Banana Pancakes - YUUUUUUMMMM!

You all know cooking is not my thing. Fortunately, however, I CAN cook and LOVE to cook pancakes. Was a die-hard "pancake shaker in a bottle" fan until my good friend Mad Moro taught me how to make them from scratch and I realised how easy it truly is.

Best thing? Cate adores pancakes :)

Even better thing? I usually have milk, eggs, baking soda, caster sugar and self raising flour on hand.

Here's how it went tonight. Cate is still being a bratty with what she will and won't eat. Sigh. She did, however, wolf down a banana for afternoon tea. I'm sick of cooking sausages and fish fillets for her dinner so decided it would be banana pancakes tonight instead. A bit of a sweet dinner, but what the hell, I knew it would get eaten for a change...and it did.

So my very basic baby pancake recipe goes like this:

*Dash of SR flour
*Sprinkle of Baking Soda
*Sprinkle of caster sugar
*Splash of milk
*1 egg

Mix thoroughly until a batter forms. Adjust ingredients until it just looks *right*. I know this is incredibly unhelpful in terms of recipes but everyone knows what pancake batter looks like, right?

Tonight I added half of a mashed banana to the pancake batter.

(If I am poshing pancakes up for grown ups I use buttermilk and more quantities of everything. The above only makes a tiny baby batter suitable for about five pikelets.)

Pour batter into heated frypan after adding butter to make sure the pancakes won't stick. Flip the pancake when it starts to bubble.

Oooooooo, yummy. The mashed banana gave these a real kick and they were a big hit, Cate had four!!! Mummy scoffed the rest ;)

A Food Disaster

Okay, the last couple of times I have blogged about baby food it's been to show off. I'll admit it. But tonight, dear reader, I have to admit to defeat. Massive defeat. Ooooo, it was a Carla Kitchen Disater tonight!!!

I thought I'd try whipping up something yummy for Cate with what I had in the house. Again. You might remember the Chicken Balls - they were a spur of the moment deal-e-o and they worked a treat. Tonight I used for inspiration a can of salmon. In all honesty, it was probably all down hill from there.

Thought I'd whip up some salmon patties for Cate. I used:
* 2 potatos, boiled, skins on
* 1/2 can of salmon
* Some chopped frozen onions
* Smidge of minced garlic
* A few basil leaves (why? They were there. No other reason)
* 1 grated carrot (sneaking vegies in no matter what)
* 1 knob of butter

Whizzied it all up in the food processor, had orange garlic smelling mush. Hmmmm. Added:

* Shredded tasty cheese
* 1 egg

and whizzied again.

Still not much better.

Over it by now and had a grumpy kid on my hands to boot. I rolled little salmon balls in bread crumbs and fried them in olive oil. Oh bad. Bad, bad, bad. They just wouldn't bond together, they were waaaaay too mushy. As I was trying to flip them, they would just turn into piles of sloppy mush.

I made six before I cracked the mega shits and chucked the rest of the orange garlic goo into the sink and blasted it away with hot water.

I presented one to Cate but she met it with distain. She poked it with a spoon for a few moments them demanded custard and two fruits, followed by strawberry yoghurt (she's no fool). Well, you win some, you lose some.

Postscript:
I did freze the five other salmon patties but do suspect the dog shall be enjoying those at a later date. Ha! Sucker dog!

I did it again...

...I cooked something! Amazing!

Admitedly, it was for Cate. Again. Because she's the only person I like cooking for. Because, it's usually easy. And, no surprises here, it WAS easy today.

I was on my on-line forum this morning and I stumbled across a recipe for Chicken Balls. I liked the sound of them and wondered if I could make them without leaving the house to purchase ingredients. With a little bit of tweaking, I could.

Here is a basic wrap up of ingredients as I used them:

* 3 chicken thighs
* 1 frozen spinach 'block'
* 1 cup mixed frozen vegies (carrot, potato, peas, corn maybe?)
* 1/2 cup frozen onion
* Small little tiny bit of minced garlic
* Little bit of cracked pepper
* Dash of garlic soy sauce
* 1 cup of shredded tasty cheese
* 1 teaspoon cornflour
* Bread crumbs.

Whizzy up the chicken in the food processor and put to the side. Whizzy up the vegies and add to the chicken(defrost what you need to). Add the cheese, garlic, soy, pepper and flour and mix. Place bread crumbs on a plate. Roll little balls out of the mixture, roll in breadcrumbs and lay on a baking tray well greased. Bake for half an hour on 180 degrees until golden brown.

Very easy and, like I said, I had all the ingredients on hand. I have snaffled a few since they came out of the oven and YUM. Best bit - check out the piccie above. Success!

Muffin Morning

So here's the thing - I'm a crappy cook. I don't like it and I'm not good at it. I get by but am definitely nothing special...which is why I married a man who is pretty damn fine in the kitchen. Smart move!

I do, however, like to cook for my little girl if the recipe is simple, healthy and something I know she will eat. She doesn't eat much solid food and, at the moment, she won't eat anything she can't feed herself. Yesterday whilst shopping I saw an expensive kids' food cookbook, flicked through it and saw recipes for many different types of muffins. I put the expensive book back down and thought to myself "I bet I can find a muffin recipe on the net". Thirty seconds of search work this morning and voila - muffin recipe ready to roll.

I figure that muffins are like pancakes. Cate LOVES pancakes and I put pretty much anything in them. I can now make them in five minutes start to finish without a recipe and they turn out fine (trust me, this is a HUGE leap forward!). I figure if I can perfect a muffin recipe I can pretty much add anything to them and hopefully create a whole new type of food that Cate is happy to munch on.

So - basic muffin recipe:


1 3/4 cup self raising flour
Sprinkle of baking powder
1 egg beaten
3/4 cup milk
90 gr butter melted

Place dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Mix wet ingredients. Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients, don't go too crazy on the mixing, keep it gentle. Spoon into muffin trays, bake for 15 - 20 mins at 200 degrees until lightly browned on top. Remove and cool.

Today I made Spinach and Feta muffins. I used frozen spinach and onion and chopped up feta and added these to the flour / baking powder before the folding bizzo. I also made Strawberry muffins. I added caster sugar and vanilla essence (guesstimates) and chopped strawberries.

Good news? I didn't burn them, they were super easy and they looked pretty good. Better news? This recipe made about forty little bubby sized muffins that are perfect for freezing. Best, best, best news? Cate LOVED them. SCORE! Another food my baby girl will happily munch on = happy Mummy.