We’ve only recently started making our own sausage rolls at home, but now that we’ve tried them, there’s no going back to the shop-bought variety. The homemade version is altogether a different thing – flaky pastry, good quality sausage meat of your choice (I get mine from Hedges Farm in St Albans) and a few optional extras, like some softly cooked leeks (there was a lone leek in my veg box), or caramelised onions, and a sparkling of poppy seeds, or even sesame seeds. We look forward to having these as an after-school snack (they are super-quick to whisk out of the freezer) or as party food and they’d certainly be great for serving up as a homemade canapé to Christmas visitors. Here’s my recipe, hope you get to try them….
Cooking with Kids
Press Images for The After School Cookbook
I’m very much looking forward to the publication of The After School Cookbook by friend and author Nick Coffer this Thursday 5th June 2014. Firstly, because this is Nick’s second book, following on from the huge success of his first book My Daddy Cooks, which means I have a brand new stash of family-friendly, super easy recipes to try. Secondly, because I was asked by Nick’s publishers Hodder and Stoughton to take some press and publicity images for the book which are now finding themselves across the media. Yesterday began with a front page spread in EAT (Metro supplement) with a double page feature (pages 34 & 35) of a couple of recipes from the book, with some of my photos to illustrate – a very proud moment for me! It was a great project to work on and from the minute I received my copy of the book I was eager to get stuck into cooking some of the recipes and to start photographing them.

The recipes from the book that I cooked and photographed (above) were –
- Italian Eggy Bread Croque-Monsieur
- Cheddar, Parma Ham and Courgette Scones
- Pork Chilli Con Carne (pages splashed already!)
- Tuna, Carrot and Courgette Salad (MY new favourite lunch, never mind the kids!)
- Salmon Courgette and Tomato Linguine
- Chicken and Olive Pasta Bake
- Cheese and Sweetcorn Pudding
- Absolutely Instant Chocolate Mousse
There are a stack more that I can’t wait to cook and so far, every single recipe I’ve made worked first time and has been woolfed down by my family.
Nick first came to the public’s attention through his video blog called MyDaddyCooks.com in 2009, which led him to his first cookbook deal. Since then, he’s been busy on BBC Three Counties Radio, presenting his Saturday Weekend Kitchen show as well as his five-day-a-week afternoon slot. There’s also recently been a brand new addition to the family, another baby boy, which means that mealtimes really do need to be made as easy as possible to pull off for Nick and his wife, Jo.
The After School Cookbook is really a handy manual for parents, not only of school-aged kids, but of toddlers and older children, too. All of the recipes are suitable for the whole family and there are some very clever recipes and chapters including Mind the Gap – to bridge the gap between home time and dinner time, Inspired Lunch Boxes, Genius Treats and Saving Your Bacon – frugal recipes packed with flavour. Nick shares his tips for cooking with children, with symbols by each recipe to indicate whether the recipe is ‘Very Very Easy,’ – ‘Very Easy,’ or ‘Easy’ and in terms of timing, ‘Really Really Quick,’ ‘Really Quick,’ ‘Quick’ or ‘Slow’.
The book itself is text only – meaning that it is practical enough for the kitchen with inevitable splashes and stains. Nick’s trademark ‘quick-to-throw-together’ style means that you can make many of the recipes with ease when you are short of time. Nick’s six-year-old son Archie and three-year-old daughter Matlida can very often be found getting stuck in with the cooking. As many of us know only too well, after school patience levels and concentration levels can be a challenge, so the food that makes it to the table needs to be quick and easy yet nutritious, too.
For more updates on the book, you can follow Nick on Twitter @NickCoffer and don’t forget to look out for more press features and recipes to try!
The After School Cookbook By Nick Coffer
120 quick, easy and affordable recipes for your hungry kids
Published: Thursday 5 June 2014
Hodder & Stoughton Trade Paperback & eBook £16.99
Disclosure:
Press & publicity recipe photographs taken by Ren Behan commissioned by Hodder & Stoughton.
Amazon affiliate link included.
