Cooking Corner - English Teacakes

Ebi-kun is off school at the moment so I am putting him to work in the kitchen, he loves making mac and cheese from scratch but I want him to expand his repertoire. He is starting with bread!

Many people think that making bread is difficult, it's not, it just takes a bit of patience and it's a great recipe for kids. 

This recipe is from Paul Hollywoods 100 Great Breads, which has become one of our most used cookbooks, we haven't tried them all yet but we have tried quite a few! No disasters so far, and the recipes are easy to follow, so if you are looking for a good bread book I can highly recommend it.

This is the first time we have tried the teacakes though, slightly adapted recipe:

400g strong flour
1.5 tsp salt
40g caster sugar (he used brown)
20g yeast
1tsp cinnamon
200ml water
50g softened butter
140g mixed dried fruit
1 egg beaten for eggwash

Put the flour, salt, sugar, cinnamon, butter, yeast and water into a large bowl and mix together for 2 minutes. Tip the dough onto a slightly floured surface and knead for 5 minutes. Return to the bowl and let rest for 1 hour.

Line a baking tray or use a silicon tray. Add the mixed dried fruit to the dough and divide into 75g pieces. It doesn't matter how well you measure everything, the last piece will always be under the correct weight.

Shape into a ball (I should have shown him how to pull the dough to make it smooth here but he didn't want any help! Use a rolling pin, flatten using a rolling pin until they are about 2.5cm thick.

Place on the baking tray and leave to rise for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 190C. Brush the top of the teacakes with beaten egg wash and bake for 15-20 minutes.

Try the teacake fresh from the oven, smothered in butter.

Also delicious toasted and yes, smothered in butter! These were really good and although he doesn't know it yet, he will be making these again next week!

How to make finger breadsticks

Yes! Severed fingers suitable for vegetarians!

This is another simple recipe and the kids can get in on the act too. They don't take too long to make but you do need to give the dough rise time, I started the dough off then got on with some other jobs and came back to it later.

What you need:

• 250g bread/strong flour (I used 150g white and 100g brown)
• 100ml milk
• 80ml water
• 17g sugar or honey
• 5g salt
• 10g olive oil or butter
• 7g dry yeast
• 1 red pepper chopped into small pieces

Decoration

• Onion - cut into thick slices then chop to make fingernails
• ketchup

I have a confession here. I usually just chuck everything in the bread maker to mix up the dough. I have done it by hand, again just throwing everything in and it's work out fin. Might be an idea to add the yeast to the liquid before mixing it all together.

Leave to raise for and hour or until it's doubled in size.

Now comes the fun part.

Pull off a chunk of dough and roll into a sausage shape. Squash it down a little at the end and add a piece of onion, dunk the bottom end in the ketchup.

Use a sharp knife and make a couple of slashes for the knuckles.

Let them stand whilst you heat the oven, 210 Deg C, bake for about 15 minutes, keep an eye on them, they should sound hollow when you tap them and look baked.

The red pepper just adds a bit of flavour and makes them look, well, more revolting!

We served our fingers with the incredibly yummy and easy to make Rustic Ham Mousse

Taste Tests: Ebi-kun Eats Book Giving Day Special Recipes

This week is a little bit different. Ebi-kun wanted to do something special for book giving day so we decided on making recipes from Roald Dahls Revolting Recipes book. This meant cooking them before he could taste them!

This is also the episode where I apparently got the sack! More on that later...

He got busy making Boggis Chicken, he did most of the work himself, I just stood around taking photos! (My kind of kitchen work!)

Making the dumplings was fun, we have never made them before, I always assumed you needed suet, which we can't get but the recipe called for lard, which we can get...

A rather messy process, great for a sensory activity! The recipe made enough for 2 nights worth of dinners for the three of us.

I think we should have used the iron pan as it did stick to the bottom, I managed to clean it off thanks to a friend Lias's top stip - use a dishwasher tablet and some hot water and leave to soak over night, no scrubbing needed at all!

Looks good right? But how did it taste? You will have to check out the video below to find out...

Don't forget to enter the giveaway, it runs until the 21st Feb 2016. Click HERE to sign up (scroll to the bottom of the page)

Happy Diwali

Oops! Totally forgot to post about this! I think the madness that is Halloween took over, sorry.

First we sat and read Story of Divaali by Verma Jatinder which is beautifully illustrated, what I have come to expect from Barefoot books. The title is a little misleading though, I expected it to be more about the festival but instead it is the story of Ramayana. It is still a beautiful book but if you are looking for something to specifically introduce Diwali to your kids, this would be a nice addition but doesn't really talk about the festival and what goes on as such. If you know of a good book, please let me know.

Then we decided to make some Indian sweets, now I have to admit I wasn't very organized and slightly butcher the real recipe! We made Atte ke Ladoo the Ebi way! The recipe is HERE. We used melted butter instead of ghee and cinnamon instead of cardamon, have to work with what you've got! They were delicious in the end though, if not in the slightest bit authentic.

The recipe was easy and apart from melting the butter, which you might want to do, it was child friendly. I happened to have all the ingredients for mango lassi so we made that too then decorated the table with lots of candles.

Happy Diwali to you!

Zucchini Brownie For Kids To Bake

Ebi-kun has been pestering to make zucchini brownies so yesterday was the day. He is so confident in the kitchen now, he does almost all of it himself, I am basically there to take things in and out of the oven - he isn't really tall enough to do that safely yet.

