Banana porridge

This is a popular breakfast choice in our house come rain or shine... Quick, cheap, full of good stuff and one of Finn's favourites!

Studies have shown that in addition to providing iron and fibre, porridge helps regulate blood sugar. By adding a sneaky addition or two, such as banana and dried fruits, porridge can give kids an amazing breakfast time boost.

Serves 2 pre-schoolers.

Ingredients

• 1 medium banana chopped
• 1 knob of butter
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 cup of any supermarket oats (I use Scotch porridge oats because my folks are from up there and they are the ones we always had, but Quaker or own brand alternatives are fine).
• 2/3 cup whole milk plus a little for a moat on top
• Handful of raisins or other fruit
• A squeeze of honey

How to do it

1.  Add the banana, butter and cinnamon to a smallish heavy bottomed saucepan and cook on a low heat until the banana goes golden in colour and starts to really soften. Make sure you turn the banana to cook both sides

2.  Turn up the heat a little to medium and add the oats, milk, raisins and honey. Cook for about 5 minutes, or until most of the milk has been absorbed, stirring occasionally. It's really important that you don't cook it for too long or it becomes really stodgy. If the porridge does become too thick, just add a dash of milk or water to bring it back to your preferred consistency.

3. Pour it into a serving bowl and add a little more milk over the top. I always loved that as a child and it has the additional benefit of cooling the porridge down around the edges!

Blueberry pancakes

These pancakes are a great option for breakfast at the weekend or can be enjoyed anytime as a delicious snack! This is a good recipe to get the kids involved in, plus they're really quick to make.

Blueberries are a 'superfood', so full of goodness. They one of the best fruits available when you want to deliver a load of vitamins and nutrients. The rule with fruit and veg is generally the more brightly coloured, the better they are for you. 

When you're mixing the ingredients in this recipe together, try not to overwork the mixture as it can make your pancakes rubbery. Also, don't worry if you have little lumps once the milk is added as they'll come out in the cooking process.

The volume of batter you'll end up with will make about 15 jam pot lid sized pancakes, so unless you have plenty of mouths to feed you may have some left over, in which case you can freeze them. When you decide to use them, don't worry about defrosting them - just pop them in the oven from frozen on a medium heat for about 20 minutes or until warmed through.

Ingredients

300g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
3 eggs
300ml whole milk
200g blueberries
Knob of butter

How to do it

   1.  Weigh out your flour into a decent sized bowl (don't worry about
        sieving it first) and then add the bicarbonate of soda

    2.  Break in the eggs and mix into the flour

    3.  Once the eggs are mixed in, add the milk and blueberries (don't be 
         concerned if the batter seems thick - this is normal)

    4.  Put a pan on a medium heat and melt the butter



    5.  Add a serving spoonful of mixture to the pan and cook until the  
         pancake is starting to look a little puffy (about 3-4 minutes)

    6.  Flip the pancakes and squash down to pop the blueberries, then cook 
         until golden

    7.  Serve with honey and yoghurt









Broccoli pesto

So I sit here eating Ryvitas for lunch because I don't want to eat yet more bread (I had toast for breakfast). On top of that its a pasta dinner of spaghetti Bolognese, so all in all its going to be a carb-tastic Friday!

As with many kids, Finn is a BIG fan of pasta, and given that pasta is such an easy option its something he eats frequently.  Up until recently I always felt guilty about giving him quite so many pasta-based meals, that was however until I started doing some research...  I was very pleased to discover that children aged between 3 and 5 need around four portions of carb-goodness every day, so each meal and maybe a snack or two should consist of either pasta, bread, rice, spuds, sweet potato or sweet corn, or a combo of them all.

Now the trick is to combine something more nutritious with those foundation ingredients and build from there. Say some cauliflower mixed into mash potato, or some cucumber in their favourite sandwich.

