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Cheese and Bacon Pasta

Broccoli, pasta (any type) small carton of crème fresh, blue cheese (or cheddar/ parmesan if your kids won’t eat blue cheese) Streaky bacon (or normal bacon or ham)

Cook your pasta. Chuck in some broccoli florets for the last 4-5 minutes of cooking. Meanwhile grill or fry the bacon until crispy. Once cooked, drain off the water and stir in a small handful of the cheese. Spoon in the crème fresh and mix. Finally sprinkle over the bacon or ham and season with pepper.

Easter Brownies

 

Preheat the oven to 160 ÂşC and line a 20cm square tin with baking paper and grease

Melt 185g unsalted butter and 185g of good quality dark chocolate together

Whisk 3 large eggs and 275g caster sugar together until the volume doubles

Gently add the chocolate and butter mixture to the whisked eggs and sugar and stir gently

Sift in 40g of cocoa and 85g of plain flour, fold this into the brownie batter

Add the mixture to the lined and greased tin, and bake in the oven for 15minutes.

Remove from the oven and add 6 Creme Egg halves, gently press them into the brownies evenly spaced out.

Return to the oven for another 5-10mins

Leave to cool before removing from the tin and slicing

Eggless Chocolate Cake

Eggless Chocolate Cupcakes
This recipe is for cupcakes. However, it can be used for one big cake. It makes one half of an 8” round.

Ingredients:
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar (or white vinegar or lemon juice)
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup vegetable
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup plain flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon bicarb soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions:
1 – Preheat the oven to 180°c
2 – Line muffin pan with baking cups.
3 – Whisk together soy milk and vinegar in a large bowl, and set aside to curdle.
4 – Add sugar, oil, and vanilla to the soy mixture and beat until frothy.
5 – In a separate bowl, mix together the remaining dry ingredients.
6 – Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture in two batches beating until smooth, with no large lumps remaining.
7 – Pour the batter into prepared baking cups, filling them to three quarters full.
8 – Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of one of the cupcakes comes out clean.
9 – Transfer cupcakes to cooling rack and allow to cool completely.

Fish Pie

Dice 1 onion, 1 carrot 2 sticks of celery and soften on a little oil. Cube 2 potatoes (add any other veg of choice) and cover in half milk half stock (reduced salt or homemade) When veg soften add chunks of fish (I do mix of white fish and salmon) then add some frozen spinach. Cook for another 7 to 10 mins.

For little ones puree, for toddlers mash, for everyone else can eat it as is. Freezes well too.

Homemade Meatballs

Put mince, finely chopped onions, herbs and spices/chilli, some mustard powder and a little tomato paste in a bowl with breadcrumbs (this bulks it up apparently!) mix, make into balls, brown in a frying pan.

I never add oil, then add to a casserole type dish over the top I put homemade tomato sauce, (made from garlic, tomatoes, tinned tomatoes, more spices, dried chilli, and some real chillies if you like spicy. Make enough to cover the balls. put in oven for around 40 mins. Delicious with either spaghetti, pasta, or mashed potatoes

Kirsty’s Homemade Baby Porridge

Porridge

When on maternity leave or paternity leave most parents are on a budget and baby porridge can be quite expensive so why not try making your own porridge for a fraction of the cost? I’ve been buying large bags of rolled oats from ASDA for 75p. This porridge is one of my favourite breakfasts: it’s cheap, easy, healthy, delicious, filling and a great start to the day for both babies and adults – what’s not to love?

Pre-prep

This recipe requires a bit of pre-prep to make the porridge oats suitable for babies. But don’t worry you can do this bit in bulk and store the oat powder so that you can take what you need each morning.

  1. Blitz the porridge oats in a food processor until a fine powder is achieved. (Depending on the amount of oats and the size of your food processor you may need to do this in batches. You only want to 2/3 fill the food processor, too much or too little, will leave your oat powder with chunks in it.)
  2. Store the oat powder in an air tight tub.

Ingredients

  • 150ml oat powder
  • 300ml whole milk (skimmed or semi-skimmed milk can be used but babies need the fat content in whole milk, so this is recommended when making porridge for babies. Dairy alternatives or lacofree milk can be used for those with allergies.)
  • Flavourings – some ideas are given below.

This will make enough for 1 adult and 1baby, for every additional adult add an extra 100ml oat powder and 200ml milk.

Measurements are given in ml because I use a measuring scoop when making this recipe.

Method

  1. Add the oat powder and milk to a saucepan and mix together.
  2. Cook on a medium heat until the oat powder and milk have fully combined into a smooth mixture, approximately 3 minutes, stirring frequently.
  3. Serve. (Once served I like to add a splash of cold milk to Isabella’s porridge to help it cool down.)

Flavourings

Here are a few suggestions of flavouring we enjoy adding to our porridge but it’s by no means an exhaustive list and you could add anything that you fancy.

  • Mashed banana (and honey. Honey should only be given to children over 1 year old as it contains bacteria that can be harmful to babies.)
  • Strawberry pieces.
  • Grated apple and cinnamon.
  • Blueberries and cinnamon.

The strawberries and banana should be added after cooking, the apple and blueberries should be added during cooking.

Kirsty is a local mum who has her own blog full of family and baby friendly recipes

Kirsty’s Savoury Scones

 

Savoury Scones

This recipe is for cheese, tomato and red onion scones but if you’re not a fan of these flavours then why not try swapping them out for other ingredients such as spinach, sweetcorn, peppers or chives. For those with dairy or lactose allergy dairy ingredients can be substituted for dairy alternatives or lactofree products.

