HONEST FOOD - TODDLER PROOF

"FRUIT ROLL UPS"

A while ago I posted on IG that I had made fruit roll ups and lots of people wanted to know the recipe so I thought I'd do a little post on here. It really was super easy and Stan is throughly in love with them! We have normally bought the Bear Nibbles fruit yoyos which Stan likes and makes for a great treat if I'm out and about with him. I still wanted to make my own though and have full control of what went in and try and lower the cost a little...

The recipe I used is from The Green Kitchen which I've used a lot. They have some really good healthy and delicious veggie recipes in it...I recommend it. Their recipe can also be found on their blog here.

So easy, such a simple list of ingredients! I do think it is worth getting the organic apricots. The others are a pretty colour, but contain sulphur which is something I don't think we should be eating too much of!

Put everything in a blender. I put the apricots in first with the orange juice to help soak them a bit and make them easier to blend as our blender is so old and crap. On the blog recipe it says to warm the fruit in the pan to make a puree, but I use the recipe from the book which just says to blend everything.

When it is fully blended pour onto a baking sheet, or plastic one is even better. It should pour, but not move about. You need to spend time getting the mixture even so it dries out evenly. I also made a raspberry one with blackberries and raspberries and a banana. As long as you get the consistency right you can use pretty much any fruit you fancy.

 

Put in the oven on the lowest setting for between 5-8 hours. Yes it takes a while! I tend to make a lot so it doesn't feel like a waste of energy. Open the oven every hour or so to let the moisture out. They keep for a month so there is no problem storing them. Stanley prefers the orange ones, I think they have a better texture...I think I might sieve out the seeds next time I use raspberries or blackberries. Just cut the with scissors and roll them up while they are warmish. You can leave the baking parchment on if it is easier and then just peel and eat when you need to.

Yum! Let me know if you've done this before and any recommended fruit combinations. I'm thinking you could sneak veg in too?!

HONEST FOOD - MID WEEK MEAL

So thank you to all those that left comments or links in my last food post. Actually since writing that post we've done much better with branching out in the food world - maybe me fessing up to you guys helped spur me on to being more creative. Anyway I did try out Lia's amazing Butternut Squash Jamba stew, and actually me and Ben LOVED it, but Stan found it too spicy for him. However he did give it a good go, so I think if I lessen the spice he will eat it up. It was a great mid week number too, not too complicated. Thank you Lia! Sarah from Archie's left two great Aubergine ones which I have done both before.......however Stan didn't enjoy the meatballs, but it was a while ago now, so maybe time to have a go again. And I think I want to try the mild curry on Alexis blog, as that sounded good too.

So onto my easy mid week meal that Stan seems to like at the moment, and it doesn't in the least shriek toddler food so you can all enjoy as a family. It is adapted from this Nigel Slater recipe and it is on the table in about 30 minutes.

This is what you need 

While the linguine is cooking soften the fennel and onion in olive oil

add feta (About 100g) , basil leaves and some pasta cooking water if it is sticking.

get your helper to add pepper, the juice of a lemon and then add the cooked linguine

and voila! dinner is ready.

Now you can decorate the top with the leftover fennel frongs if you're feeling fancy. Stan wasn't keen on basil in his but loved the feta sauce and the fennel. I didn't add any salt as the feta is already quite salty....but you know do what ever is right for you. We added more lemon at the table because we do love lemon, and Ben always pours olive oil over pretty much everything...so again add what is right for you. Enjoy!

 

BOOM!

We of course ended the meal like most with me feeding him the last bits and him being a cheeky chap on my lap. But hey ho, small steps, small steps...

And again, please do link below with any easy mid week meals that the toddler might like below. It really was so helpful before. Many thanks!

HONEST FOOD - TODDLER PROOF

"The Go-With-Anything-Sauce"

So I've cracked it. Now this following recipe may seem like teaching your Grandmother to suck eggs, but I'd thought I'd share anyway. I have made a pasta type sauce pretty much every week for Stanley so I always have something in the freezer that he will eat if he is having a fit about whatever I've served him up for dinner. At last however I think I have found the perfect one. It freezers really well and is so simple to make you don't have to pay it any attention and can get on with other things round the house, illustration work, hoovering up cat dander, entertaining the child, stopping the cat peeing inside the house - why cat WHY? It's not even raining.... You know, glorious domestic housewifey things....

