I always say this, but when I cook with my children, I have to be in just the right mood. A laid-back, chilled-out, hey-it’s-fine-to-wreck-the-kitchen kind of mood. Because cooking should be fun, right? For all of us, kids and parents alike. Which also means I won’t be too precious about what the end result actually looks like.
Take these Halloween iced buns for example. Who in their right mind wants to eat something smothered in black icing? Well, my daughters it would seem. Especially when covered in hundreds-and-thousands and oozing with green jam – or green snot as my two like to call it. Delightful pair. Continue reading “Green goo iced buns for Halloween”→
We’re already into October and I’m pleased to say it’s my turn to host the Family Foodies challenge. This month our theme is Cooking with Kids and we’re looking for your recipes and ideas to encourage little ones to get active in the kitchen.
Children are never too young to help out with the cooking – although I use the term ‘help out’ quite loosely here! Since my girls were little babies, I’ve been getting them to ‘help’ me prepare meals; from playing with pasta shapes or rolling dough sat in their high chairs to banging pots and pans on the kitchen floor as I did pretty much the same thing on the stove top. Even before they could walk, simply watching and playing alongside me has meant they were learning about where food comes from and how it is made.
As my daughters have got older, so they’ve grown more and more independent in the kitchen. When they were toddlers, their role was to put the toppings on the pizza. Next they’d be allowed to chop the ham and grate the cheese. And now, aged nine and six, they pretty much make the pizzas from scratch, from preparing the dough to popping their finished creations in the oven.
And as often as possible I encourage the girls to plan and cook their own meal for all the family. We start by leafing through children’s cookbooks to choose a main course and a pudding, before writing a shopping list and then helping me buy the ingredients. Spaghetti Bolognese and chocolate cake tend to be popular choices. I can just about let our oldest Jess get on with it alone now, although I tend to hang around in the kitchen in case she needs a hand, while I act as Mia’s ‘kitchen slave’ so that she’s in charge and I only do what she instructs me to do – within reason!
I can’t wait to hear how you involve your children or grandchildren or nieces and nephews in the kitchen. What are your favourite recipes to make with children? And do you have any tips for making sure the whole thing doesn’t turn into complete and utter mayhem? Post your recipes in the usual way and link up to this challenge by the end of the month or feel free to dig out posts from your blog archives and link those up too.
Win a gingerbread house cutter set!
Our prize this month is this brilliant Lakeland cutter set to make your very own gingerbread house. With Christmas just around the corner, this could come in very handy.
The set includes a gingerbread recipe and 12 cutters to stamp out walls, roof, tree, a snowman and his gingerbread friends. You then simply mix some icing sugar to ‘cement’ the house together, before decorating with all your favourite sweeties and a dusting of icing sugar snow.
Family Foodie entry guidelines
You may submit any recipe on your blog that fits this month’s theme, new or from the archive, and there is a limit of three entries per blogger. You’re also welcome to submit the post to other challenges too. If the recipe is not your own, please give the appropriate credit.
Send your recipe URL to me at vanesther-at-reescommunications-dot-co-dot-uk, including your own email address and the title of your recipe or post. The closing date this month is Friday 31 October 2014.
Display the Family Foodies badge (above) on your recipe post, with a link back to both Eat Your Veg and Bangers & Mash, as well as details of this month’s challenge.
If you’re on Twitter, then please tweet your post to myself @BangerMashChatand Lou @Eat_Your_Veg and include the hashtag #FamilyFoodies. We’ll retweet all that we see.
You may enter from anywhere in the blogosphere, but prizes can only be posted to UK addresses.
At the end of the month a guest judge will choose a winning recipe. The winner will be announced in a monthly round-up of all the entries. Winners will get to display a Family Foodie Winner annotated badge on their blog if they wish and their recipe will go through to the Family Foodies Hall of Fame on each of our sites.
Any questions, do drop me an email at the address above.
Thanks so much to everyone that entered the August/September challenge hosted by Louisa at Eat Your Veg, where the theme was The Under Twos. Louisa will be announcing the winner of the M&S Tiny Taste Buds goodies very soon.
For the low down on other foodie challenges, competitions and giveaways, head over to The Food Blog Diary.
Here in Somerset, we’ve been enjoying some real scorchers in recent weeks, which has been perfect for the start of the school holidays. Your entries for July’s Family Foodies challenge have proven simply perfect inspiration for deliciously refreshing ways to chill out in this sticky heat.
It’s always hard to predict what the weather might have in store for us Brits in July. It ought to be a month of long, hot, lazy days, of trips to the seaside, cheering the kids on at their school sports days and keeping the ants off the sarnies on those impromptu picnics in the park.
In reality though, it’s very often about trying to the stop the children jumping in puddles wearing only sandals (I know, there’s really no point), countless games of cards to stop everyone getting cabin fever and spontaneous visits to museums and art galleries to escape the rain.
But ever the optimist, I’m holding out for July being a gloriously golden, sunshiny month where sunscreen and sun hats are the order of the day.
So that’s why this month’s Family Foodies challenge has the theme Chill Out, Baby! We’re calling for your tasty eats and drinks for chilling out and cooling down in the summer sun: tempting icy treats suitable for the whole family. From frozen ice creams and sorbets to refreshing salads and smoothies, we can’t wait to see your recipes for chilled and frosty delights to tantalise our taste buds while cooling our heated brows.