Makes 10

Ingredients

250g self-raising flour
50g unsalted butter
11/2 teaspoons paprika
2-3 turns of a black pepper grinders
1/2 cup whole milk (semi skimmed or skimmed milk can be used but babies need the fat in dairy products so whole milk is recommended when cooking for babies.)
1 tomato
1 red onion
25g grated cheese
Method

Preheat oven to 200C and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
Wash and then dice the tomato and onion.
In a bowl combine the flour, paprika and black pepper.
Chop the butter into small pieces then rub into the flour mixture until it resembles breadcrumbs. (Ensure the butter has been left out at room temperature beforehand, otherwise it will be too hard to rub into the flour.)
Stir in the tomato, onion and cheese.
Add the milk and combine into a moist dough.
Transfer the dough to a floured surface and knead briefly. (Over kneading will make the scones hard.) Press the dough flat to a thickness of 1cm and then cut into rounds using a 6.5cm cutter. (You can use fun shaped cutters such as stars and hearts instead but this could affect the number of scones the dough will make.)
Place on the baking tray and brush with milk.
Bake until golden, approximate 15-20 minutes. (You can check that the scones are cooked by turning them upside down and tapping the bottom, a hollow sound indicates they are cooked.)
Best served warm.

You can either serve plain, spread with butter or topped with things such as meat, soft cheese or pickle.

NCT Introducing Solid Foods Workshops

Introducing solid foods to your baby is an exciting time but you probably have lots of questions. NCT Introducing Solid Foods workshops, suitable for babies aged 3.5-6 months, cover; signs of readiness, baby-led and spoon feeding, suitable foods, reducing milk feeds, safety concerns, allergies plus time for questions.

Contact Helen on 0208 752 9127

Rice Krispie Mallow Treats

Rice krispie treats:

Ingredients:
45g butter
210g marshmallows
150g Rice Krispies

Line an 8″ square baking tray with non-stick paper.
Put the butter and marshmallows in a pan (big enough for you to get all those Rice Krispies in later!)

Put the butter in the bottom of the pan, not on top of the marshmallows like I’ve done here – it will stop the marshmallows from getting scorched and burnt.
Heat the pan over a gently heat, stirring it regularly. As the marshmallows melt it starts to look like marshmallow soup.

Keep going until they’ve all melted and the butter is well worked in.
Now off the heat and in goes the Rice Krispies.

Stir it up, making sure they’re all evenly coated.

Tip it into the tin – it’s sticky watch out!

Don’t try and spread it in the tin right away you’ll end up in a right sticky old mess, give it a minute or two to start to cool down.
Spread it out using the back of a fork. If the marshmallow coating is still stringy and sticking to the fork let it cool a little more.
Once you can do it without it sticking, spread it and level it out with the fork.

That’s it, leave it to one side to cool fully, decorate with whatever you fancy and set then eat away! Great for moulding and using for cake decorating too.

Spaghetti Bolognese

Spaghetti Bolognese:

1tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped (90g)
1 small leek, thinly sliced (35g)
½ stick celery, diced (15g)
ÂĽ small red pepper, diced (25g)
1 small carrot, peeled and grated (30g)
½ eating apple, peeled, cored and grated (75g)
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 x 400g/14oz tin chopped tomatoes
450g/1lb minced beef
4 tbsp tomato puree
2 tbsp tomato ketchup
250ml/9fl oz beef stock
ÂĽ tsp dried oregano

Method
Heat the oil in a large frying pan and sauté the vegetables, apple and garlic for 10 minutes, until soft.
Transfer to a blender and add the tomatoes then whiz until smooth.
Wipe the pan out with a piece of kitchen paper then add the mince and fry over a medium-high heat, breaking the mince up with a wooden spoon, until browned (you may need to do this in two batches). If your child likes a finer texture then you can transfer the browned mince to a food processor and whiz until well chopped.
Add the tomato and vegetable sauce to the mince then stir in the tomato puree, ketchup, stock and oregano. Bring to a simmer and cook for 40-45 minutes, until the sauce is thick.
Season to taste with salt and pepper. (Sometimes we dont have all the veggies in so we just put in what we do have and mix it up a bit!)

Vegetarian Chilli by Caz

Vegetarian chilli con carne made with quorn mince.
Ingredients:
Vegetable oil for frying.
1 Small Onion – finely chopped
1 red chilli – seeds removed for milder flavour. Finely chopped
1 Red pepper – Diced
2 gloves garlic – crushed
1/2 teaspoon cumin
Good squeeze of Tomato Purée
Half bag of quorn mince.
Tin of chopped tomatoes
Tin of kidney beans
1/2 pint of vegetable stock.

METHOD
Heat the oil in large frying pan,
Lightly Fry onion, chilli and red pepper and garlic until soft,
Add tomato purée and cumin fry for a couple more mins.
Add tin tomatoes and stock
Add quorn mince.
Add Kidney bean (drained)
Give it a good stir let it come to boil then simmer until sauce is reduced.
Serve with rice

For variations of this:

omit the quorn and add tin of Caribbean Beans and peas for a bean chilli.

Instead of rice allow the sauce to cool then wrap in tortillas place in oven dish and top with passatta and grated cheese. Then place in oven for approx 20 mins.

Make extra or Use left overs to add to jacket potato.

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