Things I Didn't Know About Fruit and Vegetables

Last weeks Ben and Holly Little Explorers theme was all about fruit and vegetables and I have to say I was rather surprised at some of the facts.

Did you know there are over 1000 types of apples? There was me just picking between red or green apples.

Apparenty lemons contain more sugar than strawberries. So tell me why do they taste so sour?

Eating a lot of onions can make you sleepy. Perhaps this is what I need to be eating in the evening to help me get to sleep.

Growing Your Own Vegetables

My second guest post of the week comes from the lovely Jo over at My Monkeys Don't Sit Still. She is sharing with us just how she is getting her children more enthusiastic about eating those vegetables….

Do you have kiddies that are reluctant vegetable eaters? I know I have! One way we have found that helps them to try veg is to get them involved in growing your own. The first time we did this, we grew carrots and it worked a treat getting the eldest involved with sowing the carrot seeds and watching them grow. He helped thin them out and then pulled the carrots from the soil when they were ready and loved trying his own produce.

11/05 Getting prepared to plant the seeds

Turkey Stir Fry Recipe

Now I'm back into the swing of cooking again, I am also trying to stick to healthier foods to eat too. The trouble comes in convincing my daughter's that we don't need to have chips with every meal!!

This week I opted to make a turkey stir fry, quick and easy to do and includes lots of fresh vegetables as well. The recipe below serves 6 people.

Ingredients 

* 3 x Carrots
* 1 x Large Red Onion
* 1 x Pepper
* 1/3 Red Cabbage
* 1/2 Tin of Sweetcorn
* Packet of Mange Tout
* 500g Diced Turkey

Leftover Christmas Dinner Soup

I'm sure I'm not alone in buying and cooking way too much food for Christmas dinner. As yummy as it all is, there is just no way I could possibly eat it all, classic case of eyes bigger than belly. So what to do with all of the leftover food? Seems too much of a waste just to throw it all away!!! Last year I made a scrummy turkey curry, this year I've decided to get out my trusty slow cooker and make a festive Christmas dinner soup.

Ingredients

* Turkey legs
* Any left over vegetables
* Large onion sliced
* 1 litre chicken stock
* 2 tbsp Tomato puree
* 6 Rashers of bacon

Preparations

* Grill the bacon and cut into small pieces.

* Place all the ingredients into the slow cooker, making sure to stir and mix all the ingredients and cook on low for 8 hours.

* About an hour from the end of cooking, pick out the turkey legs, take the meat off the bone and place back in the soup, you could always use the bone to make some turkey stock.

* Just before serving add in a tbsp or so of cornflour to thicken, of course you don't have to do this, we just prefer a thicker soup.

Of course it wouldn't be festive enough if I didn't serve it up in a Christmas bowl!!!

What do you do with all the leftover food from Christmas??

xxxx

Brussels Sprouts Love Them or Hate Them?

Whilst wandering around the supermarket trying to decide what vegetables to put with our roast dinner last weekend, I spotted brussels sprouts. Now this vegetable is a bit like marmite, you either love it or you hate it, there doesn't seem to be an inbetween. These are my favourite vegetable!! Daddy Hazelden however, is not their number one fan but I dislike having to cook lots of different veggies.

A couple of years ago my mum and I came across a lovely recipe from Jamie Oliver that made brussels sprouts that little bit more appealing, he called them brussels with hustle. Even Daddy Hazelden will tell you that these are delicious. To make it my own, I added a bit of onion to it.

Ingredients

Brussels Sprouts

Streaky Bacon

1/2 an Onion

Sage of Rosemary

Worcester Sauce

Butter for cooking

Olive oil

Cooking

* Chop the brussels up finely

* Put olive oil and a knob of butter into a pan and heat

* Place in the bacon, onion and herbs and fry for a few minutes

* Add the brussels and a splash of water, put the lid on and fry for a further 4 minutes

* Then add another knob of butter and worcester sauce (as much as you like) mix and serve

You can make as much or as little as you like depending on how many brussels and rashers of bacon you use. You can even save some and reheat it the next day, even better flavour!!

xxxx

Ella's Kitchen "Big Meals" Review

I am a mum who tries to cook things from scratch majority of the time, I think food tastes better when freshly made. However there are times when I am busy and  I need something quick and easy to make.

I was very kindly asked by Ella's Kitchen to review their new Big Meals range. This range is 100% organic and is suitable for little ones from the age of 12 months onwards, so who better to test this range than little Layla.

There are 6 dishes to choose from : chicken curry, pork stew, chicken paella, beef stew, veggie moussaka and bolognese bake.

Each meal contains at least 5 different fruits and vegetables which means they are jam packed with lots of vitamins making them nice and healthy. We were sent the Pork Stew and the Bolognese Bake to try.

Each meal comes in a 200g pot, it is a great size as it is small enough to fit in a changing bag if you need to feed your little one when out and about. 

I was impressed that each pot only takes 50 seconds to heat up in the microwave and it comes out at an almost ideal temperature to eat straight away,  this is great as normally ready meals come out of the microwave burning hot and you have to wait around for what seems like hours until the food finally cools down.

You can see from the picture above that there are lots of chunky pieces of vegetables, beans etc, it looks like a good hearty meal and it means that there are lots of different textures for little ones to discover.

Layla is little miss independent these days and spent most of the time trying to feed herself which resulted in a fair bit of mess but she really enjoyed the food, infact she loved it that much she was trying to feed herself with two spoons lol.

I admit to trying it myself and I was surprised at just how lovely it tasted. A lot of baby food that I have tried in the past has been very bland, there was never any real flavour to it. These Big Meals are scrummy, plenty of different flavours to be tasted, just like it had been cooked at home, even my 5 year old had a mouthful and she would have quite happily eaten all of Layla's dinner!!

Costing £2.19 per meal, I think this is fairly reasonable in comparison to other children's ready meals. The fact that they use simple ingredients with absolutely nothing added, I wouldn't hesistate in recommending these to other parents.

xxxx

Disclaimer : These meals were sent to me free of charge for reviewing purposes however all thoughts and opinions are my own.