...and then I'll say no more on parenting for a while. I need help: I am finding it hard to cook food that my children will eat. The older and more independent Isabel is becoming (now 20 months), the longer I can spend in the kitchen cooking "lovely stuff" (as I rather enjoy cooking actually) and the longer I spend preparing yummy food, the less likely they are to eat it. Every three days, or even more frequently, I have to revert to my pasta in tomato sauce (you know the one: fry garlic and onion, add tinned/fresh toms plus herbs and simmer)just so that they'll have at least one proper meal from time to time. Otherwise it's just ending up in the bin.
:-(
I have children-related recipe books, but I'd welcome any other ideas on what children love to eat.
In exchange for those, I'll share a totally wonderful, sin-free (nay, actually positively good for you) recipe for a biscuit:
oats (oooh I don't know, about 2 - 3 mugs), 2 x mashed bananas, two tabs olive oil, 1 pkt chopped walnuts; 4 x chopped dates (buy organic - this is an eg. of where organic is def. superior). Blend, "biscuitize" (you know what I mean) onto lined baking tray, and bake for about 20 mins at 200 deg c (in our oven anyway - perhaps less time in yours).
Enjoy.
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14 comments:
Very familiar sounding, pasta and sauce! Mine like macaroni cheese too.
Then there's chilli con carni, mild ofcourse, so it's tasty rather than spicy and I do it with mince or with just a variety of beans, kidley, flageolet, cannellini, butter beans, chick peas, anything you fancy.
Chicken and veg stirfry, kept simple, with just a hint of fresh ginger, splash of sherry and soy sauce.
Home made chicken nuggets for an occasional treat. So yum, I have them too! Longer recipe I'll email.
Frajitas. No, really! Chicken, turkey, lamb or just veg, (onions, peppers, mushrooms) with only half the packet of frajita spice (cheat!) and even I was surprised when they raved over the guacamole. Mild salsa, grated cheese and sour cream all go down well. They like making them themselves. The only hands-on food they get in my house!
Home-made meatballs and spaghetti, you must have done that.
Lentil and vegetable pie was a HUGE hit and I was sooo surprised! Especially as it has a hint of Marmite in it.
Simple stuff too, mince and tatties, roast dinner, that sort of stuff, but what I've found is that it's all just the meals David and I would have ourselves. I don't even possess a book with recipes for children. I take recipes from magazines regularly, anything I fancy. They even eat squid, mussels, duck, guinea fowl, all sorts. Atleast once!
I've just read all that and it sounds horrifically pompous, I don't mean to. I've just been lucky that I stuck to my guns and the children caved! They WON'T starve, trust me. You'll feel awful, but they'll get hungry enough and eat a scabby donkey between two rusty bread vans after a few missed meals.
Bit like going through the 'controlled crying'. THAT was tough.
Good luck!
I think I'll start with the scabby donkey between two rusty bread vans and go from there - that really made me laugh! you are funny! Thank you sooo much for the recipe ideas. Isabel's harder than michael as she genuinely can't chew properly yet (teeth very very slow in coming through - I mean she has them, but only 2 v. small ones at the back as yet) - so food has be mushy BUT she wants to pick it up to eat it so it has to be , well, solid. ???
There's one good thing: they both lurve fruit (but eating loads of that still leaves them looking a little on the skinny side, much to the concern of my MIL.
Lots of love you funny thing you
Ruth xxxx
Ah, Ruth! You know, you and I could share a lot of recipes if it weren't for one thing. That pesky little thing called the Atlantic Ocean. It keeps me from understanding your measurements and the terms are completely different than here in the US!
For example-biscuit....I'm guessing here that would be called a cookie, or perhaps a muffin. Biscuits here are generally a flaky delicacy that grew from Southern US cooking. It was the Civil War, actually, that made biscuits famous here. The soldiers could easily carry them in their pockets and they would keep well...
My kids go through finicky stages, as well, but like Louise, my children have never starved, and they now prefer things I cook to most junk foods.
I am laughing because Louise commented about "frajitas", and here they are fajitas, without the r...perplexing, really!
As soon as I can figure out what a "tab" means, I am making those "biscuits!" :)
Hello Rightthinker! I'm sorry, it's my humour and deliberate spelling mistakes getting me into trouble, again!
You are quite right, it is 'fajitas', somehow that had an r added in our house and stuck.
