Super moist chocolate buttermilk cupcakes

Well, the heat wave is temporarily (she says hopefully) somewhere else, china apparently. Hopefully it will come back before we all run out of wet weather activities.

My favourite wet weather activity with the kids is cooking. Theirs is painting. I’m less keen on the inevitable 3 hour cleaning paint off every surface in the kitchen that ensues. Why is it that despite covering children and table with aprons and mats that paint still flies everywhere? Last time we painted they dropped some on the floor. I then ran to answer the door, trod in said paint and left blue paint foot prints over the hall carpet. Wouldn’t have minded so much if it was someone important – like the ocado man – but just to tell some random ruffian that no trees didn’t need trimming thank you very much definitely wasn’t worth the clean up operation.

To me cooking beats painting every day. At the end of painting you get lots and lots of very similar pages of splodgy ‘art’ that lingers in the kitchen until their backs are turned and it can be snuck into the recycling. At the end of cooking there is cake. Cake beats pretty much anything in life. Cake for the win.

Been playing around with cake recipes a bit recently. I’m really really pleased with this one I’ve come up with. It’s really really moist (thanks to the buttermilk) and tastes far more chocolatey than you’d think as it’s only got a reasonably small amount of cocoa powder in.

Corey and I made these on Monday and they still taste lovely and moist and fresh today – 2 days later. As I always do I have frozen half the batch. Freeze uniced then they’re ready to whip out when you’ve got a play date to go on or friends coming round. Hey presto, freshly baked cakes without extra baking. It also stops me scoffing 10 in a row after the sproglets are in bed.

This recipe made 18 small ish cupcakes when I made it.

Recipe

125g self raising flour
125g caster sugar
120g margarine or butter
100ml buttermilk
2 eggs
20 g cocoa powder
1tsp baking powder
1tsp vanilla extract

Mix all ingredients together until well combined (I used the kitchen aid but you could do it by hand or with a handheld electric mixer)

Divide mixture between cake cases – bake in a preheated oven 180c (that’s for mine which is a fan oven) for 15 minutes.

Leave to cool then top with either icing or a dollop of melted chocolate.

Enjoy!

Easy home made banana ice cream (made by and for minions)

Last week I took my eldest, Corey, to the cinema for the very first time. It went a lot better than I thought it would. He’s very very sensitive to anything remotely scary but had been really wanting to see Despicable Me 2 for ages after we had watched the minion banana song literally a million times. Possibly a billion. At least 10 just over one breakfast time. My own little minions can now recreate it – well mainly the bit where one feral minion punches another in the face. They’ve also used it as a way to con me into taking them to McDonald’s in order to gain more minion toys. (Because our stuffed to the gills play room clearly isn’t good enough…… ) Mind you, those golden arches are a welcome sight to the hungover or the weary mum who can’t be arsed to cook. If you’re hungover AND too weary to cook then daddy has to be sent out for drive thru. Daddy will no longer take both kids into McDonald’s, since their balloon phobia reached fever pitch when the little scrotes of Stockport sensed weakness (was it the boys shrieking ‘no nooooo daddy, there’s balloooooooooons, they might pop…..’ that gave away their terror?!) and taunted my two with balloons – it all ended up in special McDonald lady assistance to get sobbing boys, sweating and no doubt swearing daddy and the happy meals to the car.

Anyway, I digress, after watching the film I’ve concluded that I am in need of an army of minions. They’d come in handy I reckon to do everything round the house. Cleaning, baby sitting, the supermarket shop. I concede that this is unlikely to happen – so I therefore enlisted the help of Corey to make this ice cream.

There’s some things you make that are actually very easy but everyone is disproportionately impressed by. Ice cream is one of these. Muchos mummy kudos points when friends are round to play and you dish out a scoop of home made ice cream. It’s not actually like healthier or anything, it’s still ice cream for goodness sake (although a bit healthier as no emulsifiers and other random crap that supermarkets put in food).

We’ve made this easy ice cream a few times now – done plain vanilla, a version with crushed strawberries in (and a dash of pink food colouring as it looked a bit murky) but the nicest is this banana one.

Yes, you do need an ice cream maker to make it – but honestly they’re less than £20 from Amazon so just get one. We have used ours loads.

Recipe

500 ml carton fresh custard (I like the morrisons finest one or waitrose)
250ml full fat yogurt
3 level tbsp icing sugar
1 and a half bananas (or 2 small ones) mashed
1tsp vanilla extract

Mix all ingredients and then pop in ice cream maker (ours is the Andrew James one – it takes about 20 minutes) and then decant to a freezer Tupperware and leave in freezer for a couple of hours before serving otherwise it’s too mushy.

