W is for Weetbix Slice

Oooo Yum!

Do you ever have those moments when something happens and you are reminded of something you loved from the past and you didn't even realise you had forgotten all about it?  And then your family was like, Woah how come you have been hiding this from us?  We love it!  Well for me it has been the humble Weet-Bix Slice.

I was reading the March issue of one of my two favourite food magazines Super Food Ideas (my other favourite is Donna Hay) when I spotted a recipe for Weet-Bix slice.  We made the slice following the recipe and it turned out really well.

Now everyone is happy! (Well for the moment anyway).

Weet-Bix Slice

Makes 18 pieces

Original recipe: Super Food Ideas magazine, March 2014: News Life Media

Ingredients
For the slice
3 Weet-Bix, crushed (great step for toddlers to do in their highchairs)
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1 cup desiccated coconut
3/4 cup brown sugar
160g butter, melted, cooled

For the icing
1 cup icing sugar mixture
1/4 cup cocoa powder
60g butter, melted
1 1/2 tablespoons boiling water

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius/160 degrees Celsius fan-forced.
2. Grease an 18cm x 28cm (top) slice pan. Line base and sides with baking paper, extending paper 2cm above edges of pan.

3. Combine Weet-Bix, flour, coconut and sugar in a bowl.

4. Add butter. Mix well to combine.

What?  I didn't try any yet. Honest!

5. Press mixture firmly over base of prepared pan.
6. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden and top of slice is just firm to touch. Cool in pan.
7. To make icing sift icing sugar and cocoa together in a large bowl.
8. Add butter. Stir to combine.
9. Gradually add boiling water, stirring, until mixture is a spreadable consistency.

 10. Working quickly, spread icing over the top of prepared base.

I can't wait that long mum.

11. Set aside for 30 minutes or until set.  Serve cut into pieces.

H is for Homemade Pizza for The Kids Cook Monday

***I have been updating the layout of some of my old posts and some how this one has published as a new post rather than just updating the old version.  Hope you enjoy this blast from the past!**

This week the threefootcooks, hubby and myself are travelling to visit relatives for Christmas so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to repost a family dinner favourite.

Homemade Pizza is a perfect dish to cook with kids and with most school kids in Australia now (or very soon) on holidays it is a great draw card to get the whole family cooking together.
You may find your kids eating more veggies than they normally do because they are on top of a pizza and covered with cheese.

I like to make my own pizza sauce using home grown tomatoes.  I sauté onion and garlic in a large saucepan until the onion has softened then add the chopped tomatoes, a small amount of red wine and some fresh herbs like basil and oregano.

Pizza night has been a staple in the threefootcooks household for as long as I can remember (long before the three foot cooks came along).  Lately, however, we have been making our own rather than buying takeaway pizzas.  Cost and nutrition are the main factors in choosing to make our own pizzas.  As well as these factors, Bear and Bee are able to make the pizza bases and prepare the toppings.

Hubby received a benchtop pizza oven as a present last Christmas and it is the bomb!  I was dubious at first.  I was sure we could make pizzas that were just as good in the regular oven.  But I was wrong.  The pizzas out of the pizza oven are tastier, crispier and faster to cook.

To make our homemade pizzas I use the Pizza and Focaccia mix by Laucke for the bases (no I’m not being paid to say this, I just think it’s a really great product).  There are lots of different pre-mix pizza base flours on the market that you could use, or you could purchase ready-made pizza bases.

For the first stage of preparing the pizza dough I use my electric mixer with the dough hook attachment.  If you want to knead it by hand this is a skill you could involve your child in.  I wait until the dough has rested for the first time and needs to be kneaded a little ready for more resting to get Bear and Bee involved.  That way it doesn’t affect the final product too much if they don’t knead it enough.

  

Bee helping to knead the pizza dough

While the dough is going through its final resting stage, Bear and Bee help prepare the pizza toppings.  You can start with this step if you are using ready-made pizza bases. 

