Showing posts with label Kiddie Food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kiddie Food. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Sandrolls


My children strongly dislike sandwiches.  I would almost say that they are borderline bread haters.  No. 1 will eat a sandwich only if there’s really nothing else available.  No. 2 will refuse sandwiches even though there is absolutely nothing else.  Bread is just not a popular meal in my house.

Apart from coating both sides of the bread with pure sugar, I’ve tried everything I can think of to get them to eat sandwiches or just bread in general.  I’ve tried coating the bread in egg then frying it ie. French toast.  No luck.  I’ve tried bread and butter pudding.  No luck.  Seriously.

Anyway, life would be so much easier if they would eat sandwiches.  We could have simple cheese or tuna sandwiches, chicken and sweet corn sandwiches and even a more gourmet feta cheese, roast pepper and spinach sandwich.  I could whip up a no-cook dinner in 5 minutes instead of slaving over a hot stove (or microwave!).

So in a desperate attempt to disguise the sandwiches, I presented them in a different form, what I call ‘sandrolls’!  I came across this idea somewhere on the internet, can’t remember where though.  The photos looked better on the internet, much more spirally!  Perhaps I needed a filling with a stronger contracting colour? 

I used 2 fillings: a grated cheddar cheese, cream cheese and pineapple filling and a tuna roast pepper and garlic mayonnaise filling.


Grated cheddar cheese filling:
Grate a chunk of cheddar cheese; mix with spoonfuls of cream cheese and mashed/grated pineapple.  No measurements, I just added to my taste.

Tuna filling:
Mix a tin of canned tuna, grated garlic, mayonnaise and roast pepper (chopped finely).

 Putting the rolls together:
1.       Cut the crusts off the slices of bread.
2.       Spread the filling on the bread length-wise.  Leave about 0.5 cm of space at the end of the bread.
3.       Roll roll roll.
4.       Cut the roll into 2 or 3 sections and you’re done.



After all that grating and mixing, did my children eat the “sandrolls”? 


Nope. 

They’re not that easily fooled.


Bugger.

Thursday, June 07, 2012

Quick chicken patties


Inspired by Food For Tots' chicken and apple balls, I attempted to make a chicken-based meal for my girls.  I really don’t enjoy cooking meat but I try to make sure that I make at least 2 chicken meals a week, and of course, other forms of fleshy protein such as fish appear more regularly on the menu.

I’m not a big fan of meat and have never been a big fan of meat.  Most of my family call me vegetarian but I probably wouldn’t call myself one.  I’ll quite happily eat any life form that swims or comes from the sea but as soon as it starts to walk on land, I just can’t bring myself to swallow it.  I have tried very hard however to not impose this meat-free diet on my children. 
I really struggle with the preparation stage.  I just don't like that cold soft ‘namby’ (sorry, no other words to describe it) feel that raw meat has.  I know, raw meat feels pretty much the same as raw fish…but I just don’t have that ‘internal gag factor’ when it comes to fish – who knows why?

Anyway, I saw Food For Tots' chicken and apple balls and loved how they looked.  I didn’t have any apples in the house and I was a bit lazy when it came to making the balls (haha!), so I just made squashed chicken patties.  Didn’t have all the proper ingredients so this is what I ended up using.

Ingredients:
450g (roughly) chicken thigh fillets
½ tsp turmeric
1 tsp cumin
1 tbsp coriander
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp breadcrumbs
2 tbsp wholemeal flour
No salt (I avoid adding salt to our meals)

Method:
1. Roughly cut your chicken fillets into cubes and pop into food processor (if you’re like me and really lazy, I challenged my Magimix and put the fillets straight in.  The mince came out fine). Push the button and mince mince mince.

2. Add all other ingredients in and push that button again.

3. Put contents of food processor into a big bowl and give it another quick mix with a fork.

4. Shape to your liking.  Little patties for me.

5. Lightly pan fry (or perhaps bake for a healthier option – I pan fried).  This is probably the most time-consuming part.

6. Eat!  Well, I didn’t but my girls did.
I served this with plain pasta with a dab of butter and sliced cucumber (my ‘I can’t be bothered’ vegetable).

Saturday, June 02, 2012

Salad-eating child


I have a salad-eating toddler.  A raw-salad-eating toddler.  Very weird.  I have to gloat because who knows how long this will last before she starts asking for chocolate...MY chocolate!

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Party time!



…not for me though.  I was up all week making these little cuties.  (The penguin is Peso from the Octonauts and I’m sure everyone is familiar with the other little lady!).

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Fish and chips with a hint of spice


My weekly meal plan consists of 1-pot curries.  Curry chicken, curry tofu, curry chickpeas, anything that I can put in a curry and anything that I can cook in 1 pot.  Some days I can see the look in my family’s faces ‘not curry A G A I N’.  Well, my husband and three-year old have the ‘look’.  My 19-month old just throws everything on to the floor.
Hence I’m “branching” out to fish and chips!  Home-made fish and chips.  Healthier than shop-bought but definitely more time-consuming. 

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