It does freeze solid if you leave it in there more than a few days but I zap mine for 30 seconds in microwave to get the scoopable consistency.

Singing banana ba-na-naaaaaaaaaaaaa repeatedly while eating it is optional but encouraged.

And if you haven’t seen the minion banana song then this post probably makes little sense. I suggest you search for it on YouTube. Some bloggers would put a handy link here for you but I can’t be bothered think you can be trusted to do a little Internet searchette on your own.

Turkey, apple and carrot meat balls

These little meat balls go down really well with grown ups and kids alike. They’re low fat as they use turkey mince. They also sneak extra veg into the little ones – I’m always a fan of that!

Credit where it’s due – this is an adaptation of an Annabel Karmel recipe (she uses chicken for hers). My version is quite a bit quicker to make and you don’t need any fancy equipment. Both of those factors always a winner in my book.

Now, whenever I think I’ll blog a recipe for kids it’s like the kiss of doom for at least one of them actually eating them. It was stupidly hot at tea time yesterday and Mitch took one look at these and said “I don’t like these”. After much cajoling he ate a few teeny mouthfuls. Last time I made them he ate about 10 in one sitting. He ate all the pasta though. Corey on the other hand ate all his and then all of his brother’s meatballs. Left most of the pasta. Go figure. Kids are bonkers.

I’m including this in this post as I think people think that because I make all this great food that mealtimes are some kind of Pollyanna existence of smartly dressed kids saying “why thank you mother, that looks spiffingly delicious”. Well they don’t. There’s normally whining, there’s pretty much always a hiatus while Corey heads for a poo, they ask for ketchup with pretty much everything, Mitch usually hurls some on the floor or at his brother and there’s inevitably a spilled drink or two.

But, as I’ve said before, my philosophy to feeding kids is to keep offering nutritious food with different ingredients and flavours and to introduce them to the cooking process. I really try not to get too stressed about who’s eaten how much. They’re at an age now where if they have a tiny meal it’s not going to do them any harm and they’ll make up for it at the next meal time.

Hope your kids enjoy these!

Ingredients

Garlic oil (or olive oil and if so add half a clove crushed garlic)
1/2 onion grated finely
1 medium size carrot grated finely
1 apple (any kind) grated finely (there’s a grating theme!)
Pinch fresh thyme or dried
250g minced turkey breast (I use half a pack and then half for us for dinner later in something else)
4 tsp breadcrumbs
sunflower oil to fry

So – mix the grated carrot and onion together and fry in a splash of garlic oil for about 3 minutes. Then dump in a bowl and mix with all the other ingredients. Form into little balls – about the size of a large cherry tomato – and then roll in some plain flour. This recipe should make about 20 balls.

I have frozen half of the batch at this stage – I’ve popped them all spread out on a baking tray and then covered in cling film and put in freezer. Once frozen pop in a bag. I’ll then use them another day – defrosted first. Then resume cooking from this point.

Then shallow fry in a splash of sunflower oil for about 15 minutes turning frequently.

I like to serve these in with pasta or rice, you can eat them hot or cold. The boys also like them as a kind of chicken nugget substitute with wedges or chips!

Last time I made these I saved half the mixture and added about a teaspoon of Thai green curry paste and some chopped coriander and we had them with rice for our dinner which was v yummy and healthy.

Come dine with me – toddler edition

I’m a big fan of having friends over to dinner. This includes the kids’ friends. Now, I like taking my kids to other people’s houses too but there’s always that embarrassing moment when they refuse to eat whatever has been prepared. Corey used to hate pizza. Yes – pizza. The pizza that most children gobble up with glee. Corey would announce loudly ‘I don’t like pizza’ and refuse to even try any. And then cry. The other standard kids-for-dinner staple of sausages also met with ‘are they meat sausages? I don’t like meat’ *holds up his mini meat-is-murder placard and dons Linda McCartney badge* How embarrassing. But it’s even more embarrassing to arrive with a mini packed lunch for them (which gets right on my wick when people do it bringing their kids to my house) or providing a long list of what they do eat, what they don’t eat, what they do eat but only if it’s cut into equal sizes of not more than 1 cm square, what they did eat but are only allowed to now under supervision since they shoved it up their noses. Even though my kids are good eaters they somehow never are at someone else’s house. And of course when friends bring their kids round to dinner at my house then this applies as well. So, with that in mind I’ve devised the following recipe. Working on the premise that pretty much all kids like pasta, especially with a cheesy sauce and that mums like a bit of vegetable content disguised in the pasta, this dish seems to fit the bill. I’ve cooked it for a couple of toddler dinner parties (!) and both times seconds have been requested and even really really fussy eaters have managed a few mouthfuls. The other benefit is that it can be prepared in advance and then bunged in the oven to heat up once the kids are in full flow playing/scrapping/messing up your entire house and you can then feed them before they go properly feral and because there is vegetable content then there is no need for side dishes.

