Their faces are quite mean, but Nicholas loves growling at them!
These jack-o-lantern pancakes are full of sweet potato goodness with chocolate drop features, however you could use raisins to make the faces and then they’d be completely sugar-free. Head over to Mindful Mum to see how you can make them.
Growing up in Australia, I never remember doing anything for Halloween and it still surprises me how much of a deal it has become here in the UK. But it is a great excuse to let your imagination run free and add some fun to your meals, something that Nicholas is appreciating more and more.
I saw the idea for the olive spiders on Pinterest quite a while ago and loved how simple yet effective they are (I so adore Pinterest for getting the creative juices flowing!). And where there are spiders, there has to be spider webs, and ‘drawing’ a yogurt web on a bowl of soup is super easy.
I was originally thinking of making a butternut squash soup I regularly make in the colder months, but then I came across the lovely Blue’s recipe for a wonderfully thick and lightly spiced carrot and red lentil soup. It’s the perfect soup to continue my ‘crusade’ to add some spice to Nicholas’ palate!
I usually use homemade stock for soups, but if you use the freshest ingredients, you can actually get away with just using water instead of stock (add a bit more seasoning though).
SPIDER WEB CARROT AND LENTIL SOUP
Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 20 mins
Makes 4 servings
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
A pinch of chilli flakes
600g carrots, washed but not peeled, coarsely grated
1 onion, roughly chopped
140g red lentils
1 litre hot vegetable or chicken stock
125ml milk
Salt and pepper
Plain yoghurt to serve
Black kalamata olives to decorate
Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat and add the cumin, coriander and chilli flakes. After a minute or so, when you can smell the spices, add the chopped onion and carrot. Season to taste. Stir and let fry gently for a couple of minutes.
Add the hot stock, lentils and milk. Bring almost to the boil then drop the heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes, or until the lentils are tender and cooked. Check if you need to add more seasoning.
Puree the soup until smooth.
To serve, use a spoon to make a spiral of yogurt on top of each bowl of soup (or use a piping bag if you want to be more precise). Then make more yogurt lines starting in the centre and lightly dragging them to the edge to create a web-like pattern.
Decorate with olive spiders by using half an olive for the body and slices of the other olive half for legs.
How are you letting your creativity shine for Halloween?
So Nicholas’ first go at cooking went really well. He particularly enjoyed spooning the ingredients into the various bowls. I had laid out a number of different sized spoons and he tried all of them, preferring the smaller ones (it makes sense when his chubby hands are so small).
I found Michelle’s advice over at What’s Cooking With Kids really useful. She suggests using a large bowl with a non-skid bottom, putting the mixing bowl inside a larger bowl to avoid spills, and setting up everything ahead of time so your little one doesn’t get bored waiting for you to prepare. One of her readers also recommends using a funnel which I think would work really well. Nicholas definitely enjoyed using a jug, especially while we were waiting for the biscuits to cook.
It’s important to choose something that’s easy to cook. A recipe that involves mainly pouring ingredients into a bowl and mixing them is perfect. Biscuits or slices that have melted butter are great; you can melt the butter beforehand and let it cool so little hands are safe when mixing. Also try to make something that doesn’t take very long to cook so you can both sample your munchkin’s efforts as soon as possible.
These chewy oaty biscuits are a simple recipe you can find all over the place with the same basic ingredients. They’re simple, perfect for kids to make and easy to vary. I used this recipe from NetMums and added some raisins, but the possible variations are almost limitless.
The texture is similar to flapjacks (firm on the outside with a chewy centre), in fact you could press the mixture into a square tin and then cut into pieces rather than rolling it into biscuits.
We didn’t get any where near the 24 biscuits the original recipe says and our biscuits were small. Even with some mixture going on the floor and into a little mouth, it was closer to 18 small biscuits
CHEWY OATY BISCUITS
Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 10-15 mins
Makes about 18 small biscuits or 12 medium-sized biscuits
They keep well for several days in an airtight container
75g butter
1 tbsp golden syrup
75g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
75g demerara sugar
75g porridge oats
25g raisins
Preheat the oven to 170C. Grease or line an oven tray with baking paper.
Gently melt the butter and golden syrup either in the microwave or in a small saucepan. Leave to cool.
Sift the flour and bicarbonate of soda into a mixing bowl.
Add the sugar, oats and raisins and stir together.
Pour in the cooled melted butter and golden syrup and mix until combined.
Roll the mixture into small balls and place well apart on the prepared tray. Press down with the back of an oiled spoon to make flatter biscuits or leave for more rounded biscuits.
Bake for 10-15 minutes until golden brown.
Variations:
Have you tried cooking with your kids? What advice would you give to make it as stress free as possible?
It’s well and truly time for another pasta sauce recipe, and I love one that you can make in about the same time as the pasta takes to cook!
The flavours for this sauce were inspired by my herby courgette pasta salad. There’s something very fresh about mint and courgette, and the basil gives a deeper flavour so the mint isn’t too sweet. And the yogurt brings it all together, ready to be mixed through some lovely pasta.
It’s perfect for every member of your family. Babies can have the sauce and pasta pureed together, or have the sauce over baby pasta. Adults will probably want a bit more seasoning than toddlers. Here’s to cooking one meal for everyone!
MINTY COURGETTE PASTA SAUCE
Prep time: 5 mins
Cook time: 5 mins
Makes 1 toddler and 1 adult portion
1 medium courgette (zucchini), grated and the excess water squeezed out
1 tsp unsalted butter
1 tsp olive oil
7 fresh mint leaves, finely sliced
2 large fresh basil leaves, finely sliced
2 tbsp plain Greek yogurt
Salt and pepper (optional)
In a medium-sized frying pan, heat the oil and butter over a medium-low heat. Once the butter has melted, add the grated courgette (seasoning if using) and cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring continuously.