With thanks to Hodder and Stoughton for the commission and to Nick Coffer for writing such a lovely book!
Giveaway
Hodder and Stoughton have also kindly provided three copies of the book to giveaway to my readers –
Food Revolution Day 2014 – Join In With Your Kids!
Cooking with kids is something I feel really passionately about and raising awareness of good food is something I’m always happy to do and get behind. This year, Food Revolution Day – a global day of action – falls on Friday 16th May 2014. It’s a day entirely dedicated to raising food awareness and education on cooking supported by the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation. Beyond the day itself, the charity aims to deliver food education programmes though teaching kitchen skills, as well as educating kids on where their food comes from and inspiring kids and adults alike to enjoy cooking from scratch. It’s the ethos that pretty much fuels Jamie Oliver in most of what he does. The money raised by the foundation (and on Food Revolution Day itself) is also used toward helping disengaged teenagers to train to work in the food industry through the Fifteen Apprentice Programme, which I mentioned last week after a charity supper at Fifteen. You can support the cause here, whilst entering to win a cooking lesson with Jamie Oliver and a stay in London with dinner and spending money thrown in, too. Or, you can visit the official Food Revolution Day website for lots more ideas on how to join in and get involved on the day and beyond.

There’s generally a theme to Food Revolution Day and this year, the big emphasis is on getting kids excited about food by encouraging them to help out with food preparation and by helping them to learn how to make good food choices as early on as possible. We’re all very quick to blame the food industry and schools (although our school meals are amazing and are cooked from scratch every day even at state level) but we also have to acknowledge that teaching kids the very basics can begin at home. We live in a world now where even a baby’s first spoonful of food may come from a jar or a packet. There are so many food choices to navigate and so much of our food is now processed and stripped of it’s true nutritional value. Some of our food is so far removed from it’s natural state that at times, we can barely even recognise the basic ingredients. This makes me sad and it’s something I’d love to see changed and improved upon. I’m excited to see that food is coming back to the revised National Curriculum in 2014 at primary level and secondary level and I really hope it stays there and makes a big come back throughout school life through Home Economics/Design & Technology lessons. But I also really believe that despite the fact that our lives are so incredibly busy, there are lots of things that we can do ourselves and at home to help us all become more aware of cooking with real ingredients and making sensible choices.
To mark Food Revolution Day this year, I was asked to share some of my childhood cooking memories over on the JamieOliver.com site, which I did, along with an exclusive recipe for a tasty fresh plum cake, served with plenty of yogurt and fruit. A plum cake was the first recipe that I learned how to bake with my mum and it’s a recipe that my kids love to help me with in the kitchen now, too. There are plenty of ways for little hands to help and get involved along the way. My seven and four year old children were practically able to do much of the preparation for this cake between them, needing my help only with the electric whisk and with putting the cake into the oven and with taking it out once cooked.
There are some more child-friendly recipes and activity sheets to explore over on the Food Revolution Day website and it’s not too late to sign up and get involved. Simply fill in the form to say how many of you are going to be marking Food Revolution Day – whether by joining in with a live cooking lesson with Jamie, trying a new recipe or ingredient out for yourselves or perhaps even planting some potatoes or other vegetables in the garden with the kids. You can also share your ideas, activities or results via social media using the hashtag #FRD2014.
{Find my recipe for the plum cake here!}
Every year, awareness of how making better food choices and of cooking real food from scratch grows and grows with the help of Jamie’s Food Revolution Day campaign with over 74 countries taking part globally. I hope you can set aside a little time to join in this year in creating some little waves which may spark more action in the months and years to come.
Keep an eye out for my tweets @RenBehan to see what we’re getting up to on Food Revolution Day – we’ll be taking part in the live cookery lesson at 2pm at home (making a nutritious rainbow salad wrap) and planting some veggies shortly after that, too. I’m looking forward to sharing our mini kitchen garden progress with you as things start to grow over the summer. There are also many other food bloggers helping to spread the work about the day and campaign itself – take a look at some more posts here –
Mabintu at Recipes from a Pantry on Yogurt Dip
Louisa’s post over on Eat Your Veg, including a recipe for Easy Cheesy Muffins
The Jamie Oliver Food Foundation is a registered charity in England and Wales, no. 1094536. All links editorially given and I have chosen to make a donation to the campaign as well as to raise awareness of Food Revolution Day through this post.
