One good way to encourage kids to eat is by making it fun. Following the success of the gruffalo cake, I decided to dip into the Gruffalo Crumble cookbook for more inspiration.
Having looked through the book herself many times, Maya has taken a real interest in the food within so I decided to make mouse toast for a weekend lunch. It’s really simple but the finished article looks great.
Prosecco Superiore
I’m into the third and final month of Aldi Wine Club and February’s offerings are a prosecco and a muscadet. Our youngest, Asher, turned 1 this week and, after a lovely, but busy party with family and close friends, it seemed like a good idea to celebrate his first year with the prosecco superiore.
After two glasses, I asked Samana if she had any feedback on it and she offered a three word review. Each word followed by a five second silence:
Nice…
Sharp…
Appley.
So there we have it. It’s nice, sharp and appley. To be honest, apples didn’t come to mind for me. It’s definitely fruity, but I’d say maybe peaches or nectarines? It’s really smooth and creamy too. If I was going to be critical, I’d say I found it a little claggy after a couple of glasses, but that certainly wouldn’t stop me drinking it. At £7.49 for a bottle, I’d definitely buy it.
Exquisite Collection Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc
It’s month two of Aldi Wine Club! January’s wines are the budget red, Toro Loco Superior (blog post to come), and this more premium priced Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand.
As soon as our kids started weaning I tried to give them an interesting, varied and healthy diet. I wanted to introduce them to different, distinct flavours as early as possible in an attempt to avoid future fussiness. There’s no scientific reasoning behind this, it just makes sense to me. If you let kids get used to a small variety of meals and flavours, I would have thought they’re more likely to reject different things further down the line. As I say, I have nothing of substance to back this theory up, so I could be completely wrong but, so far (touch wood) it’s working with our two.
So, in trying to provide them with a varied diet, I have used recipes from a lot of cookbooks. Some with more success than others. Below are the five best, from my experience, in no particular order.
Gruffalo cake
The Gruffalo is a big deal in our house. Whether the books or on TV, it’s always a big hit with Maya. So when we needed to celebrate and reward a particular potty training milestone (I won’t go into details here), a gruffalo cake seemed like a great idea.
The idea comes from Gruffalo Crumble and other recipes – The Gruffalo Cookbook, which is a lovely book full of ideas to make food exciting and gruffalo-themed for the kids (and a little bit for the adults too).
I’m not a big one for salads generally, and caesar salads have never really appealed, but this one (adapted from Jamie Oliver’s Save with Jamie) is an absolute winner. The saltiness of the bacon and anchovies contrasting with the sharpness of the lemon, the heat of the cayenne pepper and the creaminess of the avocado is just perfect.
We had this cocktail made from Bombay Sapphire gin on a cold post-Christmas night and it somehow managed to be both warming and refreshing at the same time. This great recipe came from mybestcocktails.com but I take issue with their describing it as ‘a girly drink’.
Anyone who knows me will know that I have a pretty major sweet tooth. In fact, I’ve pretty much got a mouth full of sweet teeth. Cake, biscuits, sweets, chocolate – I love them all. And I’ve got zero will power so I eat far too much of them. So when I was introduced, recently, to Slattery’s in Manchester I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.
Philippe Michel Cremant Du Jura – sparkling Chardonnay
So, on to the second of the first month’s wines from Aldi Wine Club – a sparkling chardonnay: Philippe Michel Cremant Du Jura.
We paired this not with the fish or seafood suggested in the tasting notes, but with one of Aldi’s ‘Specially Selected’ Chicken, ham hock, leek and… chardonnay pies. I served the pie with some potato and sweet potato, diced and roasted with olive oil and oregano.
I wouldn’t normally buy a chardonnay. Like a lot of people, I had a preconception of chardonnay as being really sweet. And I’m sure a lot of it is sweet, but it doesn’t have to be, and this one certainly isn’t. It’s dry and really crisp. The biggest taste you get is a really sharp apple flavour. It went just fine with our pie but I can see why they suggest having it with fish or seafood. The crisp sharpness would really complement something like salmon or trout, or a big bowl of clams perhaps.
Maybe I’ll have another bottle next time I make this smoked trout salad.
Samana’s ‘Neptuna’, cheeseless pizza
As it’s home to a number of family and friends, we make the short trip down the M1 to Sheffield fairly regularly. In between Christmas and New Year we headed down for a 40th birthday party but also took the opportunity to meet family for some pizza at Proove in Broomhill.
Feeding time at the zoo 