as a homemade present, or simply as a well-earned treat. Put your angel down for a nap, and you should be able to make these and have happily eaten some before they wake up.

CHOCOLATE FORK BISCUITS

Prep time: 20 mins
Cook time: 8 mins
Makes about 25
Can freeze uncooked dough

125g unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup caster sugar
1 cup self-raising flour
2 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder
A pinch of salt

Heat oven to 190C and grease two baking trays.

In a food processor or with electric beaters, cream the butter until soft then add sugar, gradually beating until white and fluffy. Stir in sifted flour, cocoa and salt until a creamed mixture.

Roll mixture into small walnut-sized balls and place on greased baking trays. Flatten each ball with a fork dipped in cold water.

Bake for 8 mins. Leave to cool on trays for a few minutes and then be careful when lifting them off as they’ll still be quite soft. Cool on a wire rack.

Enjoy with a large glass of milk!

Variations:

sandwich two biscuits together with some icing (an orange flavoured icing would work well)
break up some fruit and nut chocolate or some white chocolate and stir into the finished mixture

What are your ‘go to’ recipes that never fail and always impress?

1 Comment

Posted in family, recipe, snack and tagged baking, biscuit, caster sugar, chocolate biscuit, cocoa, cocoa powder, freezable, freeze, salt, self-raising flour, sugar, vegetarian, world baking day. Bookmark the permalink.

Mini beef burgers

Posted on May 18, 2012 by TheGingerbreadMum

I also think of these as mini burgers with hidden veg. You could add lots of different vegetables. Parsnip and sweet potato immediately come to mind, and of course onion. Cooking the vegetables first means you can cook the burgers fairly quickly. Of course, add which ever herbs you like, fresh or dried. If you don’t want to fry them you could bake them in the oven.

They’re a great finger food either on their own or dipped into homemade tomato sauce. Or keep them round rather than flattening them, and add them to pasta and homemade tomato sauce for a version of spaghetti and meatballs.

Another great meal to have in your freezer.

MINI BEEF BURGERS

Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 10 mins
Makes about 25
Freezable

250g beef mince
1 medium carrot, finely grated
1/2 courgette/zucchini, finely grated
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 egg yolk
some breadcrumbs (optional)

Put the grated carrot and zucchini in a microwave-safe bowl together with 1 tbsp water. Cook for 2-3mins on medium until tender. Drain off as much liquid as possible.

Mix all the ingredients together except for the breadcrumbs. Season if you wish. If the mixture is too wet to hold its shape when formed into small balls, add some breadcrumbs a spoonful at a time. Shape into small balls about 3cm in diameter.

Heat a small frying pan over a low heat (otherwise the outside of the burgers will burn before the inside cooks). Place the balls in the pan, flattening them out into burgers. Fry them in batches about 5 minutes on each side until cooked through.

Variations:

add other vegetables like grated parsnip or grated sweet potato
use fresh herbs (chopped parsley or oregano)
use lamb mince to make mini lamb burgers

Other uses:

dip them into homemade tomato sauce
top with melted cheese and diced tomato; serve with roasted potato wedges
break them up and mix with homemade tomato sauce; serve with pasta or rice

What other meals do you cook for your little ones with minced beef?

Using a straw

Posted on May 17, 2012 by TheGingerbreadMum

* This post contains some Amazon affiliate links. If you purchase something, I may receive a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you.

We decided to have dinner out at the last minute at the weekend. When we asked the waitress for some water to refill Nicholas’ travel cup, she brought us a takeaway coffee cup with a straw, something they do for all of their little clients.

I had one of those mummy moments where you think ‘I’ve never thought of doing that. Am I the only mummy who hasn’t thought of that? Why has that never occurred to me?!’ This was quickly followed by ‘We haven’t taught him how to use a straw. He’s never seen a straw. Will he be able to use it?!’

Now that I think about it, I have seen baby sippy cups with straws, but for some reason they never made an impact on my brain. We went breast, then bottle with teat, followed by bottle with spout and cup simultaneously. Nicholas still sometimes drinks camomile tea from a bottle with a spout, but has water and milk from a variety of cups.

Up until a month or two ago, we struggled getting Nicholas to drink. He loves his doidy cup and gives an excited giggle when he sees it, but usually after a couple of sips he wants to put his hands inside and splash the liquid. I don’t have a problem with him making a mess, but once he starts doing this he doesn’t want to keep drinking.

A friend bought us a wonderful non-spill cup that I call his travel cup. It’s difficult to describe, and I haven’t yet managed to find the exact same one online, but you can suck from the edge all the way around. This has really encouraged Nicholas to drink more. In fact, we no longer need to remind him to drink! Except when it comes to milk…

He refused to drink milk through a spouted bottle, and his hands seem to go inside the cup faster when it’s milk rather than water. All I’ve been getting him to have is a few sips of milk each time.

So since the weekend I’ve used the novelty of a straw to encourage him to drink some more milk. And so far it’s working a treat. I know the general advice is to get your baby drinking out of a cup as soon as possible, but being able to suck through a straw is another good skill to have, right?

I’m not using my ‘trick’ every day to keep the novelty factor going, and we still drink from the cup normally.

Oh, and how did he manage drinking with a straw for the first time? After two or three seconds of blowing, he started sucking. No problem!

baby firsts

Update: This 360 degrees trainer cup from Munchkin Miracle is very similar to the non-spill cup our friend gave us.
How did you get your little one to move away from a bottle? Do they have a favourite cup?