I'm hoping to get back into blogging a little more, and would like your help. I am so in a rut with food with Stanley, and so I would like to do a monthly 'Toddler Proof' recipe swap between us Mamas (& Fathers). Every month I will post a recipe that Stanley loves that is easy to make and healthy, and would be so happy if you wanted to link up with yours. I have installed the special Inlinkz tool below. So this is my recipe, you have a month to add yours and then I will post another. Anything goes, breakfast, lunch, snacks - so long as it is healthy and easy(ish) to whip up!

The root veg is the key! I have used carrots, but some squash or sweet potato would work equally as well. It gives a thickness to the sauce that is very appealing.

 Mix well, add olive oil and some pepper. Leave the garlic in their skins to roast.

Roast at about 200-220C for about 45 minutes, or until your veg is soft and the pan looks like it will never come clean again.

Then blend. I have an immersion blender so I transferred all the veg to another container, squeezed the garlic out of the skins and then blended it to within an inch of its life as S seems to be able to spit out 'bits' even when I swear there isn't anything in there. Add some stock or water if you feel it is too thick. From this amount of veg I can get about 6 portions frozen in glass ramikins. My pan size was approx 30 x 24 cm.

So once you have your basic sauce you can serve it with pasta, adding a spoonful of pesto, cream cheese, cheddar cheese to vary it, it is very nice added to white fish, meatballs or sausages (veggie or meat), couscous, or cooked chickpeas. You can add paprika to spice it up or pretty much any herb you like too. Plus it really is the most awesome orange colour!

Be so great if any of you feel like linking back to here with your toddler proof recipes. I could really do with the inspiration, and it is handy to get it all in one place for me and others! SO if you have something tucked up your virtual blog sleeve please do leave your link below. I will then endeavour to make at least one of your recipes in the and let you know the verdict with Stan!

HONEST SNACKS

Ok so to follow on from my recent food post inspired by Hattie at Free Our Kids, I'm listing the more inspired snacks we've (both) been munching on this week out the house and in. Most of these are fun to prepare for Stanley too, so it also provides an activity to do together rather than just ripping open a box or him finding his way into the old snack draw...

More breakfast type biscuits

this time no seeds, less sugar and added apricots and dessicated coconut

Trail Mix (sweet version)

Apple *fancy style*

seriously, get that child working for his snacks

eh voila. fancy apple.

Frozen banana 'icecream'

the anticipation of the magic happening

frozen banana blended with yogurt. next time i might add cocoa powder, honey or peanut butter. but perhaps not all at the same time...or maybe I should?

Natural (full-fat) yogurt with honey and cinnamon

could not get enough of this one...

I know none of this is actual rocket science, but I think it is always handy to share and to prompt ideas back and forth in this friendly community! So please feel free to comment below with any genius snack ideas you might have been feeding your little ones. One month in and we are doing well. No flavoured rice cakes or over priced mini yogurts here. Thank you Hattie for inspiration....feels great!

HONEST SNACKS {Breakfast Biscuits}

Ok so I am so the guilty party sometimes when running late to shove one of those oaty type bars into Stan's hand as I've strapped him shrieking "more twains, more twains" into the buggy and leapt out the door like a mad lady. Well this time all that will be the same except this time I will be shoving into his hand something just as delicious and oh-so-(mainly)-organic-yadadadada expect this time we will have made it with our own fair hands. And if you are mister S, eaten a fair old amount of it as we've gone along. Following on from the success of my last honest snacks post I decided to give these a go. They were so easy and cheap too. Plus I had everything in the house already and they seemed super easy to adapt to what your little likes...

BREAKFAST BISCUITS (adapted from Abel & Cole Veg Box Companion book)
125g wholemeal flour
150g porridge oats
½ tsp bicarb of soda

¼ tsp salt
½ tsp ground cinnamon
80g brown sugar
5 tsp honey (or agave syrup if you are doing this totally vegan)
1 large carrot, grated
100ml olive or coconut oil
100g dried fruit  chopped (we used apricots, dates and raisins)
100g nuts/seeds chopped (we used hazelnuts, sunflower and pumpkin seeds plus a bit of ground almond thrown in for good measure!)

