Some healthy ideas for your little ones

I haven't written about food and cooking for a little while. All this shopping business has taken over, but those who have been following my blog will know that I am passionate about food. I am not at a MasterCheft standard just yet, but I like to eat and I like to make sure my Little Miss S eats as healthy as possible. Toddlers, however, are famous ( or shall I say infamous) for being fussy eaters, but us, parents, are ingenious creatures and we always find ways around this 'problem' (like hiding fruit and veg in our children's plates).

So here is what we have been eating (and not).

Tomatoes are a big 'no no' at the moment. Even finely chopped and hidden in a scrambled egg, they will always be identified and spat out. Shame, as I am a great tomato lover and they are full goodness (Vitamin A,C, K and many more). However, I found a solution. Beetroot, celery and fresh tomatoes sautéed in some unsalted butter and then blitzed into a puree. This can then be mixed into mashed potatoes and served with fish, chicken or even form a part of healthy spaghetti Bolognese sauce. It is such a tasty combination that really goes well together and it tastes a little sweet because of the beetroot which toddlers, of course, love. Moreover, it is bursting with vitamins.

Quinoa. She loves it. I have been eating these lovely little grains since I was her age and, apart from being a great source of iron and fibre, it is actually very tasty too. I serve it either as a garnish with her fish or meat, or as breakfast - simmer quinoa in milk and add your child's favourite fruit and yogurt.

Broccoli or kale (broccoli's more healthier brother). No toddler would eat broccoli on its own, but if you mash it up with sweet potato, unsalted butter and crème fraiche, it really does taste delicious. I serve it with salmon poached in milk. So far, so good.

Raw food juices are great, in my opinion, for making sure that your child gets his/her daily dose of vitamins. Carrot, apple and beetroot juice tastes great and Little Miss S loves it . Yes, the juicer is a pain in the bum to clean, but all for good cause!

Let me know about your clever little ways of making sure your bundle of joy gets 5 a day.

What did Little Miss S eat this week

Here are some of her favourites this week:




Ricotta Ravioli or Virtinukai

I wrote about these in one of my posts already. She absolutely loves them. This time we are serving some crushed strawberries with them rather than blueberries.




Haddock with sautéed leeks and mashed potato.

Easy peasy and healthy. Just mash some potatoes with a little bit of sour cream. Sauté leeks in butter and poach haddock in milk. Delicious and super quick.




Lamb stew with dried chanterelle mushrooms (chanterelles are a good source of vitamin B1 and D!)

500g of lamb neck filled diced into slices
1 large onion
2 carrots
2 cloves of garlic
A handful of dried chanterelle mushrooms
1.5 tbs of flour
500ml of stock
1 tbs of butter
1 tea spoon of dried rosemary
Olive oil for frying the lamb
Freshly ground black pepper for seasoning

Prepare your mushrooms at least 3 hours in advance. Soak them in some luke warm water.

Fry diced onion in some olive oil, then add carrots and meat. Once meat is slightly fried, add crushed garlic and flour. Fry for 5 - 8 minutes before adding a glass of hot stock. Stew until the stock has evaporated before adding another glass. Keep doing this until you use up all of your stock. The whole stewing time is about 1 - 1.5 hours, until the meat is very tender and the sauce is creamy and thick.

When you have approx. 15 minutes left till the end, add your mushrooms, pepper, rosemary and butter to the stew. If the meat is already tender, but the sauce is still not thick enough, just turn up the heat a little bit and stir the stew until you reach the desired consistency.

Serve with mashed potatoes.

This was made for Little Miss S, but my Hubby ate half of it! Yummy!

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!!