Pumpkin tagine with date couscous

With so many pumpkins going around, (we have 5 in the house at the moment!) I couldn't resist a pumpkin recipe and this one is lovely and sweet so very child friendly.

2 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, thickly sliced
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 tsp ground chilli (optional)
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
750ml veg stock
800g coarsely chopped pumpkin
150g frozen broad beans, thawed, shelled
1 tbsp brown sugar
120g chopped seeded dates
2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander

couscous
50g butter
250g couscous
500ml boiling water
80g chopped dates

1. Heat oil in medium saucepan, add the onion, garlic, spices and cook stirring for about 3 mins.
2. Add the stock and pumpkin, bring to the boil then reduce and simmer covered for about 10mins or until pumpkin is almost tender.
3. Remove lid and simmer uncovered for 5 mins or until the pumpkin mixture thickens slightly.
4. Add remaining ingredients, cook stirring until heated through.
5. Combine butter, couscous and the water in a large heatproof bowl, cover and stand for 5 mins or until all teh water is absorbed, fluff with a for and stir in the dates. Serve with the pumpkin tagine.

Chinese chicken fried rice

This is a very easy dish to make, using slightly different spices. Your kids may pull faces at first put don't make them give up as its really tasty and a great one for all the family to eat.

2 tbsp groundnut oil
1 tbsp freshly grated ginger
3 shallots, finely chopped
3 dried chinese mushrooms, pre-soaked in hot water for 20 mins, drained & finely chopped.
225g chicken fillets, diced
1 tbsp shaohsing rice wine or dry sherry
1 tsp five-spice powder
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
50g dry roasted peanuts
300g cooked jasmine rice
3-4 tbsp light soy sauce
1-2 tbsp toasted sesame oil
ground white pepper
1 spring onion, finely chopped

1. Heat a wok or pan over a hight heat and add the groundnut oil. Add the ginger, shallot and chineses mushrooms and cook for a few seconds.
2. Add the chicken and cook for a few more minutes, then add the rice wine or sherry followed by the five spice powder. As the chicken starts to turn white add the dark soy sauce.
3. Add the peanuts and then the rice, stir-fry for 1 minute.
4. Season with the light soy sauce, sesame oil and pepper to taste and stir to mix. Finally, stir in the spring onion, transfer to a serving dish and serve immediately. Serve with steamed green veg.

Friday Lunch Box

So sorry this is late, mixture of visitors and sick kids! But better late than never I guess....
I'm taking my inspiration for this box from a fantastic book that Kazumi (Taiga's mum) gave to me, on Bento boxes, looks fantastic with lots of pictures on how to make the items but unfortunately for me all in Japanese - therefore I just used my imagination and fortunately the lunch box came back empty and i got a big thumbs up.

Snack - humous dip with carrot, cucumber and apple sticks
Lunch - Japanese rice (or any other rice of your choice) cooked and cooled it the fridge, mix with nori and these fantastic little sachets of dried vegetables and herbs that you can buy in the Japanese store. Serve a normal size portion and put in the lunch box with a salad (see below) and simple egg omelet (see below).

Salad
Half a peeled carrot, quarter of a cucumber, handfull of sweetcorn and cooked mange tout - use a potato peeler make slices of the carrot and cucumber, then put in a bowl with the sweetcorn and cooked mange tout, mix together and dress with olive oil, raspberry vinegar, salt and pepper.

Omelet
1 egg, tiny splash of water, salt and pepper, olive oil for frying - in a cup whisk the egg up with a fork, add the seasoning (you could also add herbs here) and water, heat the oil in a small frying pan and cook the egg. Cool then cut into strips.

Lunch box for Thursday

In my research into lunchboxes I found 2 government/food agency guidelines on how to put together a healthy lunchbox. The first is from the UK the second which I got from a friend is from Japan. Today I will do an example of a UK one and tomorrow I will do a Japanese one.

So in the UK it is recommended to put the following into a lunchbox:

• 1 portion starchy food – bread, pasta, rice
• 1 portion milk or dairy food
• 1 portion fruit
• 1 portion vegetables
• 1 portion protein such as meat or fish

Snack - small pot of yoghurt with granola (recipe to follow), pot of fresh fruit
Lunch - brown rice salad with tuna, cucumber, red and yellow pepper, carrot, boiled egg, olive oil, lemon juice with salt and pepper. Chop all the vegetables quite small and the same size as with the egg. You could also add cubes of cheese or put them in a separate pot to add more bits, kids like opening different pots. Banana in a banana box.
Granola
350g porridge oats
50g wheatgerm
50g unsweetend shredded coconut
50g sesame seeds
75g sunflower seeds
75g hazelnuts, finely chopped
125ml sunflower oil
75ml runny honey
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
175g dried fruit, chopped into small pieces

1. Preheat oven to 150 degrees. Grease a large baking tin.
2. In a large bowl, mix the oats, wheatgerm, coconut, seeds and nuts.
3. In a large saucepan, combine oil, honey and vanilla. Heat gently until the honey has melted. Pour the honey mixture into the bowl with the dry ingredients and mix well. Spread the mixture out in the tin. Bake in the oven for 35-45 mins, stirring every 10 mins.
4. Cool then add the dried fruit.