As usual, we have a prize for the overall winner and this month we are giving away a copy of Celebrity Masterchef winner, Lisa Faulkner’s fabulous cookbook Recipes from my Mother for my Daughter. Not bad, eh?
To get the ball rolling, I’m entering my elderflower cordial, which I posted on the blog a couple of days ago. Mixed with fizzy water and lots of ice, it’s my idea of the perfect summer cooler.
But it’s your ideas, we really want to hear about…
Family Foodie Entry Guidelines:
You may submit any recipe on your blog that fits this month’s theme, new or from the archive, and there is a limit of three entries per blogger. You’re also welcome to submit the post to other challenges too. If the recipe is not your own, please give the appropriate credit.
Send your recipe URL to me at vanesther-at-reescommunications-dot-co-dot-uk, including your own email address and the title of your recipe or post. The closing date this month is Tuesday 29 July 2014.
Display the Family Foodies badge (below) on your recipe post, with a link back to both Eat Your Veg and Bangers & Mash, as well as details of this month’s challenge.
If you’re on Twitter, then please tweet your post to myself @BangerMashChatand Lou @Eat_Your_Veg and include the hashtag #FamilyFoodies. We’ll retweet all that we see.
You may enter from anywhere in the blogosphere, but prizes can only be posted out to UK addresses.
At the end of the month a guest judge will choose a winning recipe. The winner will be announced in a monthly round-up of all the entries. Winners will get to display a Family Foodie Winner annotated badge on their blog if they wish and their recipe will go through to the Family Foodies Hall of Fame on each of our sites.
It’s been a month since the deadline for entries into May’s Family Foodies challenge – do you remember that one, the one with the Cheap and Cheerful theme? I could come up with a list of excuses as long as my arm for taking so long to bring you the round-up, but it would make for pretty dull reading.
It’s simply been a case of work, family and, well, life really, having to take priority – you know what it’s like. And so I had to take a little step back from the blog for a few weeks. But hopefully things are back on a bit more of an even keel now.
But I hope you’ll agree it was worth the wait. We received some brilliantly inspiring and inventive recipes for last month’s Family Foodies, so if you are looking for creative ways to make your grocery budget stretch that little bit further yet still serve up temptingly tasting meals, then this is the recipe round-up for you.
For starters, we have a couple of soups. There’s a vibrant 5 Minute Smoothie Soup(1) from Jac at Tinned Tomatoes, which as well as being super quick and super cheap, it’s also perfect for anyone watching their weight at just 42 calories a bowl.
Katie from Feeding Boys and a Firefighter also brings a hearty soup to our Cheap and Cheerful table, with her Healthy Mushroom Soup (3).It sounds absolutely packed full of flavour with those lovely earthy mushrooms, alongside lots of garlic and chives and if you want to lux it up, you can add a glug of sherry and a dollop of creme fraiche. Ooh yum.
How about an Easy Cheesy Muffins (2) to go with your bowl of soup. Luckily that’s precisely what Lou from Eat Your Veg has brought along with her. These marvellous mini muffins would be ideal for packed lunches and are also a great way to get the little ones involved in the kitchen, as Lou’s gorgeous son Jacques demonstrates.
Talking of lunches, I think these next two entries would make a lovely weekend lunch and would also be perfect picnic food. This Smoked Salmon and Asparagus Quiche (4) from Ros aka The More Than Occasional Baker looks really quite decadent even though it’s made from leftovers, while this Quiche Lorraine with Slow Cooked Pulled Gammon (5) from Camilla at Fab Food 4 All is fabulously “fuss and fiddle” free and makes the most of value gammon from the supermarket.
And how about this dish of Spinach, Chickpeas and Peppercorns (6) from Sudha at Spicy, Quirky and Serendipitous? Does it look delicious? It’s Sudha’s grandmother’s recipe and she makes it whenever she feels like she needs a hug from her. I love the way food can link us so directly to our loved ones.
Linsy from Home Cook Food has three Cheap and Cheerful dishes to share. First of all there’s herChanar Payesh (7), which is aBengali-style cottage cheese pudding and a clever way of using up sour milk. Next she brings us a hot and spicy Sriracha Eggplant and Tofu (8) and she completes her trio with an Cheesy Pesto Pasta (9), perfect for a quick and easy, mid-week supper.
Not surprisingly for this Cheap and Cheerful challenge, we have a few more pasta dishes up next. Katharine from Leeks & Limoni gives us this very pretty bowlful of Penne with Speck and Leeks(10), which has universal appeal, just perfect for a family meal. Then a couple of pasta bakes up next. We have a Veggie Sausage and Pepper Pasta Bake (11) from Helen at Family – Friends – Food, a fun (and very tasty) way to use vegetarian sausages, and then a Meatball and Red Pepper Pasta Bake (12) from Alex at Gingey Bites, featuring lots of versatile and cheap ingredients, and very yummy looking meatballs.
If you saw the Mexican theme on The Spice Trail a couple of months ago, you’ll know I’m rather partial to Mexican food, and so I was very pleased to see a couple of burritos on the list of entries for Family Foodies. These Burritos with Cumin and Eggs (13) were the end result when Sudhafrom Spicy, Quirky and Serendipitous let her “imagination run wild” and what a delicious imagination she clearly has! Louisa at Eat Your Veg came up with these Veggie Burritos (14) for National Vegetarian Week back in May, and as with so much of her food, they are a very healthy and hands-on dinner for all the family to tuck into together.