What you need:

1 c wholewheat flour
1/3 c baking cocoa
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

150g dark chocolate
1/4 c vegetable oil (we used olive because thats all we had, would like to try coconut next time)
1c brown sugar
2 egg whites
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 c grated zucchini/courgette (about 3)

9" square pan (greased)

Heat oven to 180deg C

1. Grate the courgette/zucchini
2. Combine the first 4 ingredient in a bowl
3. Melt the chocolate in a heatproof dish over a pan of hot water then and allow to cool slightly. 
4. Stir the oil, sugar egg white and vanilla into the chocolate
5. Stir the flour mix into the chocolate
6. Stir in the zucchini
7. Pour into the tin
8. Bake for 30 minutes
9. Allow to cool on a wire rack then cut into squares

Invite me round so I can check you made them OK !

Blast From The Past…Cooking with Kids

These next two weeks I have lots to get through work wise but don't want to just leave you hanging, so I have dug up the archives and found some great posts for you! Took some digging, there are over 2500 posts on here now!

Cooking with Kids…

Make some peanut putter granola balls

Easy Coconut Macaroons

Healthy Sorbet

Easy Moist Banana Bread

Banoffi Pie

Enjoy! More Blast from the past posts to come.

PS don't forget to enter the giveaway! CLICK HERE

On A Cooking Spree

Ebi-kun is really into cooking at the moment. We had a lovely meal the other night…he made the tzatziki and hummus from scratch…

I got to be the sous chef and help with the cutting but the ingredients were all his choice. Very delicious! I hoping this continues, as much as I like cooking, I am more than happy to let someone else take over once in a while!

It's Food Revolution Day!

Friday was Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution Day (#FRD2014). The idea behind FRD is to get kids in the kitchen and learning where the food comes from, what goes in a meal and learning some cooking skills. Ebi-kun is already pretty handy in the kitchen so he was up for it. He spent a good few hours scouring the cook books and coming up with recipes for his meal. 

This was stage one, we had to scupper some recipes because either the main ingredients are not locally available or it was something that isn't in season at the moment. Finally he came up with….

Fresh pasta (homemade) with Genovese sauce

Parma ham salad with orange vinegarette

Sweet satay dip with fresh fruit kebabs

It just happened that Mr Ebi and myself had been for our annual health check that day, so daddy was home and was assigned the job of sous chef. So once homework was out of the way, it was all hands on deck in the kitchen.

Picking the basil for the pasta sauce…

Sharpening his knife, he does this every time before using it, a sharp knife is safer than a blunt one…

Daddy got to do things like washing the veg and the washing up! Lucky him. Preparing the salad…

And the dressing…

The sweet satay dip was lovely but made way too much so we have had it on bread and pancakes too!

He prepared the pasta dough in the bread maker, ruling it is hard work so sous chef got that job and Ebi-kun then cut it. Fresh pasta is so much nicer than pre-made, we should get in the habit of making it more often, it is just a matter of being organized enough to let it chill for an hour.

Pasta with gevenose pesto - absolutely delicious.

Thumbs up from the chef! We are lucky that our kitchen is big enough to have more than one person work in there without it being dangerous, a lot of Japanese kitchens are small and not very kid friendly. It is also important for me to be raise a son that can leave home and feed himself properly, not survive on cup noodles and combine bentos and Ebi-kun loves food, trying new things and cooking so it was a perfect end to the day!

And not forgetting dessert…

A big thank you to Jamie, his goal was to get 1 million kids in the kitchen, not sure if he hit that but they had FRD going on in 119 countries, which is pretty impressive.

Did you join in? What did your little chef make?

Are You Joining The Food Revolution

As you know, I am somewhat, a bit of a Jamie Oliver fan, not just because of his cooking style but because of the great work he does in food education. His main message to kids is for them to be food smart, understanding where their food comes from and what goes in their meals.

So, will you be joining us for Jamie's Food Revolution Day?

We will planning out a menu and making everything from scratch (which is what I do with most of our meals anyway!) I think we will actually be doing the meal on Thursday since daddy will be home that day, it would be nice to sit down all together, not something we get to do usually during the week.

http://www.foodrevolutionday.com

Let me know if you are joining in, I'd love to know what your kids are rustling up in the kitchen!

There is nothing quite as delicious as homemade bread…

I recently got Paul Hollywoods book 100 Great Breads and I LOVE it. We do have a bread machine and I admit that whenever possible, I just chuck everything in there…I am sure I would get disapproving looks from Paul, but you, I have stuff to do! 

Some bread though, really needs to be made by hand and one of the great things to make with kids is bread, it is pretty difficult to screw it up and it is very tactile, a great sensory activity! Ebi-kun is getting quite handy in the itched these days, he pretty much did it all himself…

Weighing the ingredients…

Mixing to form a dough…

Cleaning up whilst the dough rested. He needed a bit of help with the rolling…

Chopped the potatoes and placed them on the dough…

Brush with oil and sprinkle on the herbs…

Pop in the oven - he is OK putting things in but I take them out because he is not quite tall enough to do it safely yet…

Ready to eat! Nom, Nom, Nom…

Don't forget, the kitchen bootcamp starts soon AND I have a fab video series with a panel of experts lined up for you too!