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Mama on a Monday – baked courgette chips

I know that it feels like the day often revolves around making three balanced meals, but sometimes you just need a little snack. These courgette chips are exactly that. They are the most delicious, mid afternoon, makes a change from a yogurt or a box of raisins, snack. They are also a perfect side dish, a side to salmon burgers, or a late summer BBQ. They are really easy to make and follow the same system as the crispy avocado slices so whilst you are making one…you could make the other for a double snack whammy. All day long we have been nibbling these off the baking tray, warm out of the oven, dipped in homemade ketchup, Crazy delicious, crazy addictive.

Coating slippery vegetables in bread crumbs makes it much easier for small hands to pick them up. I also use a crinkle cutter for fruit like melon or mango to make it easier for the little one. This recipe would also work with pepper slices, marrow and green beans too. For older kids you can add grated parmesan into the breadcrumbs and for kids of any age you can add ground fresh or dried herbs or spices into the breadcrumbs to keep their tastebuds happy.

Ingredients
2 courgettes cut into batons

1 egg whisked

4 tbsp breadcrumbs

2 tbsp flour

Method
Preheat the oven to 180C

Lightly oil a baking tray or large dish

Place the egg into one bowl, the flour into a second and the breadcrumbs into a third

Dip each baton first into the flour, then the egg and finally the breadcrumbs

Place onto the baking tray, spray with a little oil and bake for 20mins or until golden brown and crispy

 

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Mama on a Monday – Breakfast cookies

I would like to impart on my daughter my love of breakfast. It is without a doubt my favorite meal of the day. I can easily go with dinner but breakfast makes me happy. It doesn’t have to be big, in fact a large well made coffee and a bowl of berries is perfection, but it does have to taste damn good. There are so many foods that just seem better at breakfast. Soft scrambled eggs, buckwheat pancakes, fruit. Not to mention porridge, bircher and smoothies. The mini one is coming round to the idea of eating in the morning but she is also busy right now, so very very busy. She has just started to stand up and is trying to stand without holding on right now. Every surface needs to be explored and every book shelf needs to be attempted. This means that breakfast for her needs to be quick and for my piece of mind it needs to be nutritionally dense. Every mouthful needs to count.

These breakfast cookies are delicious. I enjoyed one, warm out the oven, baby on one hip, coffee out of short arms reach. They are hearty and naturally sweet. They taste of cinnamon and raisins but with the earthiness of oats.

Oats are a great breakfast food, they are easy to digest but they don’t raise the blood sugar and provide slow release energy. Cinnamon is naturally sweet which means you can use less sweetener and it also has the added benefit of being a great antioxidant. It can be an allergen so make sure you test first. I made 12 cookies from this batch but you could make smaller ‘snack’ size version too.

Depending what your little one likes you could add in apricots or dried berries. If nuts are tolerated then you can substitute one cup of oats for 1 cup of ground almonds or fold in some chopped nuts. You could even add desiccated coconut or orange zest. Customize as you fancy but most of all enjoy.

Ingredients (makes 12 large cookies)
2.5 cups oats (plus 2 tbsp for rolling)

2 tbsp maple syrup/date syrup

1 large banana

1 tbsp apple puree

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tbsp olive oil

3 tbsp raisins

Method
Preheat your oven to 170C

Place the banana, olive oil, apple puree & cinnamon into your food processor and blitz till pureed

Add in the oats and raisins and blitz unit you have a thick, sticky dough

Line a baking tray with baking paper

Place 2 tbsp of oats into a shallow dish

Using your hands shape spoonfuls of the dough into balls and roll in the oats

Place onto the lined baking tray

Bake for 30 mins flipping once

Enjoy

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