Cafe des Enfants

Meat Balls

Meatballs

I was amazed and delighted when my children ate this meal.  A friend of mine made them for dinner and the children really loved them.  The beauty is they are so easy to eat and really tasty and delicious.  Later I tried cooking them myself and they ate them again!  If your children learn to love these you are really onto a winner.  Serve them with pasta, rice, jacket or mashed potatoes and salad.  Very versatile.  You can even keep them and have them cold for a picnic lunch the next day.  If you want them with pasta you could make a tomato sauce (you will find the recipe in the NEW E-BOOK and serve them with spaghetti.

Spinach

"I want a leaf MUM.  Why have you given him one and not me!  Oh please can I have a leaf….please...."

Think I’ve gone mad?  Well think again.  You know what kind of leaf that was?  No?

School Dinners

Hooray for Jamie Oliver.  Following his fantastic campaign over the past couple of years the British Government have admitted that there was a problem with its grotesquely greasy children’s school meals and moved over in a step to drastically improve them as soon as possible.   

Fried Chicken

I cannot believe this!  Last night I actually made fried chicken legs that looked, tasted and smelt just like the real thing!  I have never before considered this dish as I do not know how to get the coating to stick to the chicken legs throughout frying and they usually end up black and burned on the outside and pink and undercooked on the inside – not at all suitable fare for kids!

....But I Do Now!.......

Egg Territory

We’re at the stage in our house now where I can’t crack an egg….no literally I cannot do any more of the egg cracking – at all, not ever! 

Cabbage

My son just ate cabbage!  For the first time!  With no bargaining, bartering, persuasion or anything...he just lifted it off his plate and ate it!  I think he even surprised himself as he said "umm mummy that's nice!" and nice it was. 

Party Days

Only 6 kids are coming to Oliver’s party! I invited 22 and it is down to this. Has this ever happened to you? I don’t know whether to be delighted that I haven’t got hoards of testosterone filled 6 year old boys running around the places or delighted that there is a nice and easy to handle number that will make the mammoth catering challenge I was anticipating much much more handleable. 

Salt

Apparently we’re all eating too much salt, so says the Food Standards Agency Today -  even bread, in our home a basic staple for lunch boxes, breakfast and snacks is prone too have too much salt in it.  If we could all decrease our salt intake to just 6g a day this would cut heart attacks by 70,000 per year!  To check out the full sory at the BBC check this link .

And  we’ve also uncovered some more information for you about salt. 

Banana Bread Pudding

If like me you rarely make puddings for your family, preferring instead to offer them fresh fruit, this is a nice recipe for the weekend or evenings when you have a little more time and fancy indulging everyone a litte. 

For those of you who love bread puddings, this alternative uses the added ingredient of sliced bananas, which make a delicious treat. This delicious recipe is ideal for any desert after a meal and will enjoyed not only by children, but also by the adults as well.

Chilli with Chocolate

What better way can their be to get your kids to eat meat and kidney beans than letting them into the secret that the best chilli is always made with chocolate.  That does it!  I bet you can get even the most reticent; conservative of palates to at least try chilli con carne when they know that it has been made with that most favoured of “treats” that is chocolate.  It worked on mine.  There was something incredibly rewarding that made me feel all nice and warm and homely when our cousins and my kids all sat down to a big family meal of chilli with cheese, garlic bread, and all the trimmings (guacamole, sour cream etc.….) a nice change to a Sunday roast lunch we thought.