Preheat oven to 180˚C

Mix flour, oats, bicarb and salt in a big bowl.
Add remaining ingredients, (keep replacing dates and hazelnuts as Stanley eats them.) mix well.
Scoop it up by the tablespoon and press onto rounds on an oiled baking sheet. Tidy up the edges.
You can freeze half the mix if you want to use for another day, but I wouldn't bother. We've managed to plough through about 10 in two days! (I ate two with a cup of tea whilst writing this. Ooops.)
For chewy cookies bake for 10 mins, longer if you want them crisp.
Makes about 20-24.

FOOTNOTE: Top Baby Blogs has been re-set. It would be marvelous if you could take a minute and click to vote for me. I haven't paid much attention to it recently but I have met some lovely new readers through it, so for the while I'm going to ask you to keep on clicking! Thanks so very much ♥ S&s

FREE OUR KIDS

Well at least this is what Hattie says. And you know what, on most points, I am totally in agreement with her. (Thank you to Charlotte for pointing me in her direction.) The one thing she said that really struck a cord was how much money I must waste buying food items specifically labeled towards kids. Now I'm not obviously saying scrap all of that healthy rice cake stuff and lets get them a mega size bag of flamegrilled crinkle cut crisps. But I am saying hey, all the healthy snacks I buy Stanley, do I really need to, could I make my own at home, save a wad of cash (to plough straight back into the coffee market, hmmm, one step at a time hey) and keep him happy at the same time?! Of course right? Well he's my first foray into recreating all the crap I love to buy.

I'm as much to blame with Stanley sometimes and his eating habits, even though boy oh boy to I like to moan about it to. I am the worst for food bribery, not so much in the highchair to get him to eat, I've gone waaaaaaay past that, more if I want him to do something like go somewhere, leave his precious train set at home or be strapped in his buggy for any great length of time... My bribery of choice has been the goodies fruit bars, he is a crazy baby for one. And it is not like they are bad for him, heck they are good for him. I feel no guilt passing him one to eat other than the money I must be wasting or that really I am lazy for dishing them out so easily. I'm not saying I won't be still occasionally bribing him when I feel I really need to, it is just going to be with the things I make rather than the convenience food I have previously bought.

So I buy them, or did. We have run dry of them and I am determined not to buy any more, ever. again. Or any of the nakd bars I like so much which he also goes nuts for. It is just fruit and nuts whizzed up. I can create that right? He will love my snacks.

So here goes, this is what I did. I mainly looked at a bunch of recipes on line, more specifically this one, this one and this one. And then just went for it, me, the healthy stuff and a blender!

 

So I just whacked all the ingredients into the mixer and hit go. In hindsight perhaps I should have soaked the dates as it took a couple of tablespoons of water to get the whole lot moving and I should have put in the nuts first to whizz to a powder because they got stuck in all the date moosh. You live and learn, and now I've learnt I can tell you! In the end though it made this rather attractive paste. Hmmm.

After I scrapped it out I wrapped it up in the clingfilm and made it into a squarish shape and popped it into the fridge to chill for a few hours.

It was pretty sticky still when I got it out, even after having left it in the fridge overnight, I'm not sure it'd travel too well, you'd be picking up all sorts of fluff after eating it and would probably need a hose down of sorts. So next time I think I'd up the quantity of nuts or else one of the recipes said to add oats which I quite like the sound of. I am going to try it out again so if I improve it vastly (and if you care) I'll bring you an improved recipe! It tasted amazing though and very much like the nakd bars I'm addicted too.

I had to cut stanley's up into tiny bits as he totally flips out if he gets anything on his hands, neat freak!

I enjoyed mine with a cuppa, and Stanley even did a cliche 'Oliver' pose with his bowl completely unprompted. A success I'd say! Let me know if there are any kiddo snacks you can't currently live without and maybe I'll try and re-create them here on the blog. Or if you already have a killer recipe up your sleeve please do share I'd love to hear it. And of course for more of this and to see how Hattie and family get on on their year long journey please do pop on over there to have a good read, or click the link below, it is inspiring.

