Tag Archives: finger food

Zucchini bites

Posted on June 6, 2012 by TheGingerbreadMum

We had a fabulous four-day weekend in Bruges, and Nicholas had a great time toddling around practising his walking and his balance on the cobbled streets. There’s nothing like a mini family break to recharge the batteries. We ate lots of scrumptious things (and tried lots of Belgian beer!). Nicholas had his first taste of mussels and frog legs, and loved them both (oh and his first lollypop, given to him by a waiter). How proud am I that he seems to be turning into a mini-foodie?!?

So back home and back into the kitchen, but with some more enthusiasm for cooking. And today, one of our very tried and tested, and very much loved recipes made from a fabulous vegetable – zucchini or courgette (depending on where you’re from). You can do so much with this vegetable. You can grate them raw into a salad, slice and grill them, chopped into sticks and steamed they’re great with dips, stuff and bake them, or roast them in chunks. One of my favourite ways to have them is grated and very quickly fried with a little bit of lemon juice and caraway seeds; it’s the perfect accompaniment to fish (I’ll write up the recipe soon!).

I often add zucchini to recipes I make for Nicholas. It has a very mild flavour and so goes with a lot of things – diced finely into a minestrone, grated and ‘hidden’ in burgers, chopped and added to casseroles, or simply steamed and dipped into yogurt. I came across this recipe for zucchini tots and immediately thought they would be perfect finger food. And I absolutely love a recipe I can easily make a few servings of and put in the freezer for another day. I made some slight changes, rolling the mixture into smaller bites and baking them on a tray rather than using a mini muffin tin (which I don’t have!) and using cheddar cheese instead of parmesan to cut down the salt content.

You can easily make bigger ones for adults for a low calorie lunch (because of the high water content zucchini is super low in calories), and they’d be perfect to take on picnics.

It’s important to squeeze the zucchini after you grate it to get rid of the excess liquid (and it has a lot of liquid). The simplest way is to squeeze a handful of it over the sink. You can also put it into a clean tea towel and squeeze it. You really don’t need to measure the grated zucchini (the quantities don’t have to be exact); one good-sized zucchini should be fine.

ZUCCHINI BITES

Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 15-18 mins
Makes about 15 bites
Freezable

1 cup finely grated and squeezed zucchini (about 1 large zucchini)
1 egg
1/4 medium onion, finely diced
1/4 cup finely grated cheddar cheese
1/4 cup dry breadcrumbs
Pinch of salt (optional)

Heat oven to 200C and line a baking tray with baking paper.

Put all the ingredients into a medium-sized bowl and mix until combined. Shape into small balls and place on the lined baking tray.

Cook for 15-18 minutes until golden brown.

Variations:

add chopped herbs (chives, mint or parsley would all work well)
add crumbled feta

Tips:

Don’t use aluminium foil on the baking tray as the bites will stick to it and will be difficult to take off.
To make your own dry breadcrumbs, keep leftover bread uncovered for a couple of days until it’s hard. Break into chunks and chop in a food processer or blender until it’s fine crumbs. The breadcrumbs can be stored in an airtight container or ziplock bag for several months.

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Posted in dinner, family, lunch, recipe, snack, toddler and tagged cheddar, cheese, courgette, dinner, finger food, lunch, recipe, snack, toddler, vegetarian, zucchini. Bookmark the permalink.

Frozen yogurt strawberries

Posted on June 1, 2012 by TheGingerbreadMum

A very quick post before we load up the car and spend the Jubilee long weekend abroad. Our spell of hot sunny weather has finished here in the UK, but hopefully it will soon return and this is another recipe that’s perfect for hot days, and not just for your munchkins.

I came across this simple idea on Pinterest (how I love Pinterest!) but unfortunately there was no link. It is, however, very easy to figure out. Use whole strawberries for adults and quartered strawberries for little ones. I’ve also seen (yes, still on Pinterest) blueberries pierced on bamboo skewers, so you have blueberry ‘kebabs’, dipped in yogurt and frozen. Yum! You could try sliced bananas, raspberries, let your imagination go wild!

FROZEN YOGURT STRAWBERRIES

Dip quartered strawberries into plain yogurt (the thicker set yogurt is best simply because you get a good coating).

Place on a tray lined with baking paper that you can fit in the freezer.

Put in the freezer for a few hours until the yogurt has frozen.