Other recipes to try with kids –
Turkey and Leek Meatballs with Tomato Tagliatelle
Swiss Scrambled Eggs with Croissants and Shakes
Are you joining in with Food Revolution Day this year? If so, let me know what you are doing and have fun!
Vegan Chocolate Cake – Affinities Cake from Rococo
It’s chocolate cake time, although this one counts as semi-healthy owing to the fact that it is a vegan chocolate cake and it contains prunes – so a slice of this definitely counts as one of your five a day in my view. Given my addiction and adoration of chocolate in any form I was amazed to learn (prompted by Dom’s Random Recipes challenge) that there are only two books dedicated entirely to chocolate on my bookshelf. I was so surprised by this, that I felt the need to pop into my local book store to peruse the chocolate section to see exactly how many chocolate books I’m missing out on. There were, as you can imagine, many wonderful chocolate books that I could very easily have immediately added to my collection. Melt: A book of Chocolate by Louise Nason and and Chika Watanabe stood out, as did Eric Lanlard’s Chocolat. Of the two I found at home, the first – ‘Zlota Ksiega Czekolady’ was written entirely in Polish and the second was a fairly recent addition; Rococo Mastering the Art of Chocolate by Chantal Coady of Rococo Chocolates.
Out of the two books, my son picked Rococo as the book to cook from. He also happened to bring home a chocolate book from the school library this week, so we explored the process of making chocolate through both books. In another coincidence, we also caught Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory on television on Sunday. So all in all, it’s been quite a chocolate-filled week.
Having selected the Rococo book, the page we opened (174) depicted a chocolate cake adorned with rose petals (perfect for Valentine’s Day, too) and referred to as being so here on The Telegraph’s website. The cake is called Affinities Cake – possibly due to the affinity between the ingredients – balsamic, vanilla, salt, soda, olive oil and prune juice?
I had to flip back a page to find the recipe and found that I had most of the ingredients to hand, apart from the prune juice. I did have a large bag of dried prunes in the cupboard though, so I whizzed them up with some water to make 400ml of prune liquid. I also used Ndali vanilla powder and a gluten free flour blend, so in fact, my version of this cake ended up being gluten free and vegan. Double brownie points…
Chocolate is a deeply emotional subject. I am obsessed, and I am fortunate enough to be surrounded by several tons of the best chocolate in the world – Chantal Coady
On a more serious note, the introduction to the recipe saddened me a little. The first time Chantal Coady came across this cake was in Grenada, when it had been made for Mott Green, co-founder of the Grenada Chocolate Company. I remember vividly the day that my friend Vanessa Kimbell wrote of Mott’s untimely death – in a tragic accident. Vanessa had spent the week with Mott in Grenada and he profoundly influenced her; so much so, that Vanessa’s personal blog is now dedicated to Mott Green’s memory. By all accounts, he was a truly great man and is missed by all who knew him and worked for him in the business of producing chocolate.
So this post is, like dark chocolate, bitter sweet. It is a deeply seductive cake, though the headnote in the book is now tinged with loss. I hope that Mott’s legacy lives on in Grenada and around the world.
…his greatest legacy will be the super-ethical model of organic chocolate production where the growers and producers are equally paid and where the normal terms of trade are reversed ensuring that it is possible to add all the value at source and bring maximum benefit to the local economy, in this case to the people of Grenada who Mott loved – Chantal Coady
Recipe
Click here for the ‘Affinities Cake’ recipe
Changes I made –
- I made my own prune juice by whizzing up 100g of prunes with 400ml water
- I used soft light brown sugar
- I used a gluten free flour blend instead of plain flour
- I topped my cake with melted organic dark chocolate and some caramel – the caramel I used is non-vegan but you could leave it out or use a vegan version!!
