PBJ's my way

I can't believe I am soon to the a parent of a school age child. Where has that gone? On one hand every day has seemed to last a year, and on the other it seems like yesterday that I first smelt that downy head and watched two little beady eyes start to take a look at what the world had to offer.

Like most parents, my emotions are completely mixed. I am carried along by my daughters' enthusiasm and longing for the next stage of her exciting life. I am also terrified of losing her, of losing these precious times, of taking the next step away from the intoxicating early years of parenting.
On a practical level I have no idea how to fill in the school dinners forms or which door to drop her off at for her first morning.

What everyone seems to agree on is that she will come home hungry, horrible and tired. I've stocked up on quick after school snacks, but I will also be passing some of these her way. Actually, she usually likes making them herself, but maybe even that will be too much of an effort in the weeks to come after a day in her new classroom. I shall make them myself then, and that should avoid the jam ending up on the floor and the peanut butter in her hair.

These are a great, nutritious snack based on the American classic, a PBJ (peanut butter and jelly sandwich.) There are only 3 ingredients, so make sure you get good quality. Oatcakes ( I go for Nairns Organics) peanut butter (Wholefoods Smooth is delicious and doesn't have any added sugar) and jam (personally I am a sucker for St Dalfours Raspberry and Pomegranate which uses grape juice as a sweetner.) Thats it. We usually have them as an 'open sandwich' but they are equally good with another oatcake plonked on top in true sandwich style.
 Make these, and you won't be able to resist having one yourself. In one delicious, crunchy bite, your child will be having some slow burning carbs, some protein and a little bit of their 5 a day. That might help to sweeten up the grumpy thing formerly known as your child.

Early Sunday Morning

Sunday started early in our house this week. My smallest one wasn't up with the larks, but with the wood pigeons. Half past five is not the time that I like to start my day, even more so on a Sunday.. Cooking sometimes eases me through those long hours before anyone else in the world is up, and so we made a cake.
In my Riverford Organic Veg Box this week was a recipe from their new cook book, Everyday And Sunday, for a Rhubarb and Cinnamon cake. I'd been looking longingly at the recipe all week, now was my chance.
                                   
Rhubarb isn't popular with my children. They pick it out of crumble, and eat the crust of a pie, silently ignoring the fruit underneath. They do, however, like waving the spears about like swords. I have been determined to try and find something containing rhubarb that they will eat, and I hoped that this cake would be the answer.

The cake is a joy to make. No need to stew the rhubarb, you just cut it into small chunks and add it into the mix. Stirring in the orange, creme friache and cinnamon creates an intoxicating smell and I could have eaten the mixture raw.

  

So did they eat it? Well no, not really. They picked at it for a while but I can't say that they woolfed it down. They had a lot of fun making it and waiting for it to come out of the oven, but they didn't take to the tangy taste. Maybe some things are best left for us adults and we certainly weren't complaining about eating their left overs. It is the most delicious cake I've had in a long time and makes a change from never-ending crumble.  I actually made 2 cakes, one small and one medium size as I didn't think we would get through the large one that the recipe calls for. The smaller cake took 30 minutes, the larger one took 40minutes.

Riverford Organics' Rhubarb and Cinnamon Cake (from Everyday and Sunday)
Serves 10 - 12
60g unsalted butter, softened, pluse more for the tin
380g soft brown sugar
3 large eggs
a few drops of vanilla extract
a pinch of salt
zest of 2 oranges
300g self raising flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
250ml creme fraiche
450g rhubarb cut into 1cm pieces

for the topping
60g brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 160C

Butter a 24cm springform cake tin and line with baking parchment

Cream the butter and sugar together.

Add the eggs, vanilla, salt and orange zest

Sift the flour, bicarbonate of sods and cinnamon into the mixture, and fold through the creme fraiche and rhubarb.

Pour into the cake tin and sprinkle with the sugar and cinnamon for the topping.

Bake in the oven for 40-50 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean  
Serve warm or cold, with custard or cream.

The lovely folk at Riverford Organic have given me a copy of their new book, 'Everyday & Sunday recipes from Riverford Farm' which was published on May 2nd. Leave me a comment with your name and the girls and I will draw a name from a hat on Monday 16th and I will send the book to the winner.

Friday Night Fever

Many moons ago (well about 10 years anyway), Friday 5pm meant drinks at our desks in the PR firm I worked for, before launching ourselves out into the night and all the promise of a London weekend.

As I write I can almost hear lipstick being slicked on lips, hair being put up, pulled out, put up again, and drinks being clinked as the nations' young come together to celebrate the end of the working week and the down time that is ahead of them.

How life has changed.

Friday 5pm, chez moi, often means tired children, tired Mummy, and the thought of getting up at the same time tomorrow and doing it all over again. Now don't get me wrong, I adore my children and I wouldn't want it any other way, but I do sometimes feel like I am caught in my own, rather messy, groundhog day.

This Friday to shake things up a bit, and inspired by my friend Ceri who throws a regular Friday Night Disco, when she, her husband and children enjoy a bit of a boogie before bed - I decided to have a pizza night with the girls.

In the spirit of Ceri's disco, we played some cheesy 80's hits and the odd Disney classic to please the younger cooks, whilst creating our masterpieces. I recently purchased some mini victoria sponge tins for making pizzas in (inspired by a trip to Pizza Express when I watched the girls' pizzas being made in something which, it transpires, is called a black iron pizza pan.) The new tins worked brilliantly, the girls punched down their dough into them and the end product came out looking like pizzas, not like road kill, which is often the case when making free form pizzas with young children.

