Prawn Biryani and our Father's Day Restaurant

Due to quirk of my son’s letter reversal, his father’s day card actually appears to read ‘Happy Fatnes Day’, well maybe by using Flora Cuisine with its 45% lesssaturated fat than oil, that might not be the case!…  Okay, sorry, cheesy opening link there, but I was very keen to do this post for Flora UK. I'm a member of Collective Bias and Social Fabric and for this sponsored post the idea was to choose a recipe from the Flora website and cook it. I was planning to get the kids to cook a father’s day meal anyway, so this seemed an ideal opportunity to choose something to cook together.

The kids very quickly settled on curry, because ‘daddy likes curry, it’s his favourite’. Not a bad plan actually. Curry has many things to recommend it when cooking for and with kiddies. I refuse to believe that kids won’t like curry ‘because it’s hot’ or something. No reason to assume that children like bland food is there? Whilst you may want to hold back on the Scotch Bonnets, I think a bit of chilli in food is delicious and over the years I’ve been gradually adding a bit more spice, so now they enjoy food with a bit of a kick. Don’t let them handle the raw ones though, kids cannot be relied upon to keep their fingers away from their eyes/nose/willy/ etc  etc…

So, we did some online research, about which you can read a bit more here. But you should know there’s a rather cool free digital onlinebook thingy on the Flora site here, which has animated ‘fwippable’ pages and some really nice sounding recipes in it, and it was from this book that we hit upon the Keralan Prawn Biryani.

Now this dish has a bit of authenticity about it. I use ‘curry’ as a catch-all term for spicy saucy dishes, but from a culinary perspective it’s pretty meaningless – although I like this rather loose definition. A Biryani, however is an actual thing. A couple of things appealed to me though: the use of Flora Cuisine to do the frying – I haven’t used it before, but it worked really well and I didn’t actually miss my oil; and the rice for the recipe is cooked in the microwave. Maybe that doesn’t sound very authentic, but it does mean the kids could do most of the cooking here and it really does work. 

One of the reasons I wanted the kids to do the cooking is because my son had the rather ace idea of opening a restaurant for Father’s Day. Pop-up restaurants are all the rage, so we opened Restaurant 104 for one night only. The kids picked the menu, cooked, set up the table and wrote the menu. There was lots of good opportunities for Alex to practice his reading, writing and maths during all this too, which is one of the reasons I love cooking with the kids – list writing, label reading, numbers on scales and measuring jugs – all good learning opportunities! I often get some of the ingredients weighed out and prepped when cooking with the kids, I'll gradually let them do more themselves until I can put my feet up and wait to be served!

 

I’d very much recommend this recipe, but be aware that if you do use three green chillis and all the chilli powder suggested it will be fully Keralan Hotty, hot, hot – we went with a ¼ tsp of cayenne and one Green Chilli, this was hot enough for the kids. The ‘optional’ garnish is definitely not optional in my opinion – this is the bit that makes it fully Biryani-delicious. I made the garnish in advance for the kids to layer up with the Biryani,  I just thought the gently frying cashew nuts was not the easiest task for kiddies. 

The other thing I’d mention is that the recipe calls for raw tiger prawns it’s very difficult to get hold of an ethical, sustainable tiger prawn. I’d said a bit more about this here on myGoogle+ album, but I’d strongly suggest you check out The Marine StewardshipCouncil’s website and consider buying MSC certified seafood. For this recipe we went with frozen, cooked prawns and it worked fine. Just skip the step where you first cook the prawns. In fact this recipe would be great using veg or mushrooms if you’d rather go veggie anyway.

So, anyway, good recipe and Flora Cuisine a very easy substitute for oil, I’ll definitely be trying out some of the other recipes.