These Beet Parathas (15) from Aneela at The Odd Pantry are a deliciously frugal dinner. Paratha is a stuffed, wholewheat flatbread and Aneela has stuffed hers with a fantastic filling made from just about every part of the beetroot that is then spiced to perfection.
My Braised Oxtail with Smoked Bacon (16) is up next, the first time I’ve ever tried cooking this extremely cheap cut, and I’ll certainly be coming back to it again soon.
And I have to say, I’m very tempted by these Guacamole Hush Puppies (17) from Gayathri at Spices Galore. They are her take on the hush puppies from the deep south of the United States, which are essentially deep-fried cornmeal fritters. Gayathri has added avocado, chilli and lots of fresh herbs to her version and I think they sound irresistible.
Elizabeth from Elizabeth’s Kitchen has come up with a healthier and tastier version of the ubiquitous chicken nugget next with her Chicken, Apple & Sage Nuggets (18). I think I’d like these as much as my children.
Something that went down well with my own family was this Spicy Chana Dal Cottage Pie (19). While it’s not meat-free, the chana dal does help bulk out the filling and helps make a little meat go much, much further.
After all those savoury delights, I reckon it’s high time we had some sweet treats, don’t you? Corina from Searching for Spice has made us these gorgeous little Oaty Banana and Raisin Bites (20), made from just three ingredients, they really couldn’t be easier to make. Small chewy clusters of oats, banana and raisins, baked in the oven, they sound almost too good to be true!
And how about this sumptuous Nutella Bread and Butter Pudding (21) from Helen at Family – Friends – Food? Custard, chocolate and bread pudding – sounds like a heavenly combination if you ask me.
Did someone say chocolate? If it’s chocolate on a budget you want then these next six entries will have you whooping in sheer foodie ecstasy on a shoestring. Last month Choclette from Chocolate Log Blog set an interesting challenge for We Should Cocoa: to bake a chocolate cake for less than £1. And I’m rather pleased that many of her entrants saw fit to also submit their entries to Family Foodies as well. I couldn’t believe it was possible to bake an edible cake for less than a pound, until I saw this little lot…
Michelle at Utterly Scrummy Food for Family’sChocolate Cake for less than £1 (22) looks absolutely decadent, although it must be said the chocolate topping wasn’t included in the costings. But doesn’t that chocolate sponge look wonderfully moist?
Choclette from Chocolate Log Blog came up with two versions of a Chocolate Cake for £1 (23). There’s a malted hot chocolate cake, made using Horlicks (gosh, I haven’t heard that mentioned for quite a while), and then a banana hot chocolate honey cake. Both sound divine and I’m so impressed each one came in under budget. Just!
Admittedly Sarah from Tales from the Kitchen Shed used a smaller tin than normal for her £1 Chocolate Fudge Cake (24) but I think you’ll agree it looks like it must have cost much more than the 99½p it actually cost to make. It really looks rather extravagant and knowing how tasty Sarah’s recipes are, I bet this tastes the business too.
Caroline aka Caroline Makes went with a vegan recipe for her entry How to Make Chocolate Cake for Only £1 (25), and found it was actually cheaper to use plain chocolate from the basics range than use cocoa powder. I love how glossy that topping looks.
Ros from The More Than Occasional Baker used a packet cake mix from Morrison’s and even stretched to some peanut butter for her Chocolate, Banana and Peanut Butter Cake for £1 (26). Her secret ingredient was sour cream for extra lightness, and I love the fact she served up to people without telling them it was a budget cake and people were asking her for the recipe. Result!
Finally we have this very fine-looking Chocolate Syrup Cake for £1 (27) from Katharine at Leeks & Limoni, in which she replaced the butter with oil for a recipe she describes as a revelation. “The cake was really delicious,” she says in her post. “I mean, nicer than my usual standard chocolate cake and a cinch to make.” Who’d have thought that by cutting the cost on ingredients, you might actually stumble upon an improved recipe?
And the winner is…
So there you have it. Quite a collection of cheap and cheerful dishes, perfect for feeding a hungry family. It all goes to show, food doesn’t have to be boring when you’re on a budget. Although you do need to be creative and think out of the box a little, which of course isn’t always easy when times are tight and you have a family to feed, as I learnt a few weeks ago when my family and I took part in the Live Below the Line challenge. But some great ideas there to give us all food for thought.
But as ever there can only be one winner. And this month that much sought-after accolade of Family Foodies champion goes to Choclette from Chocolate Log Blog for her two very inventive versions of a Chocolate Cake for £1, and for coming up with such a fantastic blog challenge to run alongside the Live Below the Line campaign. Well done Choclette! A copy of the Passion for Juice smoothie recipe book will be in the post to you very soon – once you’ve sent me your address that is…
Thank you to everyone that took part in the Cheap and Cheerful challenge, and apologies once again for taking so long to bring you the round-up. Better late than never though, as they say!
Since frugal food is the order of the day in the Bangers & Mash household this week as we take part in the Live Below the Line challenge, it made sense for this month’s Family Foodies challenge to also echo the frugal theme.