You can find more chocolate recipes by searching under the category of chocolate on my recipe index.
This post is being linked to Dom’s Random Recipes event, which this month challenged us to select any chocolate-themed recipe book and to make a randomly selected recipe from that book. This month, Dom at Belleau Kitchen has also joined forces with Chocolette, who runs the equally glorious We Should Cocoa event over on her Chocolate Log Blog.
Have you come across any ‘virtuous’ chocolate cake recipes on your travels?
National Cupcake Week – Three Favourite Recipes
It’s National Cupcake Week which means you have the perfect excuse to pre-heat the oven, whip out the butter and icing sugar and get baking and frosting. Every now and again, a new craze or trend, such as cake pops or ‘cronuts’ threaten to knock the cupcake off the sweet treat top spot, but we all know that the gourmet cupcake will prevail. Here are three of my favourite cupcake recipes to keep you going throughout the week. If you’re going along to a charity coffee morning or school bake sale anytime soon, don’t forget to take a batch along and show off your cupcake prowess, too.
In this recipe, I recommend using 60g of caramel of toffee sauce in the frosting. There’s only one way forward when it comes to caramel in a jar, and it’s Bonne Maman Confiture de Caramel, which I have spotted in a few UK supermarkets now. If you really can’t find it, an alternative is Dulce de Leche. You can also hollow out a little bit of your cupcake once its baked (with a teaspoon) and add some the caramel to the cake before frosting. I made these for Valentine’s Day – but who says you need to wait till then to treat yourself to one of these? Warning – you will eat the remainder of the jar of caramel with a spoon. If you really have any caramel left, make these Salted Caramel Chocolate Oatmeal Bars for your next hit.
2. Raspberry Ripple and Basil Cupcakes
When the dark nights start to set in, these cupcakes remind me of summertime at the seaside, with white butter-cream or frosting drizzled with a little raspberry ripple sauce. The basil gives a very subtle flavour and also adds an extra little bit of colour. You can also add one or two leaves into your cake mix if you fancy trying something different.
3. Diddy Philly Cupcakes with cinnamon sugar
Finally, let’s not forget the kids. Cupcakes are a great way to get the little ones into the kitchen and you can let them get creative with sprinkles or even little sweeties to decorate the top. You can make a really simple cream cheese topping for your cupcakes with Philadelphia cheese. If you don’t have a mini cupcake tin, just make 12 regular sized fairy cakes.
I hope you find the time to bake up a little treat or two!
Don’t forget to search #NationalCupcakeWeek on Twitter for more ideas.
Salted Caramel Chocolate Oatmeal Bars and Bake Sale Ideas
The sun is shining! I’ve been busy developing and photographing lots of exciting recipes for a new platform (more news to come) as well as writing and baking and making these (slightly addictive) Salted Caramel Chocolate Oatmeal Bars.
Recently, a recipe from one of my favourite blogs, Pinch of Yum, popped into my inbox and I knew instantly that I had to make it. The recipe was for Chocolate Caramel Oatmeal Bars. Since I had half a jar of Bonne Maman Confiture de Caramel left over, having made The ‘Big Daddy’ Salted Caramel Fudge Cake last weekend, I knew this would be the perfect recipe to make for a girls night in. I had actually been instructed to come with salad, but these were too good not to bring instead! Mine turned out a little more crumbly than on Pinch of Yum, as I had to convert measurements, plus I had an extra little pair of helping hands (which meant half the flour was all over the floor!) but they were equally tasty. Having made them once, I made them again to take to our summer fair, along with a big batch of cupcakes and as I type, I’m seriously craving them again…
[kitchenbug-your-recipe-appears-here-10627]
Find the original Pinch of Yum recipe adapted by Lindsay here – with US measurements.
More Bake Sale Ideas
We’ve had our school summer fair, but if yours is still to come pop over and read my latest piece for JamieOliver.com on Bake Sale Ideas, too.
Happy Baking!