Back to the Curry, one of the main things curry has to recommend itself to kiddies is all the stuff you have with it. Here's my list of nice things to have alongside your curry:

• Mango Chutney - the pied piper of curry accompaniments, it will draw your children like a highly addictive drug. That’s because it’s pretty much jam, isn’t it really? And any main meal that includes a blob of jam is going to go down well. I buy the cheapest, naffest Mango Chutney and put a sensible amount out in a pot on the table to prevent jar-frenzy at mealtime. Progress to the nice stuff after your kids have passed Curry Eating Level 1.

• Kachumber – a lovely name for that mix of tomato, cucumber and onion you often get with Indian food. Brilliant for kids because: they can make it, it’s colourful and it’s cooling if you are hitting them with the heat. We usually keep it simple with diced toms, cucumber, bit of onion, lemon juice and fresh coriander if we’ve got it in.

• Poppadoms. A sneaky secret for you…You know those packs of uncooked poppadoms you can buy? The ones that say to deep fry them? You can microwave them. Oh yes! Easy, easy, Keep for ever in the cupboard, not oily, small enough for kids, much healthier for you, bit of a dream. Just bung a couple in the micro and cook for 1 minute.

• (Sort of) Raita. Again, good for the kids to make. We either grate a bit of cucumber into some plain yoghurt and add a squeeze of lemon or, to my shame, I sometimes stir a blob of ready-made organic mint sauce into yoghurt – super easy and (honestly) super delicious

• Home-made Chapattis – So much easier then you’d think! I’ll post a recipe.

• A Coriander plant – Just stick a supermarket one on the table and let them pick off the leaves – lovely!

Daddy was delighted with is 'restaurant' and I think we'll make it a yearly tradition. What do you think? Fancy booking a table at Restaurant 104?


I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community.  This content has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias® and their client. #CBias #SocialFabric. Any outrageous claims made about the effects of mango chutney on children at mealtimes are entirely subjective.

Sweet & Sour Noodles

This is one of those recipes that I'm proud of. Proud because it's soooo not posh. It's a fully naff little number that unashamedly uses tomato ketchup. It also uses those brilliant kinds of veg that keep forever in the fridge or cupboard - carrots, peppers, celery, red/white/green cabbage, onions - all these keep ages and you can cut a bit off most of them and use the rest later. This works particularly well with cabbage - just chop a hunk off the red or white variety and strip a few leaves off the green.

Make it meaty for meat free - if you are using meat you don't need much and a good option for stir-fries is cooked meat salvaged from a roast. We sometime freeze little packets of leftover meat to use in stir-fries.

In a mug, mix together:

• Half a mug of water
• A squeeze of ketchup - about a tbsp
• A tsp cornflour
• Couple of tbsp soy sauce
• White pepper to taste - we like lots!

1. Soak a couple of nests of egg noodles in boiling water
2. Stir fry your veg and meat if you're using it
3. Add the sauce ingredients and cook until it's beginning to thicken
4. Throw in the drained noodles and toss to coat them in the sauce

Father's Day Thumb Print Biscuits

We made these Traffic Light Thumb Print Biscuits for Father's Day a couple of years ago and I thought I'd re-share the recipe because it's very easy and, what with the thumb-printing, it's one that the kiddies can feel they've actually made themselves.

























As you can see, we also packaged them up in takeaway boxes (don't pretend you have got a million of those clogging up a cupboard somewhere) covered in choice stickers.

If you don't fancy going all-out traffic light, or if you've left it until the last minute and have only got some slightly mouldy strawberry jam in, then that's fine; but that Roses's Lemon and Lime Marmalade in lush. It's much more of a jam than a sophisticated marmalade and it it's green. Love it.