We’re after your Cheap & Cheerful ideas for family food – be it breakfast, lunch or dinner, snack or pudding, or even drinks – so long as it tastes good, doesn’t cost much to make and appeals to the whole family, we want your recipes!
All you have to do is post your favourite frugal family foods on your own blog and link up to this post before the end of the month. There’s a lovely Passion 4 Juice recipe book up for grabs for the winner, crammed with gorgeously healthy and delicious fresh juice and smoothie ideas you and your family will adore.
Family Foodie Entry Guidelines:
You may submit any recipe on your blog that fits this month’s theme, new or from the archive, and there is a limit of three entries per blogger. You’re also welcome to submit the post to other challenges too. If the recipe is not your own, please give the appropriate credit.
Send your recipe URL to me at vanesther-at-reescommunications-dot-co-dot-uk, including your own email address and the title of your recipe or post. The closing date this month is Wednesday 28 May 2014.
Display the Family Foodies badge (above) on your recipe post, with a link back to both Eat Your Veg and Bangers & Mash, as well as details of this month’s challenge.
If you’re on Twitter, then please tweet your post to myself @BangerMashChatand Lou @Eat_Your_Veg and include the hashtag #FamilyFoodies. We’ll retweet all that we see.
You may enter from anywhere in the blogosphere, but prizes can only be posted out to UK addresses.
At the end of the month a guest judge will choose a winning recipe. The winner will be announced in a monthly round-up of all the entries. Winners will get to display a Family Foodie Winner annotated badge on their blog if they wish and their recipe will go through to the Family Foodies Hall of Fame on each of our sites.
If you are looking for fresh ideas for tasty, healthy food to cook when time is tight, you’ve come to the right place. Our latest Family Foodies challenge has attracted a brilliant array of fab fast food recipes for feeding your hectic, hungry family and I have to say I’m really looking forward to working (and eating) my way through this little lot over the coming weeks.
So let’s crack on and take a look through those enticing entries…
This beautiful dish of simply cooked salmon served with a fresh and zingy potato salad from Janice at Farmersgirl Kitchen has springtime written all over it, and what’s more it is so quick to rustle up too. It looks so inviting, doesn’t it?
Linsy from Home Cook Food brought an exciting assortment of dishes to our Fab Fast Food buffet. There’s a beautifully spicedMethi Vegetable Malai, a protein-packed Kala Chana Aur Methi Curry(black chickpeas with fenugreek leaves), fragrant Mint and Coriander Leaves Paratha(flatbread), a robustly flavoured Bruschetta Pastaand last, but not least, this very tasty Eggplant Rice. I’m so inspired by Linsy’s use of spices in these dishes and I look forward to trying them out on my brood.
Sylvia’s photographs on her blog Happiness is Homemade are always utterly gorgeous, and these pictures of her simple take on a stir-fry live up to her usual stunning standard. Don’t you just want to dive straight into this image of whole wheat spaghetti with vegetables? You just know it’s going to taste every bit as good as it looks.
Another blog where I always wish I could climb into the screen to sample the food is Elizabeth’s Kitchen. Elizabeth can invite me around any night of the week to eat pasta as attractive as this! Quick, healthy and delicious – just perfect.
Sudha from Spicy, Quirky and Serendipitous likes to surprise and delight her blog readers with intriguing and inspiring recipes and her four entries for the Fab Fast Food challenge are perfect examples of her cooking style. There are Spicy Chickpeas, Gluten Free Pancakes, Quirky Quinoa Pattiesand Naked Egg Inspired Pasta. The big question for me is which one to try first…
These gluten-free coco-banana bites were the brilliant result of an “over-ripe banana fest” in the kitchen of Kate aka The Gluten Free Alchemist. These little morsels of fruity, frozen deliciousness are ever so healthy, particularly if you opt for carob, although to be honest I think I’ll quite happily stick with chocolate. Not only are they made in minutes but they keep in the freezer for ages, perfect for a handy snack when life gets manic.
My Family Foodies partner-in-crime, Lou from Eat Your Veg is up next and she really is a pro when it comes to healthy fast food. Just take a look at this little lot – there’s a super speedy Chicken & Veggie Chow Mein, a Healthier Tuna Mayo and these simply wonderful Bread Tarts, which I so wish I’d thought of myself and intend to try out on my kids very, very soon.
Helen from Family-Friends-Food knows a thing or two about creating child-friendly food, and these two offerings to our Fab Fast Food table demonstrate how just easy it can be to rustle up delicious food in a matter of minutes. Her Zesty Tuna Pasta has a wonderfully Mediterranean feel to it and is great eaten either warm or cold, while I reckon these French Toast Pizza Rollsare simply ingenious.
Next are three dishes from yours truly, each of which are super quick and super easy. Oh and super tasty too. Firstly, there’s my Baked Rice with Spinach, Cannellini Beans and Eggs using basic store cupboard ingredients. Then there’s a Chicken Soup with Rice, perfect for feeding little (and big) people when they’re poorly. And finally, how about Baked Sea Bass with Ginger, Garlic & Chilli and Miso Rice – an incredible combination of fresh, zesty flavours and all cooked in a foil parcel, keeping washing up to a minimum. Result.