Just like 'kidley beans' in the second paragraph are 'kidney beans'. Don't ask me why, there is a long family history with intended mistakes, I did a post once on my blog a while ago. Ruth just knows us so well, I don't think she bothers to correct me anymore...!
Nice to meet you, anyhow.
Pinched your comments again Ruth, Sorry!
Much love
xx
Louise, I can understand the deliberate spelling mistakes! We do that in our house, too. We also make up quite interesting names for things..almost a code that no one else could understand.
Certainly a bunch of goofs in our home.
Thanks for explaining! Now, if I can just figure out the cooking measurements and terms for kitchen stuff there in the UK, I will be alright!
That's my old pal Carla who just commented there. She lives in NZ and is new to blogging. My daughter phoned her yesterday whilst playing with our phone.....
RT: now then: here we have biscuits, muffins, cookies, buns and cakes. A biscuit is a hard thing; a bun is a small round soft cake; a muffin is a larger cake and a cake is a very large thing that you would slice and share. A cookie is a biscuit with chocolate chips in it.
A 'tab' is short for a table-spoon. but I'm guessing that if you had table-spoons out there, you'd know that. So now I have to describe a tablespoon: it's, erm, bigger than a desert-spoon but not a big as a ladle. Oh, um, ooooh, help me someone. I know: it's about 4 times (?) the size of the spoonful of sugar that you might add to your tea (which we drink hot and with milk over here)!!!!
Now, Louise lives in Scotland and she'll prtobably argue that a biscuit is something else, and Carla lives in New Zealand, and so she'll probably argue it's something else again. Oh, by the way, we have crackers too - they are savoury biscuits for cheese.
Confused? I know I am! Crackers?? That's me I think!!!
Biscuit I agree with!
Muffin, however, I might point out that it's usually a flattish, bread type roll, delicious toasted and buttered. You might have one for tea, along with your crumpet, or perhaps (another cat popped in here...) a pikelet?
The cakey muffin, I would argue (and am sure am quite wrong!) is more American. Yes?
Or no?
xx
Yes, our muffins are in muffin tins-which are baking pans with wells in them. The muffin is like a small cake, and is generally a fruited variety, or something at least sort of sweet. It rises because of the use of eggs and baking powder, and usually goes over the top of the well, making a kind of "mushroom" look..delicious. Fresh berry muffins are the best.
Ruth, I actually hadn't even thought of "tab" being for tablespoon! What a moron I am! Here the abbreviation for tablespoon is T or tblsp.
No, you're not a moron. I am. we have the same abbreviations over here - I'm just ... oh I don't know .... a silly billy!!
Now if Louise is going to start mentioning crumpets and pikelets, then I think we should add baps, (which my mother calls teacakes), and teacakes (which my mother calls currant buns, but which are not buns at all), welsh cakes, farls and scones (pronounced sconns if you talk properly like me or scowns (to rhyme with owns, not gowns, if you don't).
Mmmmm fresh baked muffins. Drool. I had a lovely tripple chocolate one at the local aeroplane museum recently!!
I KNEW the pikelets would get you going...
xx
Wow.. all of those foods sound so complex for me. I always tried to stick to plain and simple with my little ones.
I didn't worry when the kids went through this phase.. from about 20 months they go through one of those "I'm not eating" moments. I just made sure that they had lots of fruit available. I encouraged them to crunch on vegtables ( if they wanted any), and placed cereal/bread at their disposal.
Most of them grow out of this phase eventually.
Thank you all sooooo much for your comments and recipe ideas. It's lovely to have a new commenter in Jan - all the way from Oz! I have relatives out there - near Adelaide. I MUST go and see them some time - when the children are older.
As a way of thanking you for these great ideas, here are two yummy things that you can do with the beautiful aubergine (eggplant, RT!!!), cos they're hard to know what to do with!!:
1) slice and brush with olive oil
2) grill on one side
3) coat reverse side with tomato paste, fresh basil and a little goats cheese
4) grill.
Or:
1) slice
2) dip in beaten egg mixed with grated parmesan
3 fry in olive oil
(also good for courgettes)
When my Darling Daughter, who has now attained the dizzy heights of Gap yeardom, was a wee scrap the only way I could persuade her to eat anything at all was to include fromage frais in the recipe. Preferably strawberry from frais, which made life quite interesting at times...
but it did persuade her to eat almost anything!
Nice way to convey information on cookery and recipes i'll keep checking back here for more informative reading . Thanks Alot for the quality reading.
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