You need:

8oz Self raising flour, plus some to de-stickify if necessary
1 tso baking powder
3oz butter
2oz caster sugar
2 eggs
Jams and marmalades of your choice

1. Preheat to 220 and grease or line a baking tray
2. Mix the flour and baking powder
3. Rub in the butter
4. Beat the eggs and add gradually to the flour mix - you'll need probably just over half, keepthe rest
5. Roll into small balls and pop onto the baking tray
6. Get the children to press their thumb onto each ball to create a jam crater
7. Fill the craters with jam - might be easier if it's VERY lightly microwaved, but go steady Jam hets incendiary in seconds in the microwave
8. Bake for about 12 minutes or until very lightly browned
9. COOL before eating, the jam will be napalm like straight from the oven - anyway, they're for daddy aren't they??

Job done.  A box of those, a homemade card and a appreciative cuddle should tick the Father's Day box.

If the traffic lights vibe inspires you please have a look at these other tasty traffic light inspired things we made.

Yes, this is just peanut butter and sweets on a Bourbon - what of it?

Apple Bear

Now, I am not normally a fan of face-on-food. I feel a strong rebelliousness against the idea that kiddie food needs to be kiddified. The fervent mango-passion that's gripping my son of late is not dependent on funny mango faces, it's all about sheer mango deliciousness. And I think food can excite kids because tasty food IS exciting.

I shall now get off my soapbox, and admit to my Apple Bear. With complete disregard for everything I've just said I think, when my daughter asked if I could make her apple 'surprising' this is what I did to it. It went down VERY well, perhaps making me think I should reconsider my position on face-food...Come to think of it, my husband does often make Em a 'rabbit shaped out of an egg' which is this Fried Egg Bread, but rabbit shaped - technically face-food I think. What do you think? What level of kiddification is acceptable??

If you want to recreate this masterpiece, it's just plonked in a cupcake case, the eyes are raisins, the nose is a dried cranberry and the ears are almonds. They're stuck on with the universal food glue known as Nutella.

Healthy Lunchbox Flapjacks

Healthy Lunchbox – the great oxymoron of the school age.  I was rather keen to do this shop for Collective Bias and Flora. You see, its focus is ‘Healthy Lunchboxes’ – something I’m interested in.We started off pretty healthy in September, but there has been crisp creep and sugar sneak. At five, Alex already compares his lunch to his friends; doesn’t want a squeezy yoghurt because he doesn’t want to ask for help opening it, hates having to take a spoon because he worries he’ll forget it. He said his friends though his dates and oranges with cinnamon looked ‘disgusting’, although on that count he did say he still wanted them and he didn’t care what they said, but it still bothered him. I’m hoping he doesn’t start to worry that his bread is seedy.

Now, I don’t mind the odd crisp, especially given that you can buy unsalted ones, but lunchbox contents were getting a bit repetitive and the fruit was starting to get overlooked. He’s eat it after school. In fact, he’d fall upon it like a starved kitten. I’m just not sure he’s getting enough calories for his manic five-year-old afternoons.

So, I wanted to try out this Flora Healthy Lunchbox shop to share some thoughts and offer some ideas.  

Obviously used the spread on a tasty sandwich – ham, Dijon and rocket. Rocket is a particularly easy sell to a young chap on the leaf front because it’s called rocket – nothing cooler than that. And I say the sandwich bit is obvious but any deviation from the straight and true sandwich road was not popular. He wants to be the same as his friends and I think it’s probably fair enough – there’s not a lot wrong with a sandwich after all, is there? But, I also wanted to bake something using Flora Buttery, meaning it would have 70% less saturated fat than if I’d made it with butter and that Alex would get a sweet treat that’s not just empty calories.

I went for flapjacks because Alex loves them and oats have the slow-release thing going for them, hopefully

this will mean he’ll get through the afternoon and not come home quivering with hunger. Now, flapjacks already have a ‘healthy’ aura around them, but most recipes use refined sugar and golden syrup. My idea was to use condensed milk instead of both. Obviously condensed milk is still sugar and is not a ‘healthy’ ingredient, but because it is SO sweet, you can use less. There’s also the whole porridge vibe you get from adding something milky to oats. Adding plenty of dried fruit ups the healthy stakes though and gives a good energy boost too.

