Food

Homemade Banana Ice Lollies Recipe with Crunchie Chunks

How to make banana ice lollies

  Banana ice lollies recipe It really has been the most glorious summer so far. Being able to fling open the door each morning and let the kids play outside feels free and makes everything so much more relaxed during the school holidays. And what could be better on a hot afternoon than a homemade ice lolly? We have a new set of ice lolly moulds, and time on our hands, so I set the kids to work on their favourite flavours. Crunchie bars and banana milkshake featured strongly. So of course we needed to make a frozen treat that …

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Easy Family Food: Versatile Pizza Tart recipe

Easy family food - versatile 'pizza' tart for the whole family

When the Bug and I get home from school, chaos often sets in. Both of us have various places we need to be, and everyone needs to be fed. Pizza tart is one of our quick and easy staples. Simple to prepare, just chuck on any ingredients you have in the fridge and bake. It’s good hot or cold, and stands up well to being reheated for later if you’re the kind of family that sometimes needs to eat in shifts! In this version we decided to get a bit more exciting with our ingredients, and used OXO’s new Shake …

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Grown Up Tuna Pasta Bake Recipe that Kids will Love

How to feed the whole family with just one recipe All hell is breaking loose. You abandoned any attempt at creative play hours ago and the bickering upstairs would indicate that a full-scale atrocity is underway. Homework litters the kitchen table and a million Hama beads are skating under the fridge. To make matters worse, it is 5 o’clock and the freezer is offering you nothing but a bald fish finger and some chewy-looking ice-cream. Plus it was Friday food at school today, so pizza isn’t an option, and Actually Daddy will be home looking to be fed in half …

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How to decorate a Chess and Football cake

Sporty cake for the Sport Relief Great Bloggers Bake Off

I’m not a huge baker. Occasionally I spend an afternoon with the kids throwing random things at a pan, loosely based around a recipe book, but more often than not substituting ingredients as we discover we don’t have what we need. I need to get better at prep. But give me a decorating challenge and I’m all over it. Take the time I spent 5 hours pimping this for my 4 year old’s birthday:     So when Jenny laid down a challenge to create a sport themed cake for the Great Bloggers Bake Off for Team Honk, I didn’t …

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Valentine’s gifts: Heart shaped fudge slabs!

Heart shaped fudge slabs - perfect Valentine's gift (provided you can bear to part with it)!

Fudge. Fudge. Glorious Fudge. What on earth says “I love you” better than giving away your fudge?? I know I can’t part with mine, so this little batch of heart shaped fudge is staying right here. Make your own! Heart shaped fudge recipe We used a silicone bread mould, with a heart shaped insert, but you can use any cake or baking tin, with a deep heart-shaped mould set inside it. The difference is you will have one giant slab to present then chop, rather than several slices of fudge, as we did. Valentine’s gifts: Heart shaped fudge slabs!   …

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How to Use Up Leftover Egg Yolks: Chewy Lemon and White Chocolate Cookies Recipe

The perfect recipe to use up leftover egg yolks   Egg yolk recipes are thin on the ground, unless you’re keen to make a homemade custard. And let’s face it, who wants the bother of making a custard (or one step further, an ice cream recipe) when you’ve just whipped up a pavlova (likely the reason you have leftover egg yolks in the first place)? This egg yolk cookies recipe is the answer. It’s a basic method I’ve used for many years, and it’s a great way of using up leftover egg yolks when you’ve made a meringue. Really simple, …

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A bit different: inspiration for more interesting BBQ recipes

By British standards, we’ve had an amazing summer. Our BBQ has seen a lot of action, and long lazy afternoons with friends as the kids dodge water guns on the lawn have been, if I’m honest, the main delight of the summer holidays. But for the first time ever I’ve become bored by BBQ food. I soon started to tire of even the Taste The Difference burgers (you know, with the added cheese, caramelised onions, or redcurrant jelly). Nice as they are, I craved more interesting BBQ recipes. Add to this that fact that I’m trying to be a bit …

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Jamie Oliver’s Big Feastival the only family-friendly festival you need (review).

