Tag Archives: recipe

Fabulous five: Cooking with toddlers

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My toddler is always exploring the world and bursting with energy. From the moment he was born he has been observing me in the kitchen. From the moment he could, he has been my most eager little helper. I always indulge him and find a way for him to help me. I find it important he understands what he eats and he learns to appreciate how much work goes into making his dinner.

My toddler surprised me with his cooking. He loves to help create something, and he loves eating his creations. However grown-up I thought the recipes were, my son knows what he likes.

If you are wondering what your toddler can do in the kitchen here’s some things my toddler can do:

  • Knead, shape and roll out dough (as he has plenty of practice with play dough)
  • Cut soft food like mushrooms, cucumber, cheese with a table knife
  • Add ingredients and sprinkle seasoning
  • Pealing your boiled eggs
  • Stirring (although this does require lots of practice, my toddler toppled over the pancake batter once!)
  • Cleaning up afterwards, my toddler can really enjoy washing up, drying and placing utensils back in their right place.
  • Tasting and testing

A last and final warning for all young parents: lower your expectations. With their short attention span, toddlers help you for 5 minutes and leave a mess that might take you 10 minutes to clean up. Ironically, they will tell everyone they made this food (with no help what so ever, haha). With time, this will improve, and I promise you the pride on their faces when they get to eat their creations makes it all worth while!

These are our favorites recipes:

1. Pizza – my toddler gets to pick his own toppings. When his creation is done, he can’t wait till the pizza has finished baking. Find the recipe for pizza dough or our favorite topping.

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2. Cookies – I make the dough beforehand (without my busy toddler slowing me down). The dough rests in the fridge until my son and I have a moment to make cookies together. We still want to make funfetti cookies together some day!

3. Pancakes – my toddler loves helping me mix the batter and we break eggs together, doesn’t any toddler love breaking stuff? He is in charge of ladling the batter in the pan, I am in charge of frying and flipping the pancakes in the air. Find my pancake recipe here.

4. Sushi – making simple sushi is perfect toddler fun. My toddler eats the (healthy) ingredients before they are even made into sushi! Molding the rice and placing the ingredients in the roll is his task and mommy rolls the sushi and we eat them together.

5. Bread – my toddler loves kneading dough with me. He gets to mold his own rolls, brush them and sprinkle them with his favorite seeds. You could also let your toddler make bread sticks.

Simple Seasonal treat: green asparagus pie

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I love eating vegetables at their absolute best. Asparagus are one of the most seasonal vegetables for me. During the asparagus season I am always looking for simple dishes that do this tasty ingredient justice.

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The cheese and eggs in this recipe enhance the asparagus flavor. Serve it with a salad , a glass of white wine and you have a complete and healthy spring meal.

Feel free to use ready-made short crust pastry or quiche dough, for an even easier meal.

Because I am a busy mom, I like making pies ahead. That way, I can play with my toddler when I get home from a busy day while the pie warms in the oven. To warm up your pie place it in a preheated oven of 160 degrees C for twenty minutes.

Aspergetaart

Asparagus pie

This recipe is for a 25 cm quiche mold.

  • Short crust pastry:
    • 100 g flower
    • 60 g butter
    • 1 tsp salt
    • 50 ml water
  • 150 gr green asparagus
  • Filling:
    • 3 free range eggs
    • 75 ml cream
  • 1 cup of grated strong cheese like old Gouda or Parmigiana
  • Pepper and ground nutmeg to taste
  1. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees C.
  2. Make your short crust pastry:
    1. Rub the butter into the salt and flower until the texture resembles bread crumbs.
    2. Combine the crumbles into a dough by stirring the water in gradually. Combine the dough, don’t knead it. If you fuss around less with your dough, your dough will be more crumbly. For an even more crumbly result, wrap your dough in cling film and let it rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.
  3. Make your pie base:
    1. Roll out your pastry to a 5 mm thickness.
    2. Line the a greased quiche mold with your delicious pastry.
    3. Line your mold with some baking parchment and fill your pie with dried beans or actual baking beans.
    4. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.
  4. While your base is in the oven, prepare your asparagus:
    1. Remove the hard section of each asparagus. This is usually about 2 cm, depending on how fresh your asparagus is.
    2. Place your asparagus in a pan of cold water. Bring the water to the boil.
    3. When the water boils, immediately take your pan of the heat and cool your asparagus in cold water.
    4. Let your asparagus dry.
  5. Prepare your filling by mixing the cream and eggs.
  6. Take your base out of the oven and let it cool for 10 minutes. (Leave your oven on!)
  7. Build your pie:
    1. Cover the base of your pie with cheese.
    2. Pour in half your filling.
    3. Sprinkle with pepper and nutmeg.
    4. Arrange your asparagus. You might need to trim your asparagus a bit for this step. Try to make one nice even and neat layer of asparagus.
    5. Add the rest of the filling.
    6. Sprinkle over the remaining cheese.
  8. Bake your pie in the oven for 20 minutes at 200 degrees C.

Enjoy!

Asparagus pie