I wanted Alex to be thoroughly behind these flapjacks, so he helped to research what we might put into them, wrote the shopping list and took part in the shopping trip (see my Google+ album showing how I got himinvolved in the shopping here). His sister was much more keep to help with the cooking bit, but he was a willing taster and gave the flapjacks the thumbs up, in fact he demolished his piece alarmingly fast – always a good sign.

In the recipe I just state ‘dried fruit’, because you can either use what you’ve got in or get the kids to choose what to put into them. Alex and Em choose dried mango and pineapple, so these became totally tropical.

The Flora Buttery is actually a bit of a dream to cook with, because you don’t need to melt it – in fact this recipe doesn’t need any heat in the putting together of it, meaning it’s a really good one to get the kids to do.

If you prefer a thinner, crispier flapjack, replace the flour with more oats, have half the quantity and bake for about 15 mins. The recipe below makes a whole traybake tray full of nice thick, soft textured flapjacks – they keep well and you can freeze them too. In fact a frozen flapjack in a lunchbox will keep it cool and be defrosted by lunchtime.

You need  - this makes a lot of flapjacks! Please feel free to make half in a smaller tin:

• 13oz Flora Buttery
• 1lb porridge oats
• 4oz plain flour
• 12oz dried fruit – we used mango and pineapple
• 7oz condensed milk

1. Preheat to 170 degrees
2. 'Butter' the traybake tin with Flora Buttery and line with greaseproof
3. Weigh out the Flora and condensed milk - give them a good mix
4. Weigh out the oats and flour. Add the dried fruits,cut, if necessary, into raisin size pieces - if the kids are doing this, get them to use scissors. Mix it to get the fruits coated, so they don't clump
5. Mix everything together - might need to do this bit yourself it takes a bit of mixing to get it to come together. It should come together okay, but you can always add a dribble more condensed milk.
6. Turn it out into the tin and use the backof a fork to press it down evenly
7. Bake for up to 30 minutes, but start checking it after 20 - it's ready when it's pale golden and golden brown at the edges.
8. Cool or a few minutes in the tin. Turn out and cut into small bars while still warm - a bread knife and gentle sawing action will give you nice, neat flapjacks. Let them fully cool before storing in a airtight tin or freezing.

So here's a few of my healthy lunchbox tips - what are yours?

• Make sandwiches with frozen bread, it'll be defrosted by lunchtime and keeps things cool.
• Buy little paper 'sweetie' bags for filling with dried fruit, chopped fresh fruit or vegetable sticks - somehow more appealing in a little bag
• Buy a decent drinks bottle, we use Camelbak bottles, which don't make the water taste of plastic and have cool designs on them - stick to water
• A cooked sausage always seems to go down well
• Chopped up fruit seems to get eaten more readily than a whole apple or whatever - I suspect this is a timing thing, they just want to eat fast! Fruit kebabs are good too, you can buy short wooden skewers on Ebay.
• Tomatoes make sandwiches go soggy, so either put them separate. Leaves don't, so put a few leaves in. 
• Don't forget you can buy unsalted crisps, it'll make you feel less guilty about putting them in most days.
• And...What do you do to make your lunchboxes healthier?
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I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community.  This content has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias® and their client. #CBias #SocialFabric. Any dangerous addiction to condensed milk you detect is mine and mine alone and I would in no way condone eating it straight from the tin...

Sesame Beef Salad - WITH SPRINKLES!

This has a couple of things to recommend it as a dinner dish. It’s thrifty, especially for steak because you just need one big rump steak for the whole family. It’s also a great big salad, so it’s pleasingly healthsome. It’s also something the kids will probably eat. I’ve done plenty of token salads in my time – a bit on the side, stuffed in a sandwich - that sort of thing. But it occurred to be recently that I didn’t really see salad as a children’s meal. Now I heartily disagree with myself on this one. Salad is a super food-genre for kids, not least because it’s primarily raw, so they can make it themselves. There was a time when their lack of teeth would have made leafy bits a challenge – I remember bits of lettuce being chewed for an age, only to reappear like a lolling green tongue hours later, but those days are long gone and there’s something that appeals to my two about nibbling on a leaf. So salads are to be embraced in our house.