Lunch box for Wednesday

So far so good, I haven't had any food rejected, fingers crossed for Wednesday, fish pate may be going too far!

Snack - Blueberry Muffin (recipe to follow) and yoghurt pot - most kids yoghurts are laden with sugar or worse sweetners more so than standard fruit yoghurts, it will save you money and be better for your kids to find a plain or fruit yoghurt in a larger tub and put some into a small tub with a lid for school.

Lunch - Smoked Mackerel Pate (recipe to follow) with Oatcakes, cubes of cheese and pot of fruit.

Blueberry Muffin
You can make these with any soft fruits, banana, strawberry, raspberry etc. They are also super easy to make so another good one to make with kids.

90g plain flour
90g wholemeal flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
80g caster sugar or (40g and 40g equivalent of Agave syrup or go the whole hog and use only Agave, you will be surprised how sweet and appealing Agave is)
1 medium egg
125ml full fat milk
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
45g unsalted butter melted
150g blueberries, fresh or frozen

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Butter a muffin tray or line with paper cases. Makes 12
2. Sift the flour into a bowl with the baking powder. Stir in the sugar.
3.Whisk the egg, milk, vanilla and melted butter in a separate bowl.
4. Add the milk mixture to the dry ingredients and mix until you have a wet lumpy batter. Add the fruit.
5.Spoon the mixture into the muffin cases and bake in the oven for 10-12 mins , until risen and golden.


Mackerel Pate
2 garlic cloves, crushed
400g/3 mackerel fillets flaked (ideally un-smoked, if you can't find this you could replace with tinned fish)
4 tbsp full fat natural yoghurt
juice of 1 lemon

1. Put all the ingredients into a bowl and puree with a hand blender, or process in a food processor until smooth.
2. Put in small tubs for taking to school. I will post a recipe for making your own oatcakes as its super easy and you can make it in your own shapes which adds to the fun. However the British Stores in Amsterdam stock good oatcakes, the best ones are Nairn's or Patterson's. This is also nice served with carrot, cucumber, celery and cauliflower sticks.

Lunch box for Tuesday

I'm Using a recipe posted earlier on here for the lunch, so a shorter post today - however I'm also posting the recipe for Scotch Broth for our friend Greg who is a big fan!

Snack - Banana (in a banana box, nothing worse than squidgy banana, although this may be a personal thing) plus brown rice cakes or mixed grain cakes with nut butter - try almond, cashew or pecan for a change from peanut (available at all the naturwinkels here in the dam). White rice cakes have a medium/high GI causing peaks and troughs in blood glucose levels - not nice whilst at school.

Lunch - Mini Quiches with cherry tomatoes and sticks of red and yellow pepper, small pot of broken down sushi nori (the japanese store in the gelderlanplein store small snack packs of Korean Nori which my kids love and is really tasty) pot of chopped apple/pear.

Lunch box for Monday

So here we go with the first lunch box idea of the week. I apologise in advance for the time consuming nature of some of the ideas but in reality it is perhaps nice to make these every now and again and perhaps store or freeze some of the items so you can pull them out as and when.

Snack - Apricot and Sultana Flapjacks (recipe to follow) and fresh fruit pot - mixture of seasonal fruits (mandarines, apples, pears, bananas, kiwis)

Lunch - Onigiri, Sushi rice balls (recipe to follow), carrot and cucumber sticks, edamame beans still in their pods and a pot of red grapes.

Apricot and Sultana Flapjacks
75g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing
75g golden sugar (or replace with Agave syrup, I will talk about this stuff in a later post)
2tbsp honey
6 apricots chopped and a small handful of sultanas
175g rolled oats (normal porridge oats)

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees, butter a 20cm tin.
2. Melt the butter, sugar and honey in a large pan over a gentle heat. Stir well and then mix in the oats along with the apricots and sultanas.
3. Tip into the tin and level off. Bake for 15mins, until pale golden.
4. Cool slightly in the tin and mark into fingers or squares. Cool completely and remove from the tin.

Sushi Rice Balls
This is the link to the recipe I used to cook my sushi rice correctly. I did this today and although time consuming it worked a treat. The quantities made enough rice to make sushi for our dinner (3 adults, 2 kids) and enough rice balls for Sonny and Mia for lunch tomorrow.

http://japanesefood.about.com/od/sushiforbeginner/r/sushirice.htm

Once you have cooked the rice, crush up some sushi nori into small pieces and mix this into the rice along with black and white sesame seeds. Wet your hands and roll the rice into balls.