Highs for the kids at Big Feastival 2013

Call me Victor Meldrew if you will, but most of the time I enjoy staying at home. I like my own company, my family (though if you tell my sister I said that I will shoot you with my best stick), and just hanging out with my toys. Going out is – well, it’s hard work to be honest: getting dressed, putting shoes on, walking, all of those things are just an irritation, and I prefer to be getting on with life. But on Sunday I was actually keen to leave the house. I surprised everyone, including myself by looking …

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How to Make Macarons: Easy Banoffee Macarons Recipe

Decadent Banoffee Macarons recipe that's easy to make

  Great British Bake Off – the Macarons Challenge Inspired by the Great British Bake Off, my friends Jenny and Helen – pudding and cake bloggers extraordinaires – have set a challenge to bloggers who enjoy #GBBO. Each week we will commit to creating an item on the theme of that week’s Great British Bake Off. This week the theme is Trifle, and Petits Fours. So as I sit here watching the contestants mess up their Iles Flottantes, and steal each other’s custard, my caramel ganache and banoffee caramel are cooling in my kitchen, destined for these babies. Read on …

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Brioche French Toast with Blueberries and Maple Syrup – Breadmaker Recipe

How to make brioche in a breadmaker

The Great British Bake Off is  well underway and Tuesday evenings see Twitter alive with #GBBO once again. For bloggers this is all well and good, but #GBBO means something different to them this year. For awesome cake bakers Mummy Mishaps and The Crazy Kitchen have launched their own campaign to find the best baking blogger, in the Great Bloggers Bake Off. Now Mummy doesn’t bake a lot, and isn’t a huge cake fan (I know, I keep telling you, I must be adopted!), but this week’s theme was bread, and she’s pretty nifty with the yeast, albeit via the medium of …

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Roast dinner: Wot so Funee?

  Homework by the Bug, aged 5: Now, if you have your own post to link this week, grab the badge code from the sidebar, and click the link below to enter your post – I can’t wait to see what you have! It’s not obligatory, but if you include a link back here in your own post, I’ll return the favour with a tweet-out. If you’re new here you can check out the Wot So Funee? main page for more info. Powered by Linky Tools Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…

Valentines Day crafts for kids

"pink fudge hearts for Valentine's day"

Are you the parent who gets up early on the morning of Valentine’s Day to post an ‘anonymous’ card through the door addressed to your child?  It’s a harmless activity and makes them feel good about themselves. But this year the Bug and I have made our own Valentines, and so can you. From full-blown candy-crush to simple Valentine’s card, kids can make it themselves, or with minimal adult support. Obviously you can’t spoil the dream by asking them to write a card to themselves (you can’t opt out completely parents!), but you can help out if they want to …

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How to make pancakes: recipes and fillings

"savoury pancake for kids"

I am nicknamed “The Hoover” in our family, due to an innate ability (Daddy has it too) to consume favourite foods before Mummy has even made it to the table. Pancakes hardly hit the sides, as demonstrated by the rapid demolition of my  ‘Crêpe Citron Chantilly‘ in Brittany last summer. So you can imagine my enthusiasm and impatience for Pancake day to arrive. So much so that we actually did it a week early! My plan was to have pancakes for breakfast (of the griddled, blueberry and maple syrup variety), something random and forgettable for school dinner, and pancakes for tea. …

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Easy Pork Schnitzel Recipe Only 5 Weightwatchers Pro Points

"Weightwatchers easy port schnitzel recipe"

  We were recently given a new WeightWatchers recipe book titled Fresh and easy everyday. Mummy finds that the key to staying on track with her ProPoints is variety, so new recipes are always welcome. Inspired by our recent cookery class with top chef Francesco Mazzei, and by the promise of “easy” recipes, Mummy handed over this Weightwatchers book to me, and left me to get on with it. I chose this easy Pork Schnitzel recipe because I like all the ingredients, and we estimated a total cooking time of 15 minutes. Mummy cooked some tiny rosemary and garlic potatoes, …

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Warming Chickpea and Chorizo Casserole 8 ProPoints

"chickpea, chorizo and butternut squash casserole slow cooker"

When I lived in Spain as a student I was astonished at the awful food – until I moved in with some girls who had a cook. Yes, I know, students with a cook! But that’s how seriously these people take their food, and mealtimes. After their various lectures, they would all convene back at the flat at 2pm for a hearty lunch made by Loli (she also ironed and cleaned for them, for a pittance, I seem to remember). My absolute favourite creation from Loli was a chickpea and chorizo concoction; it was invariably laced with gorgeous olive oil, …

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Slow Food Fast

Italian cooking with kids

Which of these images is more appealing to you as a parent? Which would you prefer your child to eat? And which would your child choose? Yeah, us too, and though Mummy tries to make us cut out fast food, we do love the odd Happy Meal. As a family who eats out whenever we can afford it, we were shocked to discover that more than half of meals eaten out in Britain are at fast food restaurants . When we eat 0ut it is at Wagamama, where the Bug’s favourite dish is Chilli Squid, or at Sophie’s Steakhouse, where …

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