Toddler Recipes - Quiche Bites

It's finally happened - Henry's decided he'll try new foods. Hooray! I came across this recipe made as muffins at a friend's baby shower and asked for the recipe. Turns out they're a hit - Henry eats these regularly (usually 4 or 5 at a time!). I can't help but snack on them too - delicious.

Quiche Bites
Thanks to Maree for this recipe.

15 Sao Biscuits (crush in the food processor)
5 rashes of bacon (finely sliced) - I omitted this time
1 cup grated carrot
1 cup grated zucchini
2 Sliced button mushrooms
Finely diced chillies (Omitted for toddlers)
1 small onion (grated/finely diced)
1 250gram pkt of grated cheese (chedder/tasty)
1 cup of milk
4 beaten eggs
crushed garlic & ginger to taste (about 1 teaspoon of each)
salt and pepper or 1 teaspoon powdered chicken stock to taste

Method

Mix all ingredients thoroughly, spoon into greased mini muffin tray
Bake in a moderate oven for 20-30 minutes or until golden brown

Makes about 40
50 calories each without the bacon

nom nom nom

Toddler Recipes - Pikelets

So we've hit the fussy toddler stage. Well, I guess Henry isn't as fussy as he could be, he's probably more bored than anything of what I keep serving up to him. Today I looked around for a basic pikelet recipe that I could sneak veggies into and first go was a winner winner chicken dinner!

Basic Pikelets
Thanks to Exclusively food for the basic recipe (I omitted the 2Tbsp sugar for savoury pikelets):

150g (1 cup) self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
36g (2 tablespoons) caster sugar
166ml (2/3 cup) milk
1 large egg
20g (1 tablespoon) butter, melted
Extra butter to grease pan
-Makes about 20 pikelets

Whisk up the milk and egg in a bowl and add to the dry ingredients, then whisk until nice and smooth. Add the melted butter and stir until combined.

Now add whatever bits you'd like - I added 1 Cup pureed sweet potato and 1/2 Cup grated cheese. Heat up your non-stick pan, add some grease (butter will do) and put tablespoonfuls into the pan. If they're not spreading very well, ie the mix is too thick, just add a bit more milk until it's the right consistency.

Cook on one side until you see bubbles coming through the top, then flip and cook until brown on the bottom. Let cool on some paper towel - make sure they're cool in the middle enough for bub!

I reckon these would be yummy with creamed corn and chives or some chopped mushrooms - remember that most veggies would need to be precooked before you add to the mixture.

He polished off 8 of them for lunch! What a guts, but I'd say that's a success :) Have you made pikelets before? What combinations worked - leave a comment and let me know. Henry will thank you :)

Messy Old Week

So my plan to get all of the Christmas outfits ready for the expo this weekend kind of went out the window and became a week just for me and Henry. We tried out a few new ideas for messy play as we realised he doesn't exactly like getting his hands dirty, although I don't blame him for not liking vegemite hands.

First up was "Yoghurt Finger Painting". All I did was add food colouring to some baby yoghurt we already had in the fridge and put it in a separated plate. At first he was pretty hesitant, but by the end he was sucking the yoghurt out of the plate and rubbing it all over the table. I'd say that's a win!

Next up was "Rainbow Rice" which is just dry rice I coloured by putting 1 cup in a zip lock bag with a tablespoon of vinegar and enough food dye to make it nice and bright. I shook it up to mix the colour in and then dried the rice out on a sheet of waxproof paper. Yep...I'm going to be finding rice for yearrrrrs!

Yesterday we had a go of "Rainbow Spaghetti". You make this by cooking spaghetti then colouring it in a zip lock bag with a tablespoon of oil and some food colouring. This one wasn't as popular although this mummy was smart putting it in the paddling pool outside! I had to rinse it off under water to get the excess food dye off, but bub was still coated in a rainbow poo kind of smear. I think what he didn't like was that as it dried out, it stuck to him. Oh well...baby steps.

This evening I made some Play Dough using jelly as the colouring, although I had to add just a touch more food dye to make it bright. The recipe is from Learning 4 Kids. We might try this out tomorrow - who can't love play dough?! I may have to join in on this one hehe.

OK so I did get a couple of dinosaur beanies done and some bodysuits moustchio'd up...pics to come!