Fish is the Dish – Smoked Mackerel Omelette
The Easter weekend is upon us and I am reminded of how, growing up, we would always eat fish on a Friday, not just on Good Friday. And before the chocolate frenzy begins, there is still time to eat simply. We’re starting our day with a Hot Smoked Mackerel Omelette, for a quick and easy omega-3 boost.
For the last few weeks, I’ve been roughly following a plan and a challenge called Healthy Happy Hearts, encouraging us to eat two portions of fish a week. It isn’t a big change for us, as we already try and eat fish once a week, but upping our intake to two portions means that I’ve enjoyed experimenting a little more with fish at different mealtimes. I’ve written about the Fish is the Dish campaign before and was lucky to have had one of my recipes featured in their free family cookbook along with lots of other bloggers.
Dowload the cookbook in the Fish is the Dish site
This time, Fish is the Dish have been working with one family specifically to help them to eat two portions of fish a week, encouraging us all along with extra hints, tips, menus and recipes. There is research to show that eating fish twice a week will help to raise levels of omega-3 in the body. As a ‘good’ fat that is essential to our diets, Omega-3 helps with brain development, joint function, healthy skin and eyes as well as better mental health.
The hardest part of any cooking-based challenge is to find ways of getting the children to eat more healthily, so I came up with this quick and easy recipe, which the kids, to my surprise, devoured. I did think that smoked mackerel would be too strong a flavour for them, but then, they do like smoked salmon and actually tolerate ‘big’ flavours, such as fresh olives, better than I do. So sometimes, kids will surprise us. Mine were even picking the mackerel out of the bowl before we got it in the pan!
Getting them involved in the cooking or preparation process also helps, too and I find that my kids are more likely to try something new if they’ve helped to make it. I came across this infographic this week whilst writing about Cooking with Kids for Great British Chefs, backing up my theory. A survey showed that 84% of parents said that cooking with their children made them more likely to try new food types. Since the Easter holidays are now upon us, we’ll definitely be spending plenty of time cooking together in the kitchen – we’ll have lots of chocolate Easter eggs to use up (great for crispy cakes or fridge cakes) but we’ll also be making some healthy fishy dishes together, too!
Cooking with Kids – find the full infographic here
How to make a Smoked Mackerel Omelette
Making this omelette is quick and simple. We used some ‘responsibly sourced’ Smoked Mackerel fillets, on offer at the supermarket, too. They were in a vacuum sealed packet. Start with one, or even half a fillet if mackerel is a new flavour for your family. Using your fingers, pull the mackerel away from the skin (it will flake up) and put it in a bowl. In another bowl, whisk up two eggs, add an (optional) little swirl of fresh double cream for a little extra decadence. Next, grate up some cheese, Parmesan or Gruyere work well. Switch on the grill and leave it to heat up. Add a small drizzle of olive oil or rapseed oil (extra omega-3) into a small frying pan, pour in the eggs and put the pan on a medium heat on the hob. The egg will start to set, you can give it a little stir at the beginning, then leave it to start setting on a low heat. After a minute or two, add the flakes of mackerel to the pan and sprinkle over some of the cheese. Cook for one minute and then put the frying pan under the hot grill so that the top of the omelette cooks and puffs up a bit. Once it looks golden on the top, take it out and add an extra sprinkle of cheese. Serve and eat straight away.
I hope you have time to try this over the long and lazy Easter weekend. I’ll be back tomorrow with an Easter sweet treat!
With many thanks to Fish is the Dish for sending my family some fish to try as part of the Healthy Happy Hearts challenge. No additional payment was received.
Follow @FishistheDish on Twitter for extra hints and tips or search for the #HealthyHappyHearts challenge.
Review: I Love to Bake by Tana Ramsay
It seems that everyone has the baking bug at the moment. It might be something to do with lots of baking programmes on the television but for me, it’s the start of a new term and there have already been a couple of school events requiring the production of a home-baked goodie.
It’s always good to have a few fail-safe baking recipes to rely on. The night before a bake sale is not the time to be experimenting. You need a recipe you can trust and that isn’t going to depend on too many Mary Berry-standard skills.
