Missy loves cooking and has some lovely photos of her baking with one of her previous carers and so this guest post is all about cooking (the last recipe is awesome and very moorish!!)
.
"Why healthy and fun family recipes are great for
kids in more ways than one"
The health of our country is coming under
intense scrutiny right now, with particular emphasis on the health of our
younger generations. The proliferation of junk food, processed meals, and
sugary sweets and drinks is causing grave health concerns for many children.
Being overweight at any time in life is never
ideal or recommended but it has particularly serious long-term consequences for
young people. Which is why it is so important to get kids into good habits
early on life. And what better way to do this than by making cooking and
learning about food in a family atmosphere really fun.
If you can really engage with the kids and spark
their imaginations by teaching them to cook early then you can help them to
develop a really healthy and life-long relationships with food. This will
ensure that they understand the importance and benefits of nutrition, eating
sufficiently without over-doing it, as well as learning valuable life skills in
the kitchen.
For foster parents especially, cooking is a
great activity for bonding and opening up lines of communication with foster
kids. There aren’t too many activities that grown-ups and kids can all enjoy
together but cooking and eating is definitely one of them. By engaging with the
kids in your care, finding out what food they like, encouraging their creative
side and giving them responsibility for preparing meals, cooking together is a
very valuable experience.
With that in mind, we’ve come up with some great
family recipes that are really fun to make and that will also help to teach
kids that healthy food can be just as exciting and alluring as all those
naughty sweets.
Spaghetti with meatballs (and hidden veg sauce)
Pasta is full of energy and relatively low in
fat, making it great for kids. And who doesn’t love meatballs? Besides, making
them out of sausage meat is a really fun way of doing it.
For
the meatballs: 300g
good quality pork sausages, 500g lean beef mince, 1 small onion - coarsely
grated, 1 carrot - finely grated, 1 tbsp dried oregano, 50g parmesan, finely
grated, plus extra to serve, 1 medium egg, 1 tbsp olive oil.
Squeeze the sausage meat into
a bowl and add the mince, add all the other ingredients and squish up nicely. Then
roll into balls and place in a tray ready to cook. This is great for the kids
to do themselves.
For
the tomato sauce: 1
tbsp olive oil, 1 courgette - coarsely grated, 3 garlic cloves, finely grated,
1 tbsp tomato purée, pinch caster sugar, splash red wine vinegar, 2x 400g tins
chopped tomatoes.
Adults can make the sauce by
adding the ingredients one at a time, and blending the larger veg, if that’s an
issue for the kids.
Brown off the meatballs and
add to the sauce. Cook through until done then add to pasta.
Chinese
chicken salad
With only four main
ingredients and taking only a few minutes this couldn’t be easier. And any kind
of salad is great to get the kids to eat.
For
the salad: 2 16 oz. bags
romaine lettuce, 3 cups shredded rotisserie chicken, 2 11 oz cans mandarin
oranges, completely drained, 2 cups Asian wonton strips or chow mein noodle
For the dressing: 1/4 cup peanut
butter, 1/4 cup hoisin sauce. 3 Tbsp. canola oil, 3 Tbsp. rice wine vinegar, 1
Tbsp. chili garlic sauce, 1 tsp. garlic powder, 1 tsp. honey, salt and
freshly-ground black pepper to taste.
Simply mix all the salad
ingredients together in a bowl, then do the same with the dressing ingredients
and pour over the top.
And how about something for
pudding?
Fruit salad
Fruit salad is easy, flexible
and delicious. Get the kids to pick their five favourite fruits (a clever way
of getting them to eat some of their five a day). Then set up a small
production line of chopping and peeling, even making some fun shapes if you
want. Then mix all together. And if they have extra fruit you might even let
them have a little bit of cream or ice cream with it too.
Easy bake cookies
Again, it shouldn’t be too
hard to get the kids to eat biscuits but teaching them how to make cookies
gives them a better idea of what is in them, plus you can control the amounts
of sugar and butter. Getting kids interested in baking so early is much better
than just buying packets from the shop. Plus, the homemade ones always taste
better.
Ingredients: 180g
softened butter, 1/3 cup (75g) caster sugar, 395 g sweetened condensed milk, 1
1/2 cups (225g) self raising flour, 250g chocolate bits.
Preheat
the oven to 180˚C and grease two baking trays. Using an electric mixer beat the
sugar and butter until creamy. Add the condensed milk, stir in some flour and
then the chocolate bits. Make some heaped tablespoons into balls and place on
the tray, pressing gently with a fork. Then bake for 15 minutes or until ready
in your oven. Leave to cool before eating.
Here are the details for the NFA:
Website: http://www.nfa.co.uk/
Phone:0845 200 4040
Email: info@nfa.co.uk
Twitter: https://twitter.com/
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