Bee cutting up our homegrown tomatoes for the pizza.

 Pizza is a great recipe for children to help with as most of the toppings are easy enough to chop up with a table knife.  They can even help grate the cheese if you have a rotary cheese grater.  I wouldn’t recommend letting them use a box grater until they are older and have the coordination needed to avoid grating their fingers.

Next Bear and Bee help roll out and shape the pizza dough for the bases.  I am still not sure where Bear got the idea that pizza dough needed to be thrown in the air!  We roll the dough out on squares of baking paper to stop it sticking to the bench and to make it easier to transfer the bases to the pizza oven.

Bee and Bear practising their pizza throwing skills

Now all we need to do is put on the toppings we like and cook the pizzas for 7-8 minutes.  If you are using ready-made pizza bases and a regular oven you will need to cook the pizzas for longer.  For the pizza sauce we use a homemade version made from the tomatoes grown in our own backyard.  I will write about these tomatoes and the pizza sauce recipe in a future post, so check back regularly.

Bee checking what dad is doing with the pizza toppings

 Bear and Bee’s favourite pizza – cheese and ham.

Here are the links to some more great homemade pizza recipes.

Homemade Pizzas at taste.com.au 

Home-made pizza dough and healthy toppings at Wholesome cook

Easy home made pizza for kids at Planning with kids

What is your child’s favourite pizza toppings?                            

G is for Gingerbread Cookies

Bear and Bee love to visit the public library.  We try to go once a week and it's always fun to discover new books that are destined to become lasting favourites.  While Bear has certain characters and subject matter that she prefers, Bee loves to browse the display shelves to see what is available.  And I am always on the lookout for books that we might be able to get cooking ideas from.

Last week Bee and I were both happy to find 'Maisy Makes Gingerbread' by Lucy Cousins.  The book is written and illustrated in typical Maisy style with bright colours and one thing happening on each page.

Bee's favourite page of the book.

After reading about Maisy making gingerbread and sharing with her friends for afternoon tea, we decided to make some of our own gingerbread to have to afternoon tea.

Gingerbread Cookies
Adapted from a recipe in Fun Food by acp books
Makes about 20

Ingredients
125g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg yolk
2 cups plain flour
3 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup golden syrup

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius and line 2 baking trays with non-stick baking paper.
2. Beat butter and sugar in a large bowl, with an electric mixer, until pale and creamy.
3. Add egg yolk and mix well.
4. Sift flour, ginger and baking powder and add to bowl.
5. Heat syrup in a microwave for 20 seconds on high to make it runny.
6. Add syrup to bowl and and mix well to form a soft dough.
7. Tip dough onto a floured surface and knead gently.  Add a little more flour if the dough is too soft and sticky.
8. Roll dough out until 0.5cm thick approx.

9. Cut out shapes using floured cookie cutters.

10. Arrange on prepared baking trays and place in freezer for 5 minutes.  This will help stop the cookie puffing up too much.
11. Bake trays of cookies in oven for 10 minutes.

12. Cool on trays for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

These squeezy bottles are great for kids to use for icing.

13. When cookies have cooled, decorate with icing, sprinkles and small lollies.

For the icing, we beat 1 egg white with a whisk in a small bowl until frothy. Then we gradually added 1 1/2 cups of icing mixture, mixing well after each spoonful. Finally we stirred in a few drops of food colouring. 

C is for Cinderella's Tea Party

Princesses. Disney. Brothers Grimm. Cartoon or Fairy Tale. Traditional needing rescue or independent and saving the day. It doesn't matter what type of princess she is Bee and Bear love her. It is fair to say that my daughters love anything to do with princesses. Mind you they also love fairies, dinosaurs, barbie, bugs, cute animals, etc. etc. so they are probably no different to most other girls their age.  But they do especially love princesses.  Which is why I decided to surprise them with a Cinderella Tea Party.

Bee dressed as Princess Ariel.