Linzi from Lancashire Food brings us her gorgeous chicken chow mein, on the table within just 30 minutes. It’s always a hit with her own family. Linzi’s recipe features Chinese five spice, one of my favourite spice blends, and is perfect for using up whatever veggies you happen to have in.
Another quick and easy recipe making the most of store cupboard ingredients is this satisfying hot dog pasta from Ness at JibberJabberUK. My children adore hot dog sausages so I know they’d be first in line for this dish, plus I like Ness’ top tip about throwing in some finely chopped broccoli stalk too – a great way to reduce your food waste.
Another way to reduce food waste of course is to make the most of your leftovers, which is what this tasty noodle soup from Corina at Searching for Spice calls for – leftover beef brisket to be exact. Packed with vegetables and flavoured with chillies, garlic, lime and ginger, this is definitely my kind of soup.
These salmon goujons from Katie at Feeding Boys look just so tempting, I really can’t imagine any child refusing these. Katie promises they only take 10 minutes to prepare and 15 minutes to bake and in her words “you’ll be rewarded with luxurious chunky goujons instead of the skinny minnie versions that come out of a packet when you’re knackered on a Thursday evening.” That’s it. I’m sold!
I must admit, I had to Google the work ‘tikki’. I discovered from Wikipedia (where would I be without Wikipedia?) that it means “a small cutlet or croquette” and hails from North India. Normally made from potato (aloo tikki), Vidhya from My Receipes has come up with her own take which also uses quinoa and frozen peas. Flavoured with a whole host of spices, these tikki sound absolutely delicious.
Nasifriet from The Taste Space is midway through a 30 different vegetables in 30 days challenge. She needed to come up with some not-so-common vegetables and so headed straight for her local Asian grocer and came home with baby bok choy, which she turned into this wonderfully healthy and attractive stir fry with shiitake mushrooms, snow peas, edamame and miso. It sounds incredible to me – divinely simply temple food that you know is going to do you so much good.
Choclette from Chocolate Log Blog promises these scrummy banana and mincemeat buns can be rustled up in under half an hour, so long as your butter is soft and your ingredients handy. I’m ready for that challenge! We always seem to have ripe bananas in our house, so this recipe is definitely one for me to bookmark.
As Laura from How to Cook Good Food says, you can never have too many flatbread recipes up your sleeve. As well as offering us her herb and tapenade flatbreads, she also shares a fantastic list of her favourite flatbread recipes from other blogs. So if you’re in need of flatbread inspiration, you know where to head! Laura’s version looks fantastic – it looks delightfully light and crispy and I love the use of fresh herbs and dukkah, a fabulous Middle Eastern spice mix.
And the winner is…
Thanks to everyone for sharing their fabulous fast food ideas in this month’s Family Foodies challenge. Each and every one was a real winner in its own right, but as ever only one of you can take home the prize of Jo Pratt’s inspirational Madhouse Cookbook.
I’m pleased to announce the winner of the Fab Fast Food challenge is Elizabeth from Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary for her very tasty beef and broccoli pasta. Well done Elizabeth! Your prize will be in the post to you very soon.
Louisa at Eat Your Veg will be revealing April’s theme for Family Foodies very soon, so do keep an eye out for that – I promise, you’re going to love it! I can’t wait to see what you come up with…
We all have times when we need to rustle up an easy dinner using basic, store cupboard ingredients.
You’ve been up against it at work and haven’t had time to get to the shops. It’s the end of the month and money is tight. Whatever the reason, it’s useful to have a go-to dish or two up your sleeve.
My usual store cupboard recipes tend to feature cheap ingredients like pasta, beans, pulses and whatever I find in the freezer. I make sure I always have a few bags of vegetables in the freezer for times like these. Frozen veg is just as good as the fresh stuff in certain dishes, and cheap as chips too.
Rice makes a regular appearance too. I ate a lot of rice as a little girl. For a while my mother only worked part-time while she also studied for her MA, and there wasn’t a lot to spend on food. So rice became a staple, mainly due perhaps to my mum’s Chinese roots, quite often served with just soy sauce or, if we were lucky, some stir-fried vegetables on the side.
You’d think that might put me off rice but instead it is one of my favourite foods. When I am feeling low or poorly, there’s nothing I appreciate more than a simple bowl of rice with soy sauce or perhaps some chicken stock to make a very simple rice broth.
This baked rice recipe is ever so slightly more elaborate but a real winner when it comes to store cupboard cookery. The addition of eggs turns it into a proper comfort dish.Anything topped by an egg with a runny yolk gets my vote.
It’s a very versatile and forgiving dish too. That’s the whole point of store cupboard recipes. Instead of spinach, why not throw in a few handfuls of frozen peas or sweetcorn? Instead of cannellini beans, try kidney beans or maybe a tin of tuna.
Baked rice with spinach, cannellini beans and eggs
Feeds 4
1 small onion, peeled and chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tbsp olive oil
200g basmati rice
1 x 400g can chopped tomatoes
400ml vegetable stock
1 x 400g can cannellini beans
100g frozen spinach
salt and pepper
4 large free range eggs
Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas 4.
Heat the oil in a medium-sized heavy bottomed casserole and gently cook the onion until soft and translucent. Add the garlic and cook for a minute or two, before adding the rice. Stir it all together and cook gently for another minute.
