Quick and healthy meals for your little treasures!

I though I'll just share some of my quick and healthy little meals for little darlings. If you are having a busy mummy Monday like I am (battle the snow to a baby group, tidy up the kitchen after Sunday night's cooking experiments, mop the floors because someone(!) brought in the snow with their boots, take dog out, do the laundry, go food shopping and etc whilst running after Little Miss S) then you cannot spend an hour in the kitchen cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner.  When I cook food for my daughter who is 14 months now I always think whether the ingredients I put into her meal have a nutritional value. In my opinion, as she is still young to understand stronger flavors and does not demand sweets or any other 'naughty' foods,I can easily just give her all these foods that are good for her. She might not like broccoli when she is 3 but at the moment she eats it, therefore I'm using this time to 'stuff' her with all the vital ingredients!:) Of course, I'm no saint and on a couple occasions I was 'caught' giving her some chips and some fried halloumi cheese. This was purely to keep peace in the pub whilst we were having a Sunday roast:) Actually, that halloumi cheese was 'to die for'!! We all had it for starter! Deep fried in bread crumbs and served with creamy broccoli dip!

Morning! Some ideas for porridge
So whichever porridge you make for your child (I tend to use Organic Oats or good old Ready Brek) add some healthy treats to it. I either mash/blend some fresh blueberries with banana or grate whole apple and mix it with cinnamon (my mum told me that cinnamon is very good for children so I use lots of it now!:)

Very 'garlicky and tomatoey' pasta
OK, so pasta itself hasn't really got any nutritional value but tomatoes and garlic do so they are the key ingredients in this dish! Just blanch some tomatoes ( I am a huge fan of tomatoes so I tend to spend a fortune on them and always get vine ones in Waitrose). Chop them up. Finely chop up or mash a clove of garlic and add to tomatoes. You can heat this mixture up in a pan with some olive oil or leave it as it is. Boil some pasta (I use de cecco as it is small enough for little mouths). Mix it with a sauce. Grate some cheddar or parmesan and that's it! Easy and garlic helps fight colds!:)

Brain booster salmon! 
So I read that salmon should best be eaten with broccoli in order to get out all the goodies that hide inside salmon and broccoli. So that's what do! I poach some salmon in milk, steam broccoli and boil sweet potato (apparently sweet potatoes is much much better for you than white potato). And this is it. Just add some of the milk from the salmon and some unsalted butter to the potato to make a creamy mash. Quick, healthy and nutritious! 

For a quick and healthy dinner I boil my daughter so quinoa (it's super good for you!!). Mix it with some unsalted butter and either add some steamed and blended broccoli or some blended boiled apple (and my favourite Cinnamon). Basically, you can use whatever you have in a fridge as I find that quinoa goes with quite a few fruit and veg! My hubby tried some quinnoa and loved it! Oh, it goes well with hummus too! Actually, whilst we are 'at it', for your own healthy lunch mix some quinoa with hummus, add some broccoli, some tomatoes, some boiled chopped sweet potato and grate some feta or parmesan. Make a little dressing with olive oil, balsamic, some honey and mustard (all amounts to your taste) and serve with some pitta or flat bread. Yummy and healthy! 

To make a scrambled egg more interesting and nutritious add some peeled chopped tomatoes to it!!