Princess Ariel was invited and joined Princess Bear for the party.  First up we read the Cinderella story and talked about what food was mentioned.  From our version of the story we came up with breakfast (including the cups of tea), corn for the chickens and mice and a pumpkin for the carriage.

In honour of Cinderella and her carriage I made Pumpkin Cinnamon Doughnuts.  They were delicious and a nice change to plain Cinnamon Sugar doughnuts. Pink tea was served as the refreshment of course!

Normally I would get Bear and Bee to help me with these but today there were a surprise.  If you want your child to help they should be able to do steps 2 and 3 of making the doughnut batter and then step 9 to coat the doughnuts in the cinnamon sugar topping.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Doughnuts

Makes 10
Download printable recipe card here.

Ingredients
Doughnuts
1 1/2 cups plain (all purpose) flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup milk
1 egg, lightly beaten

Cinnamon Sugar Coating
3 tablespoons caster sugar
1/2 tablespoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Directions
1. Preheat doughnut machine.
2. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and cinnamon in a large bowl. Make a well in the centre.
3. Whisk in the oil, pumpkin, milk and egg.  Mix until smooth.
4. Spoon into a piping bag.
5. Spray machine lightly with cooking oil spray.
6. Fill the bases of the doughnut rings by piping in half of the batter.
7. Cook for 6 minutes or until golden brown.
8. Meanwhile mix together the caster sugar and cinnamon on a large plate.
9. When doughnuts are cooked transfer to a plate and brush with melted butter. Gently coat with the cinnamon sugar topping.
10.  Repeat steps 5 to 9 with the remaining batter.

If you don't have a doughnut machine, these doughnuts can be baked in the oven.  Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius.  Grease a doughnut pan with melted butter. Pipe in the batter until two-thirds full and baked for 15-20 minutes or until cooked through and golden brown.  Remove from the oven and add cinnamon sugar topping as per step 9 above.

Have you made any fairy tale inspired food lately?

C is for Chocolate Raspberry Muffins

Muffins are a great lunchbox addition at any time of the year but as the weather starts to cool I like my muffins to do double duty.  A warm muffin with vanilla ice cream or custard makes the perfect dessert. And if, like me, you wrap the muffins in plastic wrap and store them in the freezer, its a quick and easy dessert too.

These Chocolate Raspberry Muffins taste a little like a cherry ripe chocolate bar but are a healthier option (depending on what you serve them with of course).

The original recipe is from the Australian Institute of Sports website.  To make life easier I have made a printable card for this recipe which you can download here.

Chocolate Raspberry Muffins

Recipe credit: Australian Insitute of Sport
Makes 12

Ingredients
2½ cups self-raising flour
¼ cup baking cocoa
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
¾ cup caster sugar
½ cup dark chocolate chips
1 tablespoon margarine, melted
1 cup skim milk
1 egg
300 g frozen raspberries

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).
2. Line a 12-hole muffin pan with paper muffin cases. Putting the paper cases into the tray is a great step for even really young children to help with. We actually made some regular sized muffins and some mini muffins which are a great size for Bear and Bee's lunchboxes. 

3. Sift flour, cocoa and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl. 
4. Stir in sugar and choc bits and make a well in the centre.

5. In a small bowl, use a fork to whisk together margarine, milk and egg, then add to flour mixture.
6. Stir gently until mixture is just combined (do not over-beat).

7. Gently fold raspberries through mixture. We actually crushed our raspberries up while frozen by placing them in a ziplock bag and gently hitting them with a rolling pin.  This gave us tasty little raspberry peices all through the muffin mix rather than lumps of whole raspberries.

8. Spoon mixture into cases.
9. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until muffins are well risen and spring back to the touch. Leave in pan for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

F is for Food Revolution Day Part 2

So far so good for this year's Food Revolution Day.  We have made Banana smoothies and Banana Bread today and both were delicious. Bee and I decided to make up our own recipe for Banana smoothies rather than use Jamie Oliver's version.  However we pretty much stuck to Jamie's recipe for Banana Bread.  All we changed was to leave out the nuts.