So how to go about it? One of the most important things to take into consideration is how you cook the veg, regardless of how you're going to serve them. Over 70% of the vitamins and nutrients in vegetables are lost if you boil them, this is because most vitamins are water soluble, so unless you are using the water they are cooked in for something like soup, you'll lose most of the good stuff down the plug hole! Now if you're going to go to all that trouble to get goodness into your child, it seems a shame that what they end up eating has lost most of its benefits...  

So my advice is - get steaming! You don't need anything more complicated than a pot, a little water in the bottom, a sieve which needs to sit just above said water, a lid and whatever you had planned to boil... One thing that is important to consider is to not let all the water evaporate as its easy to ruin your pot if it does. 

Make sure that the water in the bottom of the pot isn't discarded, you can use some of it later to help mash the veg down. Whilst you do lose some nutrients through steaming (around 15%), you lose a lot less than boiling!

This brings me onto recipe number 2 - broccoli pesto! Its a great option for lunch or dinner and with the addition of a bit of seasoning is great for adults too!

Broccoli pesto

Broccoli seems to be tolerated on occasion by Finn, often the last thing eaten on his plate if served in its tree-like formation - it’s a hit and miss veg at best. It is however one of those so called 'super foods' that does deliver. Broccoli is a great source of vitamin C, A & K as well as calcium, beta-carotene (good for the eyes and immune system) as well as other anti-oxidants - all great things for your little sweetheart.

Within this recipe, I've also added some dairy for calcium, fruit for vitamins, and some beans for extra protein. It does sound odd I know, but go with me on it...

A tip is not to over-do any one single flavour - remember that those intense tastes that you and I love are exactly the flavours your kiddies can find overpowering and a turn-off. When it comes to young palates, simple flavours are often a good thing.  

This pesto freezes for up to a month and can be added to hot pasta from frozen, so a great time saver... 

Ingredients

• 100g broccoli
• 50g apple peeled and cored
• 50g cream cheese
• 25g grated Cheddar or Emmental cheese
• 50g cannellini beans
• Sprig of fresh basil
• 100ml rapeseed/olive oil

How to do it

1. Start by steaming the broccoli for about 3-4 minutes, or until the stalk is 
    starting to feel a little soft and then add the apple and steam them both         until really soft.

2. In a bowl, add the beans, cream cheese, grated cheese, broccoli and apple (whilst still hot) and mash into a pulp

3. Chop the basil, add with the oil and a little water from the steaming pot and blend with a hand blender until nice and smooth.

4. Mix into some of your kid's favourite cooked pasta and serve!

Cornerstone sauce

This is a brilliantly versatile sauce and is used in a range of dishes that I'll post. You can use it for pasta, pizzas, or in meaty dishes such as pies, so I suggest you get a bucket of it cooked up and freeze it in small portions to be used when needed. You can take them straight out the freezer and add to the cook pot if that’s the way you’re using it or defrost in the microwave to be spread over a pizza base. The addition of the fruit in this recipe makes it nice and sweet and a hit with the kids!

As Finn's default response to anything that looks as though it has tomato in it is "Urrgg, its yucky", I tend to name the sauce according to the dish I'm using it in, i.e. pizza sauce, pasta sauce etc.  So long as its not called 'Tomato sauce', he wolfs it down! 

Ingredients

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

1 empty can of water
100 grams of chopped onion
1 tbsp cooking oil
100 grams of courgette
60 grams of mushrooms
1 green pepper

1 punnet of red berries (depending on which type of berry you use, you may need to pass through a sieve (i.e. if using raspberries)

150 grams of beetroot
150 grams of cauliflower
50 grams of celery
2 tbsp of Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp of tomato ketchup or puree   

How to do it

1. Chop the onion but don’t worry about it being too small 
2. Put in a big saucepan with the oil and cook for a minute or two 
3. Chop all the veg into fairly small pieces 
4. Add the tinned tomatoes, water, courgette, mushrooms, green pepper, 
    berries, beetroot, cauliflower, celery, Worcestershire sauce and tomato 
    ketchup to the saucepan 
5. Cook over a low to medium heat for 20 to 25 minutes until everything is 
    soft
6. Blend with a hand blender and that's it!