fun with food

Reasons Why Eating Vegetables Is Important For Children

 in cooking with children / fun with food / parenting  tagged parenting by

We all know how important it is to eat fibre-rich foods. These are responsible for good digestion, the feeling of fullness, and higher energy levels. Fruits and vegetables are packed with fibres. But not only fibres could be found in fruit and veggies. There are also antioxidants, water, and carbs that contribute to the higher energy level and the overall well-being. Hence, this makes fruit and veggies the most important foods for your children. In the following text, we will focus on the reasons why vegetables are so important for children and their proper development. 

Weetabuddies – it is OK to play with your food! 21

 in fun with food  tagged breakfast / eating / food / fun by

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, yet one in six kids in the UK do not eat breakfast.  I have two very different kids in this house, Maxi will not leave the house without breakfast and Mini would skip it given the chance.  So we jumped at the chance to become representatives for Weetabix and help promote their Weetabuddies campaign and have a go at creating our own Weetabuddy. Weetabix have created the ‘Weetabuddies’ to encourage families to get creative at breakfast whilst having a healthy start to the day. So what is a Weetabuddy?  They are a range of characters to make breakfast a little more fun! You can meet all […]

Feeding a family of four on £50

 in cookies / frugal / fun with food / meals / menu planning by

Zooarchaeologist (being a mummy) did a great post recently about shaving £200 off her monthly budget and I commented that I had got our weekly food shopping bill down to £50 for the four of us and she asked to see our Menu Plan, so I thought I would post one for you all to see, with prices too.  I do a weekly shop at Aldi and if anything else is needed it tends to be the co-op in the village. Now I do have a good store cupboard and freezer with staples like gravy, frozen stock), herbs, spices, flour etc in. Sunday Lunch – mince (£1.99) and onions with veg from […]

Menu Plan Monday and shortbread recipe

 in baking / cooking / frugal / fun with food / menu planning / recipes by

It is half term for me and the minimads this week, so I have lunches to make for all and then MadDad will be on on Friday, so we are going for a day out Monday Lunch – Sandwiches Dinner – Curry and rice Tuesday Lunch – Pancakes Dinner -Spag bol Wednesday Lunch – leftovers Thursday – Jambalaya Friday Picnic and pot luck Saturday Home made chicken burgers and wedges Home made pizza Sunday – I am not sure what meat we will be going with this week, I will see what is on offer at the butchers I also wanted to give you the recipe for the almond shortbread biscuits, […]

The Best Carrot Cake in the Whole Wide World 2

 in baking / cooking / frugal / fun with food / Recipes by

  Receipe 140ml vegetable oil, plus extra for greasing 2 Eggs 200g light brown sugar 300g grated Carrots, (grated weight) 100g raisins 75g pecans or Walnuts, chopped (optional) 180g self-raising flour 1 pinch Salt 1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of soda 1 tsp ground Cinnamon 1/2 tsp freshly grated Nutmeg 1/2 tsp Mixed spice Orange cream cheese icing – this rarely gets put on in this house, as everyone eats the cake before I get chance!! 50g cream cheese, chilled 50g Butter, at room temperature 1 tsp vanilla extract 275g icing sugar, sifted 1 Orange, zest only Method 1. Preheat the oven to 150C/gas 2. Oil and line a loaf tin with greaseproof […]

Meal Plan Monday and More Frugal Food

 in cooking / frugal / fun with food / menu planning / Recipes by

Sunday Dinner was Mince, onions, dumplings and lots and lots of vegetables, one of my big tips for being frugal and following your meal plans is to make it as easy as possible, so today food will follow on and utilise yesterdays leftovers and additional amount that we cooked. Monday Lunch – Leftovers Dinner – Spaghetti Bolognese, utilising mince, onions and any left over veg with the tomato sauce we made over the summer Tuesday Lunch – Spaghetti on toast Dinner – Lasagna, bulked out with cottage cheese and vegetables Wednesday Lunch – Leftovers Dinner – Dahl and Naan Breads Thursday Lunch – Sandwiches and soup Dinner – Sausage casserole and […]

Menu Planning and Frugal Food Part Two

 in baking / cooking / frugal / fun with food / menu planning by

The Basics and MummyMads Rules I have a few golden rules that I always abide by and also make sure I have a larder with basic ingredients in. I don’t scrimp on chicken I always buy a good one or a happy one as I call them (free range), as they make better stock and just taste nicer with more meat in my humble opinion.  The same with eggs (our butcher sell local free range ones cheaper than the supermarkets).  I pop in to the local butchers and see what is on offer meat wise too. In the store cupboard and fridge I always have flour, eggs, caster sugar, lentils, beans, […]

Menu Planning and Frugal Food Part One

 in baking / frugal / fun with food / menu planning by

One thing that has come out of our lack of cash is my ability to feed us all well on less and less cash.  The two things that has enabled this to happen has been our menu planning and our garden. I thought I would give you an example of a weeks menu plan and how I feed us all. I do a main shop on a Thursday and base my weeks menu plan round our Sunday Dinner (chicken, Mince, Beef, or Ham).  This week it will be chicken. Friday Fish, oven chips and mussy peas.  I make sure I buy frozen cod or haddock fillets when they are on offer, […]

Home Made Pasta Sauce 3

 in fun with food / garden / homemade; crafts / tomatoes by

Cooking, baking, making, gardening, cleaning, well everything in TheMadHouse is a real family affair.  We tend to really enjoy doing things together.  Some may find that strange, but I love spending time with all the men in my life, including that very strange cat too.  Anyway I digress.  Remember all those green tomatoes from the garden, well some had ripened and we decided to make a sauce for pasta. So we set too, kind of in a production line way.  MadDad and I deskinned and deseed the tomatoes.  Maxi and MiniMad strained the seeds and juice. DadDad prepared the peppers and onions and MaxiMad chopped them.  I then cooked all the ingredients […]

Hairy Hotdogs 13

 in fun with food / halloween by

I am not sure where I saw this idea, but it is on loads of blogs and thought we would give it a try. Basically you get a jar of hotdogs or bratwurst and cut into chunks and skewer them with spaghetti. MaxiMad took great care at this and loved doing it, while MiniMad, just shoved them in and started to eat the bratwurst before I had even cooked them. I then cooked them until the spaghetti was soft and warmed up some premade pasta sauce and grated cheese. Et Voila – hairy hotdogs, scary sausages or what ever you want to call them. The boys polished them off, this would […]

Encouraging Drinking

 in drinks / fun with food by

If your children are anything like the minimads then getting them to drink enough can sometimes be a chore, so I froze some Jelly snakes in to some ice cubes and popped them in their drinks. It was a great success and they drank up all their water and juice to get to the treats.