Add the mint and basil, and cook for another 2 minutes.
Take the courgette mix off the heat and stir through the yogurt.
Serve over cooked pasta.
For babies, purée the sauce and pasta together until smooth, or serve the sauce over baby pasta.
Variations:
Tip: if you want to freeze this sauce, don’t add the yogurt. After defrosting the sauce, add fresh yogurt once you’ve heated it.
Do you have any recipes that are perfect for the whole family?
I was debating whether to call these cornbread muffins as the taste and texture is similar to cornbread, and then I thought perhaps spicy cornmeal or cornbread muffins. To avoid any confusion, as the recipe isn’t an authentic cornbread recipe nor are they very spicy, I’m going with the (perhaps boring but simple) cornmeal muffins.
If you don’t want to make muffins, you can pour the mixture into a square baking tin and then cut them into squares after they’re cooked. Or you could make a loaf and cut off slices.
The level of spice is very mild, so perfect for toddlers (the predominant flavour is cheese). But you can easily add more spice by increasing the cumin and coriander, and/or add some crushed dried chilli.
Eat them on their own as a snack or as an accompaniment to a main dish, they’re perfect for little and big fingers alike.
CORNMEAL MUFFINS
Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 20 mins
Makes 12 small muffins
140g fine cornmeal
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 cup grated cheddar cheese (about 75g)
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 tbsp vegetable oil
225ml Greek yogurt
Preheat the oven to 200C and grease your muffin tin with a little oil or cooking spray (or line your tin with paper cases to avoid washing the tin).
Mix the cornmeal, bicarbonate of soda, salt, cumin and coriander in a bowl. Add the grated cheese and mix well so the ingredients are combined evenly.
In another bowl or jug, mix the beaten egg, vegetable oil and yogurt together.
Mix the yogurt mixture into the dry ingredients and stir quickly until just combined.
Pour into the prepared muffin tin and bake for 15 – 20mins until golden on top and cooked through when tested with a skewer.
Variations:
To celebrate National Chocolate Week (there’s a week or day for everything, isn’t there?) I’m sharing one of my favourite and oldest baking recipes on Mindful Mum. It’s also anticipating National Baking Week next week (I kid you not!). This slice never fails to please, and combines the richness of brownies with the tanginess of cheesecake (what more could you ask for?!).
Head over to Mindful Mum for the recipe.
World Porridge Day was actually yesterday and while we ate porridge, I didn’t get around to posting about it. However, as cupcakes and chocolate get a whole week in the UK, I figured the humble and nutritious porridge’s day needs to be extended, especially thinking about the reason behind it.
World Porridge Day was started to raise awareness of and money for Mary’s Meals, a Scottish charity feeding starving children in Africa. Mary’s Meals provides daily servings of likuni phala, a nutritious, vitamin-enriched maize porridge to more than half a million children in 16 of the poorest countries in the world. But they don’t just give them nourishment. The porridge is served in schools, encouraging children to go and learn. Each child also has the responsibility of looking after their plastic mug which is filled with porridge. By serving one simple meal, Mary’s Meals is doing a lot more than just filling bellies.
Mary’s Meals are also an amazingly efficient charity. How much do you think it costs to feed a child porridge for a whole year? How much do you think you spend on your family breakfasts over a year?
It costs just £6.15 (about €7.20 or $10) to feed a child for a year.
Less than £7 for a whole year!
I’ll let you absorb that fact while I move on to some porridge flavours and variations your munchkins (and you) might like. I’ll leave you to cook your porridge the way you prefer (I like the microwave to avoid having pots to clean) as I’m certainly not a porridge-cooking expert!
PORRIDGE FLAVOURS AND VARIATIONS
While traditionally porridge is made from oats, water and salt, I always use milk for its calcium content and some kind of sweetener, usually fruit or a little bit of honey (for when babies are more than a year old).
Babies:
To make a smoother porridge, more palatable for babies, either grind up the oats before cooking, or blend your finished porridge until it’s smooth enough.
Another way of softening the oats is to soak them in some of the cooking liquid overnight.
Start with adding one simple flavour your baby is already used to, like banana. Once you think your munchkin is ready for some more complex flavours, add some warm spice like cinnamon or a dash of vanilla for extra sweetness or start combining flavours.
Flavour combinations:
The easiest and healthiest flavour to add to porridge for little ones is fruit, and then there’s no reason to add any sugar. Add it fresh or frozen. Mixing through frozen fruit has the advantage of cooling the porridge down (very important when your toddler is being impatient!). Here are some of our favourites.
Porridge in a hurry:
For mornings when you need to get ready fast, what takes even less time than mashing some fruit into cooked yogurt?
Adult flavour combinations (or not so healthy additions):
Some mornings you just need a little indulgence to start the day happily.
Toppings:
Once you’ve added your flavourings, why not also sprinkle or dollop something on top?
Variations:
You can use other liquids to soak and/or cook your oats.
If you’re sick of the same old flavours, why not add something daring to your oats?
What do you like to add to your or your munchkin’s porridge? What do you do if you have porridge leftovers?
I hope I’ve given you some ideas to vary your bowls of porridge. But also remember how porridge is changing the lives of children in Africa thanks to Mary’s Meals, and how little you would need to donate to feed a child for a whole year.
I'm an Aussie mum living in the UK (Surrey to be exact), who loves to feed people but who's struggled with the challenge of feeding my family healthy meals day after day without tearing my hair out! I'm hoping this blog will help me remember which dishes went down well and perhaps inspire you too.
Mindful Mum
thegingerbreadmum 