Pour in the chopped tomatoes, stock, cannellini beans and a little salt and pepper. Give it all a good stir and then place chunks of frozen spinach, nestling it in amongst the rice and beans.
Cover the casserole with a lid and bake in the oven for 20 to 30 minutes until the rice is tender. Remove the lid and, using the back of spoon, make four slight dips in the rice. Break the eggs into these wells and return the oven for another five minutes or so, until the whites are cooked but the yolks are beautifully runny.
Serve at once.
This recipe was first published in my Eat the Season column in the Wells Journal on 6 March 2014.
As my baked rice is very easy to make and cooks in around half an hour, I’m entering it into this month’s Fab Fast Food challenge for Family Foodies, an event I run with Louisa at Eat Your Veg and it just happens to be my turn to host.
I am also sharing this dish with Speedy Suppers, a new blog event for 30 minute meals launched by Sarah at Dinner With Crayons and Katie at Feeding Boys. I’m really rather excited about this new challenge – I just know it’s going to prove such a useful resource.
Wanted: your Fab Fast Food for the Family Foodies challenge!
While I am of course rather prone to abundant alliteration, my real reasons for choosing this month’s theme for the Family Foodies challenge are entirely selfish.
I have an urgent, personal need for your suggestions for super speedy suppers and fabulously fast family food. For the next couple of months I am upping my working hours by combining two part-time, in-house jobs and, if I stand any chance of sitting down with my family for evening meals, I’ll need a tried-and-tested list of quick and easy meals up my sleeve that can be rustled up in a matter of minutes.
So speed is of the essence in this challenge – anything that can be cooked in 30 minutes or less is perfect – but it’s also got to be tasty and appealing, and if you can squeeze in the odd healthy ingredient or two, then so much the better.
Up for the challenge? Simply post your favourite fast family foods on your own blog and link up to this post before the end of the month. I’ll be eternally grateful for your ideas, I promise you, but if that’s not enough of an incentive, there’s also the prospect of winning a copy of the Madhouse Cookbook by acclaimed food stylist, writer and presenter, Jo Pratt.
Family Foodie Entry Guidelines:
You may submit any recipe on your blog that fits this month’s theme, new or from the archive, and feel free to enter as many times as you wish. You’re also welcome to submit the post to other challenges too. If the recipe is not your own, please give the appropriate credit.
Send your recipe URL to me at vanesther-at-reescommunications-dot-co-dot-uk, including your own email address and the title of your recipe or post. The closing date this month is Friday 28 March 2014.
Display the Family Foodies badge (below) on your recipe post, with a link back to both Eat Your Veg and Bangers & Mash, as well as details of this month’s challenge.
If you’re on Twitter, then please tweet your post to myself @BangerMashChatand Lou @Eat_Your_Veg and include the hashtag #FamilyFoodies. We’ll retweet all that we see.
You may enter from anywhere in the blogosphere, but prizes can only be posted out to UK addresses.
At the end of the month a guest judge will choose a winning recipe. The winner will be announced in a monthly round-up of all the entries. Winners will get to display a Family Foodie Winner annotated badge on their blog if they wish and their recipe will go through to the Family Foodies Hall of Fame on each of our sites.
I really can’t wait to see your entries for March’s Family Foodies. I know I say that at the end of every challenge post but I really, really mean it this month. Otherwise my children might well be surviving on beans on toast in the coming months…
Now how’s that for a tempting array of food and drink? Would you believe each and every one of these is packed full of hidden goodies to tempt your children (and any other fussy eaters) to get some healthy stuff inside them?
If you are looking for cunning ways to sneak some extra fruit, vegetables, fibre, nuts or pulses into your family, then I’m sure you’ll find a tasty trick or two among this month’s fabulous Family Foodies round-up. So let’s get started…
As well as turkey, these sliders (aka mini burgers) from Heidi at Mamacook feature hidden vegetables in the form of grated courgette, along with fresh herbs and sweet chilli sauce – a great way to introduce a little mild spice to your little ones. I’m sure my children could put quite a few of these cute little burgers away. As indeed could I.
I love the idea of Caroline from Caroline Makes sneaking vegetables into her own food! That’s exactly what she’s done with this tasty broccoli, courgette and Stilton soup. “I am a pretty fussy eater,” she writes, “and don’t like a lot of veg, so had an idea of sneaking some hidden veg… into my own food! My theory was that if I couldn’t see it, and hopefully couldn’t taste it, I wouldn’t mind eating it.” I definitely wouldn’t mind eating a big bowl of this – and I’m sure I’d be back for seconds.
Heidi from Mamacook is back with a beautiful broccoli frittata, which she says is ideal for babies, toddlers and indeed the whole family. And even though this is a pretty thrifty dish, Heidi’s tip to make it even thriftier is to make sure you cook the broccoli stalk as well as the florets, as it all tastes the same. Sound advice.
Heidi is a dab hand at this hidden goodies lark. Here’s her third entry; spinach and potato bites, and don’t though look so good? They’re a great way to use up leftover mashed potato and an ideal finger food for toddlers. Heidi’s son ate six of them in one sitting, even before he touched his fish fingers, which really is saying something.
There’s sneaky carrot in this healthy take on the chicken burger, a second entry from Caroline Makes, which originates from a Slimming World recipe. They are a great way to make chicken breasts go a little bit further, and Caroline promises you really can’t taste the carrot!