{VEGAN} TOFU BURGERS

Inspired by all the healthy loveliness going on over at Drea's blog and a recipe I found here. I decided to whip up something I hoped mister Stanley would enjoy...
So to make the tofu burgers you will need the following ingredients below as well as a bit of oil and some flour. I followed roughly the measurements set out in the recipe but freestyled a bit with what I had which was basically less of everything she suggests, but it still made a load of burger mix!

Firstly blanch the broccoli until done and fry the spring onion with the mushrooms and garlic until soft.

Grate the carrot then put all the ingredients into a blender and whizz (with a happy helper) until mixed. Add a dash of honey and soy sauce and a bit of salt and pepper.

I found I had to whizz it up in two batches as it was too much for my smallish blender to handle. The mixture is a good consistency and needs no egg to hold it together. Lots of other vegetables would work well in here too - sweetcorn, peppers, spinach, kale etc.

Form into lovely patties and dust lightly with flour.

Fry for a few minutes either side until warmed through and brown on both sides.
I also froze a few in pairs for future. I made about 9 burgers from this recipe. Pretty simple and a good one to be adapted too!

Needless to say Stanley didn't like them, he ate one mouthful and half spat out the second mouthful. I will try them on him again in a week or so time. It is amazing really that I can add together ALL the things he really likes and make it into something he doesn't. Ho hum.

On a better note though my husband LOVED them, so at least they didn't go to waste. As a grown up dinner they'd be lovely with a bit of rice and some oriental style greens. Mmmmmm Stanley you don't know what you're missing!

HONEST FOOD

Another post to do with my child and how he eats. It seems to be the one thing I really obsess over and worry about. Occasionly, even if I've had a good day, the whole feeding ritual can really ruin it for me. Mainly I find it boring, a little tedious perhaps...is that a bad thing to say? Sometimes I find it frustrating, wasteful. And more often than not, time consuming. I'm always grateful for Tuesdays. Tuesday morning Stanley goes to nursery from 8-12.30pm. The one day I have two meals taken off my hands, suddenly not my problem, and boy oh boy it is such a relief!

Chickpea, carrot, pea tomato stew with paprika and cumin and avocado and mash

tuna mayo on toast with cucumber and leek, cauliflower cheese 'sausages'
{such a random lunch. poor child. although i ate the same...a nothing in the house kind of day! notice how he scraped off the tuna leaving all the toast...}

grilled chicken, cauliflower, cucumber and chickpea patties 

leftover aubergine, mango noodles from this ottolenghi recipe
{he HATED the aubergine, but ate all the mango off my plate too}

Pesto pea pasta, chicken, blueberries and yogurt
{lunch on the move}

Spaghetti bolognese and yoghurt
{ALWAYS a winner!)

On the whole though he is getting slowly better, I think. I'm still on occasion chasing him round the house, trying to shove food in his mouth every time he runs past me. It seems that no matter how hard I try, that feeling of motherly instinct that I simply must feed my child means I lose the battle to remain calm and discipline him in the same way I would if he was throwing things or hitting. When it comes to meal times I seem to lose my sensible logic, I panda to his whims, to his mischief. I let him get down out of the high chair so he can run around and yet still have food put in his mouth. It is like it is too boring to just sit there and eat. Anyway, I'm getting a bit stricter, and since his vocabulary has improved vastly I am now confident he undersatands full well what I'm saying. The phrase, "all done?" seems to work well with him, hinting that now when he leaves the table, that is it. No more food. No more me runnning about him while he plays and I still feed him. Not only is it is messy, it takes forever! I also feel he should be feeding himself a bit more, taking control of the spoon. He does with a few things, like yogurt or scrambled egg. I'm slowly moving away from me shovelling the food into his mouth while he does a puzzle or plays with his toy cars! Arghhhhh!! I swear, next baby is going to be fed baby led weaning style....I'm sure that'll be a better idea. Right? Right??!!!

If anyone wants to share their links to any 'before & after' feeding pictures I'd love to see them, so put your link in the comments section. Or, any successful feeding tips or toddler friendly recipes - always happy to hear those too!

I really relate to the feeding stories on this blog. It seems I have similar battles to this Mum feeding her little Hooper. It's a beautiful blog by the way, so check it out if you get a chance...

Final chance to enter my giveaway!!! I will be choosing the winner Sunday night by Random.org and announcing the winner sometime on Monday with a blog post on my bicycle and bike seat for Stanley as some of you asked before what make I had decided on.