And so, children happy, fed and in bed, I'm feeling a bit like it really is Friday night,  and I can settle down with a glass of something that isn't Ribena and wait for my poor tired husband to come home (actually not that poor and tired as he was away covering a story last night and got to stay in a Hotel Du Vin. No sympathy really.) Happy weekend all.


Little Pizzas

For 4 small pizzas (about 6 inch diameter)

250g white flour (strong white bread flour is best)
1/2 of a 7g sachet of fast action yeast
1/4 pint warm water
1 tsp caster sugar
1 tsp salt


1. Weigh out the flour together and get your child to tip it into a large bowl.
2. Add the salt to the flour.
3. Measure out hot water from the tap.
4. Get your child to tip the yeast into the water, stir.
5. Now let them do the same with the sugar into the water, and stir.
6. Now get your child to 'dig' a well in the middle of the flour, and then pour in the yeast/water mix, and show them how to stir it all together.
7. Bring the dough into a ball, and then let your child knead it for a while, until they get bored (mine lasted about 2 minutes and then wanted to go and watch Octonoughts.)
8. Finish off the kneading yourself, or put it into a mixer with a dough hook and let it do the work for you. About 10 minutes should do the job.

Now leave the dough to rise for 20 minutes somewhere warmish.

Meanwhile, prepare your toppings.


We used

which is much too good to use for pizza really, its the most delicious mozarella I have ever tasted outside of Italy 

And a selection of these.
The children only topped their pizzas with olives, and couldn't be tempted to try sundried tomatoes and artichokes.

You know what you and yours like, so just make sure you've got lots of different bits for them to choose from.


I make my own pizza sauce by frying 1 clove of garlic over a very low heat, then adding a tin of chopped tomatoes, and some basil, and simmering for about 20 minutes, then blitzing with a hand held mixer. You only want to use the merest scraping of tomato sauce on your pizzas, so save the rest for pasta, or for topping chicken or fish.

Once you have assembled your pizzas, cook at 220C for about 10 minutes.

Of childhood things

Some childhood rituals are timeless.  There are things that we can be sure that our parents did and that our great grandchildren will be doing many years from now. Like throwing a stick into a river and watching it float out from under a bridge, falling down and scraping a knee, or squirming whilst a fussing mother smears your face clean with a hankie.

And amongst these rituals, in fact jostling for a top position in my opinion, is making chocolate crispie cakes. Stirring the velvety chocolate into the crunchy cereal and bringing a wooden spoon up to your mouth for a stolen lick is a rite of passage. I cannot see one of these knobbly brown creations without getting hit by a heavy dose of nostalgia.

I updated the classic slightly when I cooked these with my children this week, although I can see that some might think this to be messing with a masterpiece!  My version is ever so slightly more nutritious. I used one of our favourites, peanut butter and some healthier 'sprinkles', sesame seeds.

I think about half of the mixture escaped uneaten ...

so we were able to make lots of little crispy cakes.

1. Melt 150g peanut butter (I used the Whole Earth Crunchy which doesn't have any added sugar) with 150g of good quality chocolate

2. Allow to cool then let your child stir in 150g of Bran Flakes and 25g sesame seeds (some children can have a sesame allergy so leave these out if you are not sure)

3.  Help them to spoon into cake cases and put into the fridge to harden.

4.  Eat and enjoy!

Playdough or pasta?

These long winter afternoons are the perfect excuse to get back to my much-ignored blog. The girls and I have been making just as much mess in the kitchen, but somehow the photographs and writing seemed to get put on hold as the chaos of Christmas took over. Why do we do it to ourselves? I only just feel like I've recovered from the annual stress-fest. If I'm really honest, I don't enjoy Christmas as much now that I have children. Not until the day arrives, when the last present is wrapped, the last homemade, glittery and still sticky card delivered, and I can finally sit back and enjoy my children enjoying Christmas. I shouldn't be complaining as this year I didn't even have to do the cooking as my lovely friend Tors invited us, along with my Mother-In-Law, for Christmas Day. She cooked up a storm, and I bought along a few puddings, including a chocolate log which took me 3 attempts to get right ( I think the last time I made anything similar was a swiss roll at school, which I found equally tricky).

I thought I'd start off my 2011 blogging with something much simpler - homemade pasta. I couldn't have told you what was in pasta until I first made it with a group of children and realised just how easy it is to make.  Plain egg pasta is made from 2 ingredients, flour and eggs.  Much quicker to make than homemade playdough, twice as tasty and not nearly so messy. If your children are anything like mine pasta is a regular visitor to your table, so making your own is well worthwhile.

1. Weigh out 100g flour with your child (this amount will serve 2 children for lunch). I use Doves Farm Pasta Flour, but plain white flour will do the job.

2. Help your child to break 1 egg into a small bowl.

3. Get your child to scoop out a well in the flour.

4. Let your child pour the egg into the well. Ask them to start stirring, and the dough will start to look like big breadcrumbs.

5. Gather the dough together and give it a quick knead, then hand it over to your child and let them have a go at kneading.

6. If you get into making pasta it is well worth buying a pasta machine, the one in the photographs I bought for my husband as a not very subtle hint last year - it worked, he's made us some great pasta.  However there is no need for a machine.  For tagliettelle simply roll out the dough with your child, as thin as you can, fold over, then roll again. Once you have got it nice and thin, cut it into long strips. It doesn't matter what it looks like, it matter how it tastes, and it will be delicious - especially with the homemade pesto I wrote about last year on the blog.

7. You can hang the pasta to dry it, I had to keep ours up high  as the children kept coming along and trying to steal it to eat raw. I'll never see what children see in raw pasta, mine happily crunch away on the packet stuff like its a bag of crisps.