Tana Ramsay is a mum, who I’m sure knows this feeling only too well. Her latest book is called ‘I Love to Bake’ and is published by the Octopus Publishing Group. Yes, she happens to be married to Gordon Ramsay, but I’m quite certain that he isn’t the one up until midnight icing cakes for school fêtes. I’m sure that Tana’s experience of combining motherhood with writing cookery books (this is her fourth book in her own name) and a TV career means that she’s well versed in testing and trying recipes that work and that are quick and easy to make (perhaps with a little help with the washing up along the way..)
So, what’s in Tana’s latest book? Well, I was pleasantly surprised to find that ‘baking’ includes a whole array of sweet and savoury family friendly dishes.
There are ten chapters in total –
Cakes & Cupcakes, Biscuits & Traybakes, Puddings, Chocolate, Sweet Pies & Tarts, Savoury Pies & Tarts, Meat Bakes, Fish & Vegetable Bakes, Bread and a final chapter on Easter, Hallowe’en and Christmas.
‘I Love to Bake’ is a bit of a baking ‘catch-all’ with recipes pitched a varying levels – some of them I’d say are very easily achievable, such as the Baked Tomatoes, Almond Jam Cookies (great to make wth kids) Blueberry Flapjacks (five ingredients to throw in a pan) and the Mackerel Fishcakes (using cooked mackerel fillets and left-over mash). Whereas some of the recipes are slightly more technical – such as the Sun-blushed Tomato & Pancetta Bread, Fish Lasagne (assembly and making a roux is required) or the Tapenade-coated Rack of Lamb with Mediterranean Canellini Beans (two separate recipes involved).
However, in general, they are certainly all achievable though my bread-making skills may need a little work before I reach the Bread chapter.
So far, some of the recipes that have made my family hit-list have included –
- Lamb & Lentil Casserole – the recipe calls for swede and carrots but I made this with autumnal butternut squash and lentils and it was yummy
- Sesame Coated Drumsticks – tahini, Chinese five-spice powder and runny honny make for a lovely tasty glaze
- Easy Quesadillas – we swapped the salami for Polish garlicky sausage, delicious
- Spiced Carrot & Raisin Cupcakes – a great after-school snack and they stayed very moist too for a good couple of days
My less successful baking adventures have included the Banana & Pineapple Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting. I’m not sure what happened, it definitely had something to do with my dodgy oven. Tana does say that the cake remains very moist so you have to keep an eye on the timings and watch when it shrinks away from the tin. I did, but the cake was still very soggy in the middle making it very difficult to slice it evenly into three slices. To make matters worse, when layered up with the frosting the whole cake slipped as I tried to get it into the tin – not my finest baking hour, but it won’t put me off making it again as it tasted really delicious!
Other sweet-treats on my ‘must-try’ list are Tana’s Orange and Poppy Seed Cake and her Orange Polenta Cake with Golden Syrup (I’ve made a similar Orange, Polenta and Amarretto cake before to a Nigella recipe but I love the idea of pouring golden syrup over the top reminiscent of the sponge and golden syrup of school dinners. I also love the look of Tana’s Home-Made Custard Creams and her Chocolate Truffle Hearts.
Most of all, I really like the seasonal slant to Tana’s book and I think there are many recipes where you could easily substitute seasonal fruit or vegetables depending on the time of year. For example, the Cherry, Almond and Buttermilk Muffins would be wonderful during British cherry season as fresh cherries are required, but I would probably try these with small cubes of soft pears during the autumn. Similarly, fresh cherries are required to make the Bakewell Tart with Homemade Cherry Jam, but for a twist I might give this a go using fresh, seasonal plum jam instead.
Tana’s Baked Cheesecake with Rhubarb Compote is a lovely way to use garden rhubarb (and I love the fact that she suggests putting a layer of crème fraîche over the top of the cheesecake once baked – handy to cover any cracks!) I also can’t wait to try Tana’s Salmon En Croûte with Minted Pea and Bean Purée (the peas and broad beans are both frozen and the pasty is shop-bough and ready-rolled – I like the thinking!)