Ingredients

Macaroni or other pasta – 1 small handful per child
Few slices of ham chopped with scissors
1 carrot finely grated
Handful frozen peas
Handful sweetcorn
1/2 tin condensed cream of chicken soup
150 ml whole milk
Grated cheese – I use mix of cheddar and Red Leicester

Cook pasta as per instructions and drain – add veg and ham – into am oven proof dish.

Whisk soup and milk up together to mix then pour over pasta. Top with grated cheese.

Refrigerate covered till needed then cook at 180 until golden and bubbly. About 20 mins. Mitch likes his cheese unbrowned (he is yet to be wise to the wonder that is toasted cheese) so I tend to cook it covered with foil so he’ll like it.

Dish up and let cool (my kids totally freak at any hot food whatsoever!) and serve! (All the mummy’s can then enjoy a g&t!!)

Heat wave – Italian shepherd’s pie – slow cooker

Well, I most definitely picked the right summer to stop office work and go back to being a SAHM. It’s just been beautiful weather and what a difference it makes to everyone’s mood eh?! If I was sat at work right now – writing yet another tedious legal letter to yet another idiot with nothing better to do than make complaints to all and sundry and I had to just gaze forlornly out of the window at blue skies I think I’d be very very miserable indeed. I do feel truly blessed this last couple of weeks to be back home with my boys and enjoying this lovely weather with them. We’ve basically lived outside for a couple of weeks now. Meals outside (love the fact that mess on floor outside is fine – in fact it’s bird food. That’s like nature conservation innit. Educational and all that. Not a sign of mummy being slovenly), painting outside, paddling pool outside, huge rows between brothers and pushing each other down the slide outside. I’m pretty sure my neighbours are getting a bit sick of me bollocking the boys very loudly several times a day (who am I kidding – several times an hour more like) but we’ve got high fences so out of sight out of mind!

I made this Italian shepherd’s pie a couple of weeks ago and it was really yummy. I made it again this week – I’d frozen a portion of the meat mixture and this time I topped it with sweet potato, carrot and potato mash. I served it to 5 toddlers aged between 2 and 4 – one of which is notoriously fussy and vegetable shy – and they all ate it up. I did use the promise of ice cream for pudding as a bargaining chip, but that my friends is the way of the toddler feeding negotiation world.

I used the slow cooker for the mince as I think it’s great on a hot day to whack it on and forget about it. I then made mash later on in the day and assembled the pie for tea time. But it can all be done in stages. The mince could be out in fridge overnight and mash done the next day and I use due below to make pies for 4 of us and then froze a portion of meat and defrosted it and made a pie for a load more kids. It stretches well so is really a cheap meal despite lamb mince being quite pricey.

Italian shepherd’s pie

250g lamb mince
Shallot or onion
2 cloves garlic minced/grated
2 carrots chopped
Courgette chopped
1/2 green pepper
Large handful puy or green lentils
Tin chopped tomatoes
Tbsp tomato purée
75ml white wine or vermouth
Teaspoon oregano
Tiny pinch dried chili flakes
Bay leaf

Fry off in a non stick frying pan the shallot for 3 minutes then add lamb mince and brown for another 3 minutes – then add wine, tomatoes and stir

While that’s all frying chop veg and throw into slow cooker (on high setting). Add the lamb, tomato mixture and refill tomato can half way with water. Add herbs and spices and give a quick stir.

Keep slow cooker on high for 30 mins then turn down low for the rest of the day.

Toppings – this makes a lovely take on a shepherd’s pie. (Although it’s also good with pasta)

I mashed potato with butter beans and Parmesan to go on top. I boiled potatoes (sorry but I forgot to weigh how much!) and them 3 mins from end of cooking I added a drained can of butter beans. Drained the potatoes and beans and then returned to pan with a knob of butter and a couple of tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese. Mash up. (Not in a glee club mix of Aerosmith and Rhianna way. In a use a masher and squidge kind of way)

Put sauce in an oven proof dish, top with mash, add more grated cheese if you want them bake in oven around 185c for around 25 mins.

Enjoy!