This particular salad also employs the fail-safe kiddie buy-in technique of SPRINKLES. I have the view that you can offer anything to children with sprinkles on the side and it will instantly become appealing. In this case the sprinkles are sesame seeds. Sprinkles can be anything of course, if you can sprinkle it, you can call it sprinkles. In fact, any salad can have sprinkles – sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, pinenuts if you’re dead wealthy.

I serve this salad with pitta breads so you can sprinkle and stuff. And stuffing or constructing is another thing that always appeals to my kids – a bit of self-construction at the table goes a long way towards dinner ownership. Pitta bread is not particularly in keeping with the Asian vibe - but who cares? I serve little pots of sweet chilli sauce too. Dipping, sprinkling and stuffing – what more do you need?

In terms of family eating, if you want to eat later just make the salad then cook some of the beef for the kids and leave the rest marinating for you for later, it’s much better straight out of the pan. You could also add the rest of the red chilli to your marinade too if you want to up the heat a bit. Or, of course, keep it veggie by skipping the beef entirely, if you felt it needed a focus try roasting butternut squash with the same marinade; just add the honey towards the end of cooking.

You need:

• 1 large bit of rump steak or a butternut squash if you’re making the veggie version – cut into strips

For the marinade:

• Oil – a splash for the marinade and a bit for frying/roasting
• Juice of an orange
• 3 tbsp. soy sauce
• A good squeeze of honey – 2 tbsp. or so
• ½ tsp. Chinese 5 spice if you have it (optional)
• ½ a red chilli deseeded and chopped fine
• 1 clove garlic, smushed
• Plenty of ground black pepper
• Sesame seeds to toss the beef in

Mix the soy, oil, orange juice, honey and pepper – keep back a small amount to use as a salad dressing. Add the rest of the ingredients. Stick the beef or squash in a dish or bag with the marinade and let it sit for anything from a few minutes to all day.

Construct a delightful salad using as much of the following as you have in:

• Ripped up lettuce or whatever leaves you have – spinach etc.
• Use a peeler to make lovely strips of: carrot, cucumber, courgette, celery (ditch the first stringy peelings)
• Sliced radishes, peppers
• Sesame seeds to sprinkle over

To cook the beef: heat a pan until it’s really hot, add a splash of oil and then the beef – don’t chuck all the marinade in, just the beef at first. Stir fry for a few minutes – it won’t take long, but cook it how you like it. Add the marinade and let it bubble until the beef is sticky. Toss in a few sesame seeds and serve straight away.

To serve – a pack of pittas, extra sesame seeds to sprinkle, sweet chilli sauce

Pasta with Mussels (and no effort - honest)

Here’s a very easy idea if you kids like mussels - and don’t assume they don’t, if they haven’t tried them yet it’s totally worth just presenting them one day. They may not have the squeamishness of grown-ups and my kids love the fact that they are shells. Just be prepared to point out how pretty they are, use an empty shell as pincers to pinch out other mussels and promise to pick them off the beach in the summer.

Pasta with mussels might not seem like a simple kids dinner, but this is – honest. You see, it’s just a pack of those vacuum packed mussels from the supermarket with some pasta stirred through. I would consider these a treat because the packs are about £3, but you can stretch it to feed four if you want.

Now, these packs may be inferior to freshly picked mussels, but they do have several  things going for them:

• They are sustainable, rope-grown Scottish mussels
• They keep for about a week or so in the fridge
• They come in their own sauce, so you do literally just need to add cooked pasta and you’re done

That's it - no recipe needed and maybe worth a try because it's pretty darn cool thing to serve up for dinner isn't it? Any takers?