There are photographs by Chris Terry accompanying almost all of the recipes, but not every single recipe and some of the recipes include extra photos of some of the steps (the Lemon Tart with Blackcurrants shows a couple of the stages) but that isn’t carried throughout the whole book.
The final chapter, Easter, Hallowe’en and Christmas, is a tiny bit disappointing. A basic hot-cross bun recipe covers Easter and there is just one recipe for basic cookies to cover Hallow’een, so there could have been a little more content in that chapter although the Christmas recipes, such as the Spiced Orange and Cranberry Mince Pies and Whole Baked Camembert sound good.
All in all, I have really enjoyed baking from this book so far. I might challenge myself to try one of Tana’s bread recipes and for a party next week I’m making Tana’s Lamb shanks with White Beans which sounds like something that can just bubble away for a few hours in the oven.
I am a little bit chocolate-caked-out after my daughter’s second birthday with more celebrations to come this weekend, but there is always room for a good chocolate cake and Tana’s Chocolate Fudge Cake claims to combine a ‘light sponge with a light filling’ so it might have to get made for the next school cake bake sale!
Review: Tum Tum Tots Tableware
The school holidays are flying by so quickly. Most days we’ve been out and about, visiting some great (though usually packed) local places and keeping as active as possible. It’s back to school in less than three weeks and the big question is – ‘school dinners or packed lunches?’
We didn’t receive the whole range (below) just a few bits to try!
The range, shown in full above, includes some really beautiful tableware for kids, cleverly designed by product designer parent-team Suzanne and Andrew Stokes for their two children aged three and one. As they watched their own kids battling with the classic ‘peas rolling off the spoon’ or ‘food falling off the plate and onto the floor’ dilemmas they decided to design their own tools for the job and came up with this new range specifically created for little fingers.
I was immediately impressed with the packaging as all of it was entirely recyclable with the added bonus of having pictures outlined for the children to colour in before recycling it or using the packaging for another purpose. For example, the triangular box that the cutlery set comes in could be coloured in and then used as a box for crayons or the dining box packaging could be used as a little carry case in itself.
Product features include:
I particularly liked the lunch bag and the snack pots from the ‘out and about’ range as they are a little less generic than most of the things we find in the supermarkets these days…these might sway us towards packed lunches!
The table mats were engaging enough to get them happily to the table and stayed in place well – there’s nothing worse than a mat that slides around in my view!
Availability
Photos courtesy of Tum Tum Tots, too.
Review: Usborne Children’s World Cookbook
A little while ago, my friend Lisa from The Book Mums spotted a cookery book that she thought would be right up my street – and she was right. It’s the Usborne Children’s World Cookbook which is filled with recipes from 25 different countries. If you have a long summer holdiay ahead of you to fill with children this book would be a very handy addition to your activity list.

The Usborne Children’s World Cook Book is available through Usborne Children’s Books and is priced at £12.99. Check out Lisa at The Book Mums who will easily point you in the direction of a local consultant or will mail it out to you.
Thank you for my review copy. The book is written by Angela Wilkes and Sarah Khan with food photography by Howard Allman.
Review: ‘Food is Fun’ Kids Cookbook by Anorak Magazine
If you have kids, you may be familiar with Anorak Magazine – the happy magazine for kids which is available both in the UK and now in the US. A little while ago (actually quite a while ago, I got a little snowed-under) I was sent a copy of the new cookbook published by Anorak Press called ‘Food is Fun – Foodie Fun for Kids’ which takes a really ‘fun’ look at food with the aim of trying to get kids excited about ingredients and to encourage them to help out in the kitchen.

Road-Testing the ‘My Daddy Cooks’ Recipe Book
Hot off the press, the latest cookbook to hit my shelf is Nick Coffer’s ‘My Daddy Cooks’. Things are very exciting in the world of cookery books at the moment as more and more non-TV/non-celebrity cooks and food writers are making themselves heard. This is partly due to the growing popularity and phenomenon of Internet blogging, which is literally thrusting ‘up and coming’ foodies straight into the hands of publishers who seem to be keen on bringing the very best of such ‘new voices’ forward. It seems there is room for new talent and I believe there should be. Whilst they may not soar quite as quickly as books written by or endorsed by the ‘big guns’ of the food world overnight, I say, look out -there is some real talent emerging.