I hope all the other participants in this year's Food Revolution Day are having just as much success and fun as we have had. We will be joining in with other The Kids Cook Monday participants and making Rainbow Salad Wraps too.  Keep a watch for our blog post on how we go.

For our Banana Smoothies, we placed 1 banana, 1 tablespoon of honey, 200ml milk and 2 tablespoons of low fat strawberry yoghurt in a blender and blitzed until smooth.

Bee adding yoghurt for the smoothie.

Adding the honey for the smoothie.

Blitzing the smoothie ingredients.

Bee enjoying her smoothie.

For the Banana Bread, see Jamie's recipe here.

Bee mashing the banana.  Potato mashers work a treat for this.

Bee cracking the eggs. We are lucky to get home grown ones from a relative.

Mixing it all together.

Smoothing the top.

Fresh from the oven.

Delciousness.

#FRD2014

M is for Menu Plan Week 7

After a very busy weekend, that included taking Bear and Bee to the circus for the first time, here is our meal plan for this week.

Sunday Dinner	Leftovers
Monday Dinner	Creamy chicken and bacon pasta
Tuesday Dinner	Mini meatloaves and vegetables
Wednesday Dinner	Slow cooker chicken satay and rice
Thursday Dinner	Chunky vegetable and bean soup
Friday Dinner	Fish curry and Naan bread
Saturday	Pizzas

Morning and Afternoon Teas include: Crackers, vegetable sticks and cheese, Red Velvet Cupcakes, Yoghurt, Popcorn, Fruit, Muffins, and Biscuits

Lunches include: Toasted Sandwiches, regular sandwiches, Fish finger wraps, Chicken and Salad Rolls and Lentil Burgers*
*I will be writing about the Lentil Burgers in an upcoming post.  I’ll update this post when it is done.

Homemade Pizzas is one of the regular meals on our weekly menu plan.  This week we are going to try some new ones (new for us) like Salami & Ricotta and Potato & Rosemary from Stone Soup.

C is for Collections

I recently applied for and was approved to take part in creating Ebay Australia Collections.  I  must admit I was excited to be one of the first to be able to use this new feature on Ebay Australia.  I had lots of fun going through the items available for sale on Ebay and selecting those that fit with my themes of Kid friendly kitchens, Kids in the kitchen (pretend play), Anyone for Tea (tea parties), Growing your own and Cooking in the great outdoors.

I invite you to come and have a look at my collections.  Let me know what you think.

F is for Family Movie Night

 

Bee adores family movie nights.  She selects a movie to watch, lines us up on the couch and then settles into her spot to watch the show.

Usually we watch a movie that is already showing on TV or Bee chooses one from our DVD collection.

However this time I have a surprise for her and Bear.  I had pre ordered a copy of Frozen on DVD and I was able to collect it during the week while both girls were at kindy.  

To make this family night extra special I have planned for some Frozen themed snacks.  We won't need much as it will be after dinner and it's not a party as such but a few treats will make it a lot of fun. A good way to end the week.

I came up with marshmallow snowmen on sticks, blue and white m&ms, rainbow snowdrops (mini meringues) and icy popcorn (popcorn coated in icing sugar).  Simple and easy to prepare.

Now on with the show!

V is for Vegetable Printing

Bear and Bee did some vegetable printing today.  Bee had seen this activity on television and was keen to try it out.  As today is a non kindy day it was the perfect time to do it.

Vegetable printing requires very little preparation but can be messy so make sure you put plenty of paper , or a plastic sheet, over the table where you are working.

All you will need for Vegetable printing is a selection of vegetables, some paint on a tray and paper to print on.  If you would like more detailed instructions with photos have a look at this post on Garden Vegetable Printing over at No Time For Flash Cards (one of my favourite sites).

This activity is great for learning the names of different vegetables as well as looking at how different each one is on the inside.

Next time we will try using fruits like apples and pears for printing like these Apple Prints over at Modern Parents Messy Kids.