Carrot is another hidden ingredient in these wonderful rice balls from My Tasty Adventures, together with peas, cheese, chicken, herbs and spices, and of course leftover rice. Crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, they are reminiscent of a falafel and I know my children would absolutely adore them.
Pasta sauces are an easy way to disguise a whole host of vegetables and my roast vegetable sauce contains carrots, tomatoes, butternut squash, red onion, celery and courgettes. It’s incredibly easy to make and I’ve been cooking it for my two girls since they were toddlers and they still love it now.
Martin from Spurs Cook brings us another pasta and vegetable dish with his warming cannelloni. There are all kinds of ingredients in this one from mushrooms, leeks, courgettes and carrots to chilli, fennel and anchovies and while it apparently involves quite a bit of preparation, Martin assures us it is well worth the effort. I bet – it sounds absolutely gorgeous.
Just like pasta sauces, soups are another brilliant way to introduce vegetables and other goodies to your children. Jacqueline from Tinned Tomatoes offers this gorgeously wholesome parsnip, carrot and lentil soup, which as well as being a great tea for little ones is perfect for anyone on the 5:2 diet as it contains just 175 calories a portion.
Ness from JibberJabberUK brings us this delicious carrot and coriander soup, which happens to be the first soup she’s made in her slow cooker since her university days, when she managed to stink out her student flat with a particularly garlicky soup while she was out at her Saturday job. Personally, I’d never complain about the smell of garlic, but it definitely sounds like this soup was much more of a success.
My roast cauliflower cheese soup is very simple to make and the ingredients list isn’t long, yet it tastes rich and luxurious all the same. It’s the ideal way to encourage people who normally steer clear of cauliflower to give it a go, and I’m convinced they’ll be persuaded to change their minds.
Jerusalem artichoke soup has to be one of my all-time favourites and I really like the addition of rosemary in this version from Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen, along with the adornment of delicate Jerusalem artichoke crisps. I must admit I haven’t tried artichokes yet on my two girls, but I am very sure they would be tempted by this lovely soup.
Tina from The Spicy Pear says these delightful fritters were born out of necessity when she needed to use up some carrots and courgettes. They have become a regular feature in her house ever since, and I can certainly see why. They look like a restaurant-style hor d’oeuvre, rather than a meal of leftovers, and I bet they would get gobbled up by my clan within seconds.
Nor would these irresistible chicken cutlets from Sylvia at Happiness is Homemade look out-of-place in a smart restaurant. Sylvia says they were a staple dish of her childhood. Her mother would cook them while she was at school, as a clever way to sneak in some veggies of which she wasn’t the biggest fan at the time.
This stromboli, which Michelle from Utterly Scrummy helpfully explains is a Swiss roll type savoury filled bread thing, looks simply gorgeous. You can imagine how those roasted vegetables and spicy chorizo wrapped up in warm bread are going to come together in fabulously cheesy, oozy mouthfuls of utter scrumminess.
Breadsticks are one of my daughters’ favourite snacks and we get through a fair few of them in our house, so it would probably be a good idea to have a go at making our own. This recipe from Laura at How to Cook Good Food looks perfect, bringing together the sweet and salty flavours of dates and green olive, which I know my girls would really go for.
Fish cakes are another staple food in our house but I’m slightly embarrassed to admit they normally come out of a packet. This tasty recipe from Heidi at Mamacook shows just how easy it is to make your own fish cakes, particularly when you use ready-to-eat smoked mackerel, plus it gives you the opportunity to sneak in a few extra goodies: Heidi’s fish cakes feature butternut squash along with the mashed potato. I’ll be trying these on my girls very soon.
These yummy sausageless rolls from Helen in The Crazy Kitchen look so tempting, you’d never know they were packed full of all kinds of goodies – such as cauliflower, which Helen’s son Jack hates, yet he happily tucked into a plate of these. This recipe will make 24 mini sausageless rolls, plus you’ll have enough filling left over to make a few veggie burgers too.
My fellow host of the Family Foodies challenge, Louisa from Eat Your Veg brings this fabulous chicken stew to our table, featuring lovely pearl barley and a whole host of wholesome vegetables. Louisa has been making this stew for her “two monsters” since they were weaning and they always devoured it. Serve me a big bowl of this stew, and I’d devour it too.
Ness from JibberJabberUK is back with another treat from her slow cooker, this time a turkey supreme, made from turkey thighs lurking at the back of her freezer and an assortment of vegetables that needed using up in the fridge. This included celery, which in her house only Ness actually likes. Her whole family enjoyed the turkey supreme, and not one noticed the celery. Nice work, Ness!
These mini calzones from My Tasty Adventures don’t just look good; they also taste good and you can feel good about eating them. They are a great snack for little ones, which you can pack to eat on the go and I’m sure they’d go down very well in your kid’s lunch box. These tasty morsels are filled with asparagus, mushrooms and mozzarella, while the beautiful pastry features turmeric powder and chia seeds.
This vibrant chicken curry from Dip’s Diner gets its brilliant green colour from spinach puree and lots of coriander and is packed full of a wonderful assortment of fragrant spices. You just know this curry is going to taste divine, as well as being so good for you.