Enter Nick and Archie. I first met Nick when I was asked to appear as a guest on his BBC radio show (I have the very lovely English Mum to thank for our introduction.) Nick was in the process of writing his first cookery book (though he has always kept the show and his blog/book quite separate). It was clear to me that his love of food was all-encompassing and that his enthusiasm would propel him forward at great speed.
I am very pleased to report that there are no jacket potatoes that have been made to look like mice, nor are there any individually ramekinned shepherd’s pies, hidden vegetable sauces or gimmicky foods. Phew. I think there are quite enough of those type of books out there already.
Nick has come up with some very clever short-cuts to make food fun and easy to make (he calls it “giving it the My Daddy Cooks treatment”) and other than a few pots and pans and a set of scales, no fancy equipment is needed. A fair amount of recipes are cooked in the oven, though this is because it is often easier to stick something in an oven out of a toddler’s reach. Some of the recipes can be cooked on the stove, such as the recipes in the chapter called ‘Wok on the Wild Side,’ and there are even recipes for microwavable cakes for those moments when you only have enough time to “ping and ding”.
The notion of layering flour tortillas up with chilli shouldn’t work (I’m not a fan of sogginess) but my goodness, it does. The tortillas actually don’t go soggy, they stay remarkably intact and just end up being like chewable pasta – which the kids loved. Keen to re-create the yummy dish I had tasted at The Real Food Festival, I attempted the Mexican Lasagne on the afternoon of a toddler tea party in my garden. I had made the sauce a few hours before just to let the flavours develop and then my kids helped me ‘build’ the lasagna a bit later on. Four ‘under fives’ wolfed it down and asked for more. We re-heated the rest later in the evening and it was still as good, if not better, despite Nick saying in the book that it should be eaten straight away. Just to check it really was as good as I thought it was, I made it for the second time this week, re-naming it ‘The Mex’. I also tweeted Nick to ask him to dedicate a Facebook page entirely to this one recipe. Enough said about this one (my photos below).
My Daddy Cooks – published by Hodder & Staughton
Easy Peasy Home Made Pizza
I’m going to make you very hungry… This week has been another busy week. Inspired by my recent pasta making course, I turned my hand to the art of making home made pizza. Just like the pasta, now that I have made my own from scratch, I feel very reluctant to buy it from the shop since home made is so much better, a little bit of time permitting!
Easy Peasy Home Made Pizza
Prep
Cook
Total
Yield 2
An easy pizza dough recipe to make with your kids. Makes two pizzas.
Ingredients
- 225g plain flour (I used Italian '00' Flour)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 teaspoons caster sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon fast action dried yeast
- 150 ml warm water
- 2 tablespoons rapeseed or light olive oil
- Extra flour for dusting/rolling
- Tomato passata for the base
- Your favourite toppings for the top
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 220C/425F/Gas Mark 7
- Sift the flour, salt and sugar into a bowl and then stir in the fast-action yeast.
- Add the oil to the warm water. Make a well in the middle and gradually add the warm water and oil, mixing with your hands as you go along. The mixture will feel quite lumpy, so keep bringing it together with your hands. Eventually, you should have a ball of soft dough, add a little extra sprinkle of flour if it is too sticky.
- Knead the dough on a lightly floured board or wooden table for around ten minutes.
- After around ten minutes, place your ball of dough into a lightly oiled bowl and cover with cling film. Place it somewhere warm for an hour. This is a good time to prepare your toppings.
- After an hour, take it out of the bowl and again, on a lightly floured surface, knead the dough again for a further few minutes to deflate it/knock it back.
- Roll out, spread with tomato sauce and your favourite toppings.
- Place your pizza in the centre of a hot oven (on a pizza stone or a baking tray) for around fifteen minutes, or until the base is crispy and your cheese has melted.
Top Books for Budding Little Cooks!
