The National Fostering Agency talks about healthy and fun family recipes

During the current Foster Care Fortnight, I'm delighted to be hosting my first ever guest post from the National Fostering Agency, one of the most experienced fostering agencies in the UK.  You can read more about their work and find out if you have what it takes to be a foster carer on their website.

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!!)
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"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/NFA_fostering/

Recipes and why they are important to us

This post links up with #WASO on The Adoption Social where the theme is 'Recipes and why the are important to us'.

I love cooking.  I always have done since I was little.  Whilst friends were reading Secret Seven, I'd be poring through cookery books, making up menus for when I was older and had dinner parties.  The Readers Digest Cookery Year was my bible.  Those cookery books are part of me and I've recently found a few on ebay.  I've still got my recipe book from when I did Cookery O'level.  Reading all the old books brings back great memories.

I find cooking very relaxing, whether it's doing it or watching it. I'm in the moment, concentrating on something I love to do, I find it quite mindful.  I'd love to go on Bake Off!  Meanwhile, I reckon Daddy should apply for Masterchef.  He's great at savoury, particularly Indian or South-East Asian, whilst I major in cakes! Although, I have to say his Vanilla Baked Cheesecake is to die for.

So, it's no surprise that cooking features quite a lot in our household.  Missy loves joining in.  In fact, during introductions, when Missy spent a day at ours, we made Apple Muffins that went down a treat.  She joins in with Daddy when he's making bread or cheesecake and loves helping me to bake.  I let her do as much as she can, helping occasionally where the mixture needs a better mixing or putting things in the oven. Now her reading has improved significantly, she can start to read the recipe too. If she's in a negative mood then cooking will cheer up.  I also see cooking as a positive way to help her with her food anxiety and she now has a better sense of what is healthy and what's not so healthy.

I asked her on the way to school what are her favourite things to cook.  She said Brownies and Pizza!.  We do homemade pizzas using pitta bread for the base, a mix of tomato puree and red pesto to spread over and then a choice of chopped red onion, peppers, tomatoes, bacon, goats cheese and cheddar to sprinkle over the top.  Five or so minutes in the oven and they're ready to eat.  I introduced this activity quite early on as it's a good family activity to do together.

The Brownies are a Polly Noble recipe that are dairy free and use raw cacao powder which you can find in health food shops or buy online.  Warning, they are VERY chocolatey!

Every now and then I like to cook by myself so will make something whilst Missy is at school, although I do usually leave the decoration for when Missy comes home.  Yesterday I made Parsnip & Pumpkin Seed Cake as I had a glut of parsnips to use up.  I've used beetroot and carrots before so figured parsnips would have a similar result.  The recipe actually uses walnuts but I didn't have any so used pumpkin seeds instead and I think they make a lovely addition.  Of course, without Missy around, it means I get to indulge in licking the bowl (and I have to admit to leaving a little extra mixture in the bowl!).

Here's the recipe:-
2 eggs
2 large parsnips, peeled and grated (once grated you need to end up with about 250g of grated parsnip)
125ml vegetable oil
200g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
Zest of one unwaxed lemon
375g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt (pref sea salt)
50g pumpkin seeds
50-75ml milk (any kind, cows, rice, almond etc)

1. Preheat oven to Gas Mark 4, 180C
2. Grease and line an 8"/20cm cake tin.
3. Whisk eggs in a large bowl.
4. Add in oil, sugar, grated parsnips, vanilla extract and lemon zest and stir well together.
5. Sieve together flour, cinnamon and salt and stir into the parsnip mixture along with the pumpkin seeds.
The mixture should be a soft dropping consistency but if its too thick, add 50-75ml of milk.
6. Pour into prepared tin and cook for 60-75 minutes until well risen, golden and a knife inserted into the cake comes out clean.  Leave to cool slightly in tin before turning out onto a wire rack.

For the topping, I used 200g of mascarpone cheese mixed with a tablespoon of icing sugar but you could also use cream cheese mixed with some lemon zest, or icing sugar mixed with water or milk to a smooth consistency, or just dust it with icing sugar.  I think it might also be nice made in two sandwich tins and then sandwiched together using the mascarpone or perhaps lemon curd.

I could waffle on for ages about cooking, in fact maybe I should have written a cooking blog!

Cooking will definitely feature during the forthcoming Easter Holidays, perhaps some Easter Biscuits or a Simnel Cake.  I've also read about some local cookery classes for young children which I'm quite sure Missy would love to do.

Right, I'm off to buy the ingredients for tonight's pizzas.

Weekend Box Club

In among all the anxiety Missy is currently exhibiting (which I'll blog about separately), we had some calmer and enjoyable moments this weekend, thanks to a package we received last week.

The lovely people at Weekend Box Club sent me one of their boxes last weekend and although it was addressed to me, I let Missy open it. Her face was a picture of delight.

The Weekend Boxes contain four activities to do over the weekend, including things to bake, make, explore and something green.  Almost everything you need for the activities is included in the colourful box, save for things like, say, scissors, pen or a few of the ingredients for the cook activity (although they did include some spice mixes for our food). Each activity has its own sheet of instructions too and part of the box can be cut out to make a certificate once all the activities are completed.

As Missy loves to cook, we did this activity first for our Saturday lunchtime.  On the menu was Green Pancakes which actually were spinach fritter-type things and I have to say went down really well.

After lunch Missy made a rainbow pot with the colourful pipe cleaners included in the box and we played the suggested Pot O'Gold game with the gold treasure coins also included. There was a lovely little tale on this sheet about Leprechauns (ideal with it being St Patricks Day today) and finding them at the end of rainbows. Then Missy made a lovely bird for the Make activity which I think is really sweet.

Finally, yesterday, we did the Explore activity which was all about sound, including thinking about vibration and the sounds animals make.  I also added a game outside which was to close her eyes and hear how many different sounds she could hear.

At the end of each activity there is a sticker to be had and Missy is a sucker for a sticker.

As you'll know if you're a regular reader of my blog, Missy is big on making things and this Weekend Box was perfect for her.  It also provided an enjoyable time for us together -  next time I'll get Daddy to do some of the activities with her (though I suspect, as is the case at the moment, she'll want me to oblige).

If you'd like to try out a box for free, go to www.weekendboxclub.com and use my unique code SARAH153.  Enjoy.




Disclaimer:  I wasn't paid to write this blog although I did receive the Box for free from the lovely people at Weekend Box Club in exchange for this review.