Ness from JibberJabberUK is back again with an ingenious cheat’s version of a shepherd’s pie in the form of this tasty, one-pot lamb and potato bake. It also features lots of vegetables, finely chopped up so they are barely noticeable. Plus Ness leaves the skins on the potatoes for even more hidden goodness.
My children go mad for a tasty, meaty pie and this beef pie from Kate (aka the Gluten Free Alchemist) looks like their dream dinner. Kate has a regular battle getting her daughter to eat vegetables and so she has become a bit of a dab hand at disguising them, as in this delicious pie, which is one of her daughter’s favourite meals. As well as the “evil carrot” as her daughter dubs them, Kate’s pie also contains a goodly quantity of parsley, onion, garlic, sweetcorn and tomato.
Jillian from Feed My Family offers us another beefy dish featuring all kinds of hidden vegetables in her beef ragu, perfect served up with either rice or pasta. She uses this ragu to smuggle vegetables into her husband as well as her children!
We’re moving onto sweet treats next and first up is my fig and honey smoothie, which my girls loved even though neither of them would ever normally go near a dried fig. They reckoned it tasted like a chocolate smoothie and were desperate for seconds. A definite result in my book.
In my eyes, chocolate and beetroot is an incredible combination , and don’t these lovely cupcakes from Selma of Selma’s Table look just so tempting? She recently managed to feed this to a friend’s husband who normally can’t even look at beetroot. And yes, he enjoyed them – you really can’t taste the beetroot. Instead they give the cake a marvellous moistness and a beautiful reddish hue.
Louisa from Eat Your Veg has sneaked a fair few goodies into this cheeky little cookies, with wholemeal flour, dark brown sugar, dried apricots, plain chocolate, hazelnuts, desiccated coconut and oats all on the ingredients list. What’s more, the dough keeps well in the fridge for a few days or can be frozen for a later, almost instant, sweet treat.
Kate from Veggie Desserts has also brought a batch of virtuous cookies to our Hidden Goodies party. Her gorgeously green cookies feature oats, raisins, chocolate and, rather unusually, avocado. They are super easy to make, can be whipped up in next to no time and make an ideal portable snack for children and grown ups alike.
More hidden avocado is on the menu from my Hidden Goodies partner in crime, Louisa at Eat Your Veg. Her chocolate avocado mousse looks so good, what child (or adult) could resist? Taking just five minutes, yes FIVE minutes, to make, they must surely be the speediest pud ever, not to mention most nutritious.
Rounding off our inspired menu of hidden goody delights, Choclette from Chocolate Log Blog brings us this glorious Jerusalem artichoke cake. Choclette says you’d never know there were artichokes in the cake, but they successfully added to the overall nuttiness and moistness. It is similar to a carrot cake – but even nicer.
So if you are looking for new ways of getting your family to eat more of their five-a-day, a good place to start would be to work your way through this little lot. I’m sure you’ll agree, we received some fantastic entries to Family Foodies this month. But of course this is a challenge and, as ever, there can only be one winner. The unenviable task of judging falls to Trish Tucker-May from Passion for Juice, so without further ado I’ll hand over to Trish to announce the winner.
And the winner is…
Trish with sons Roary and Jackpot and husband Joe
Trish says, “I loved the fantastic pictures and have pinned many of these recipes to try in the future. I particularly liked the simplicity of all of Mamacook’s recipes. I loved the Polish translation from Happiness is Homemade’s recipe for the Chicken Cutlets with Veggies. Chocolate Avocado Mousse is close to my heart, as it is one I love to make myself. It is so easy, decadent and healthy. The Parsnip, Carrot and Lentil Soup by Tinned Tomatoes stood out as well, as I liked the amount of veg plus the nutritional information for the 5:2 diet was helpful and easy to follow.
“The Beef Pie with Hidden Carrot from Gluten Free Alchemist looks amazing and I will be making this over the weekend. Beautiful pictures and the pie looked delightful covered in stars. Eat Your Veg’s recipe for Apricot, Coconut and Plain Chocolate Cookies looks amazing and I thought the layout was very easy to follow with clear prep times and lovely pictures.
“So as you can see, it has been a very difficult decision but I had to narrow it down to one recipe that I thought was unusual. I would never have thought of putting avocado into biscuits and cooking it with oats. So my choice for the winner is Veggie Desserts’ Avocado, Oat Cookies with Raisins and Chocolate. The photos look brilliant and I like the idea of green biscuits. They look very simple and intriguing. This is definitely a recipe I will be trying with my family. One of my boys hates avocado but if it is alongside raisins and chocolate it is a sure crowd pleaser.
“Congratulations to Veggie Deserts and to all the entrants. I am so inspired by so many clever cooks, writers and photographers. Thanks for letting me take part.”
Thanks to Trish for judging and providing this month’s prize. And well done again to Kate from Veggie Desserts on a very well deserved win. Your prize of a Passion 4 Juice recipe book will be in the post to you very soon.
Love is in the air with February’s Family Foodies challenge over at Eat Your Veg. This month we’re looking for your favourite recipes to cook for your family to show them just how much you love them! Can’t wait to see what you all come up with…
Win a gingerbread house cutter set!
As usual, we have a prize for the overall winner and this month we are giving away a copy of Celebrity Masterchef winner, Lisa Faulkner’s fabulous cookbook 
Bangers & Mash 