Cheesy Falafels

Posted on May 16, 2012 by TheGingerbreadMum

This is my (slight) adaptation of this recipe from the Sainsbury’s Little Ones recipe site.

The first time I made them (following the recipe exactly), I wasn’t very impressed. To me they tasted rather bland and dry. However, Nicholas loved them, wolfing down five in quick succession! This reminded me firstly not to make assumptions about my child’s taste buds and secondly that I’ve always found falafels too crumbly in texture.

I’ve since tried them out on other babies and toddlers, and they’ve gone down a treat every single time. There you go, never make assumptions!

Unlike authentic falafel recipes, these are baked in the oven rather than fried. This makes them much healthier for our munchkins but also makes them drier in texture.

I’ve increased the cheese (can you ever have too much cheese?!) and added a little bit of spice to give more of the Middle Eastern flavour. I want to start introducing some spices to Nicholas and what I’ve read is you should introduce just one spice at a time to your little one. But if you’re not sure about adding it for your munchkin, just leave it out.

I can imagine slightly older toddlers would have fun shaping the falafel mixture into balls (or other shapes), maybe even using the food processor (supervised of course). I can’t wait for Nicholas to be old enough to start helping me in the kitchen. If you haven’t watched Junior MasterChef Australia, you must! You’ll see eight to thirteen-year-olds making soufflés, tempering chocolate, inventing dishes, all more calmly and with more imagination than most adults. My child making me dinner in a few years? Yes please!

These cheesy falafels are quick and easy, a fabulous finger food, high in protein, freeze really well and are a different snack to have in your bag. Why not give them a try?

CHEESY FALAFELS

Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 20 mins
Makes about 30
Freezable

2 x 420g tins of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 tbsp plain flour
100g cheddar, grated
3 tbsp parsley, chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1 egg
Pinch of salt (optional)

Preheat the oven to 180ºC, fan 160ºC. Line a baking tray with non-stick baking paper.

Place all of the ingredients into a food processor and whizz together until combined.

Shape the mixture into small balls (about 3cm in diameter) and place on the prepared baking tray.

Bake for 20 minutes until the falafels turn a light golden colour.

Transfer to a rack to cool.

Enjoy!

Variations:

add finely diced red onion or shallot
add 1 tsp ground coriander
add chopped fresh coriander

Other uses:

serve in a pita bread or wrapped in a flatbread with salad
dip them into a tomato salsa
dip them into houmous
make a herby yogurt dip (plain yogurt with chopped herbs mixed in)

Tip: wet your hands before shaping the mixture to avoid it sticking badly to your hands. After making two or three, wet them again.

How do you feel about adding spices to your baby’s food? At what age would you start?

Try another recipe with added spices – my vegetable korma.

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Posted in dinner, lunch, recipe, snack, toddler and tagged chickpeas, cooking with kids, cumin, falafels, finger food, freeze, kids in the kitchen, snack, vegetarian. Bookmark the permalink.

Tomato pasta sauce

Posted on May 15, 2012 by TheGingerbreadMum

I have to start my blog with Nicholas’ favourite meal – pasta in a tomato sauce. He eats it a lot for lunch and I think he’d happily eat it day after day after day. It never fails. It’s quick and easy and very versatile. You can use the tomato sauce with rice, cous cous, lentils, add vegetables, add meat. It’s one of the things I most like to have in the freezer because it can turn some mundane ingredients into something much more interesting.

Although I use a little olive oil in Nicholas’ food now that he’s had his first birthday, when he started eating I wanted to feed him as naturally as possible and so avoided oil, salt and sugar. I started using my microwave a lot more to steam vegetables rather than boiling lots of the nutrients away in a saucepan. I worked out an easy way to cook onion in the microwave and I’ve continued using the method because I don’t have to stand over a pot stirring and making sure I don’t burn the pieces (I very rarely manage not to have some degree of ‘caramelisation’ while attempting to soften onions over the stove!).

I chop the onion finely, simply so it cooks quicker in the microwave. You don’t have to worry about chopping the tomatoes and basil very small because the sauce is blended in a food processor after it’s cooked. By blending it you also don’t need to worry about big pieces of tomato skin as they’ll be broken up.

Nicholas

TOMATO PASTA SAUCE

Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 15 – 20 mins
Makes about 400 ml
Freezable

1/4 onion, finely diced or grated
3 tbsp water
6 tomatoes, roughly chopped
Approx. 5 large basil leaves, roughly torn or chopped

Put the finely diced onion and water in a small microwave-safe bowl and cook on medium for 2 mins until the onion is transparent.

Transfer the onion and cooking water to a small saucepan and add the tomatoes (and a pinch of salt if you want).

Cook over a medium-low heat (a light bubbling boil) for approx. 10 mins or until the tomatoes have softened. If it’s looking a bit dry, add more water; if you don’t think the sauce is thick enough, cook it for longer to reduce it.

Turn off the heat, leaving the saucepan on the stove, and add the basil. Leaving it to cool for a few minutes allows the basil to infuse the sauce.

Blend the sauce in a small food processor until the tomato skins and basil have broken up into small pieces. Add to pasta with or without a drizzle of olive oil and with or without some grated cheese.