Eat!

How do you keep your little one cool in the hot weather?

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Posted in dessert, family, recipe, snack, toddler and tagged banana, blueberries, finger food, frozen yogurt, strawberries, vegetarian, yoghurt, yogurt. Bookmark the permalink.

Banana pikelets

Posted on May 30, 2012 by TheGingerbreadMum

I find it extra hard to get inspiration for breakfast. My biggest hurdle is not being a morning person. Even if I’ve been up for quite a while before Nicholas wakes up, I don’t have the same enthusiasm for making him something different for breakfast. He’s also more fussy at breakfast.

Pikelets are little thick pancakes. They’re also called drop (or dropped) scones because of how the batter is dropped from a spoon into the pan to make them. They’re a perfect size for little hands to eat on their own.

I loved making them as a child and have vivid memories of impatiently waiting for the bubbles to appear so I could flip them over. They’re easy and very satisfying for kids to make.

I replaced the sugar in my favourite pikelet recipe with some honey, and added mashed banana and cinnamon. Even with the fruit, they’re not very sweet (if you want them sweeter add some more honey or use 1/4 cup of sugar). I also added some bicarbonate of soda to give some extra fluffiness, but they’re still good without it. After they’re cooked, they’ll still be a bit soft and gooey inside from the banana.

Freeze the ones you don’t eat immediately and have them as a snack another day.

BANANA PIKELETS

Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 15 mins
Makes about 20
Freezable

1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 bananas, mashed
1 tbsp honey
1 egg, beaten
1 cup milk
small piece of butter, melted, to grease the pan

Sift flour, bicarbonate and cinnamon into a medium-sized bowl. Add banana, honey and egg, and mix to combine. Add milk gradually until you have a fairly thick batter (you might not need to add all the milk).

Heat a large frying pan over a medium heat and brush with melted butter. Use a tablespoon to drop the mixture into the pan. Cook in batches, turning when bubbles appear on the surface (1-2 mins). Cook the other side until golden brown (about 1 min). Lift out and cover with a clean tea towel to keep warm.

Variations:

add some vanilla essence for extra sweetness
leave out the banana and serve with fruit
try adding other fruit (grated apple, mashed strawberries, whole blueberries, sultanas or raisins)

Other uses:

top with jam and cream (or Nutella!) for afternoon tea

Tip: Wipe your pan clean with a piece of paper towel after each batch and then brush with some more melted butter.

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Posted in breakfast, family, recipe, snack, toddler and tagged banana, bicarbonate of soda, breakfast, cinnamon, drop scones, dropped scones, family, finger food, freezable, freeze, honey, pancakes, pikelets, recipe, self-raising flour, snack, toddler. Bookmark the permalink.

Kofte

Posted on May 25, 2012 by TheGingerbreadMum

There’s no doubt my offspring loves meat. How could he not when he’s half Australian?! The other night I made him a fish pie. He’s had something similar before and eaten it but not with any great enthusiasm. This time I put a nice topping of mashed potato and carrot on the top with some fresh bread crumbs and grated cheese. Lots of grated cheese. I was hoping the cheese (one of his favourite foods) would encourage him to eat the fish. To skip to the end of the story, he had slow cooked lamb for dinner, part of the leftovers we were eating, and was very happy about it!

This recipe has a little bit of spice in it (ground cumin). If you’re not sure about your little one having spices, you can leave it out without any problem.

KOFTE

Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 10 mins
Makes about 16
Freezable

400g lamb mince
1/4 onion, diced as finely as possible or coarsely grated
1/4 tsp ground cumin
Pinch of salt
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1 tbsp chopped fresh mint
A little oil for greasing the grill pan
Yogurt to serve

Heat a grill pan over high heat.

Put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix together until combined. Shape into short sausages about 5cm in length.

Turn the grill pan down to medium heat and brush the bars lightly with oil.

Cook the kofte for about 10 minutes until just cooked through (they’ll be quite chewy if you cook them too long), turning every few minutes onto each of their four ‘sides’ so they cook evenly.

Serve with yogurt as a dipping sauce.

Variations:

use 1 shallot instead of the onion for a lighter sweeter flavour
used dried herbs rather than fresh
add some herbs to the yogurt dip
hide some vegetables in the mixture

Other uses:

dip them into houmous
serve in a pita bread or wrapped in a flatbread with salad

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?

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.