Kids Cooking Thursday: Strawberry Coconut Cake

Just a little something we whipped up for afternoon tea. I saw this recipe in 4 Ingredients 2, which I had borrowed from the library, and couldn't resist giving it a try.

Strawberry Coconut Cake (adapted from the 1,1,1,1 cake in 4 Ingredients 2)
1 cup coconut
1 cup milk
1 cup sugar
1 cup SR flour
a few drops each strawberry essence and pink food dye

Place all ingredients into a large bowl and mix well. Sneak a handful of batter while Mum is distracted with the camera.

Insist on adding strawberry essence and pink food dye because everything is better pink, and with strawberries. Mix through.

Pour into a paper lined loaf tin and bake at 180°C for 40 mins. Allow to cool slightly in the pan, then slice and serve warm spread with butter.

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Sexy Carbonara

This would have to be the easiest sauce I have ever made for pasta. Ever. And it was so good I almost ate the lot straight from the pan with a wooden spoon. I seriously did contemplate giving the kids jarred sauce, but then I thought of what I put into the sauce, and decided to share after all.

Yes, it's one of those sorts of recipes, something you'd expect to see on P-Dub's site, not mine. But it's super easy to whip up, done in the time it takes the pasta to boil, and everyone needs at least one awesome "I don't care about the calories this is damn good" recipe in their repertoire!

Sexy Carbonara Sauce
175g short cut rindless bacon, chopped finely
4 heaped teaspoons of minced garlic
200ml cream
50g butter
sprinkle of smoked paprika (optional)

Fry the bacon and garlic gently, over medium heat. When the garlic is starting to brown, add the cream. Reduce for however long it takes to get your pasta cooked, and add the butter in an attempt to thicken the sauce slightly. Fail in that regard, but taste sauce, and completely stop caring. Season to taste, with S&P and a generous sprinkle of smoked paprika, then toss your drained pasta straight into the frying pan. Mix it all around, then serve, if you are feeling indulgent, with shaved parmesan, or just a grind of fresh black pepper.

Picture Recipe: Nachos

Another recipe by pictures, to make a simple tasty dinner. Not great fare for regular eating, but it made a nice treat for the school holidays.

Spread out a packet of corn chips onto a tray lined with baking paper.

Top with a little cheese and bacon pieces,

some roasted red pepper strips,

salsa,

sour cream,

and a bucketload more cheese.

Cook at 180°C until golden and bubbly.

Fruity Overnight Pancakes

Based on this recipe from Cookography, I made these pancake for breakfast to celebrate DP being home after a week in WA for work. His flight came in at ten to eleven pm Friday night, but by the time he drove home from the airport everyone was in bed asleep. I had these planned out so that even though the next morning was going to be a rush, with the last swimming lesson of term to get to, we could still have something special for breakfast.

Fruity Overnight Pancakes
2 1/4 cups wholemeal plain flour
3 Tbsp sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp speculaas kruiden (or ground cinnamon)
1 tsp dried yeast
1 tsp orange essence
1 1/2 cups warm milk
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 egg
3 Strawberry & Mango Fruit Infusion 'tea' bags
1 cup sultanas
boiling water to cover - about 2 cups?

The Night Before
Pour the boiling water into a small bowl, with the tea bags. Jiggle the tea bags to loosen the tea and start the steeping process. Pour the sultanas into the bowl carefully (don't splash yourself with boiling water!), using them to keep the tea bags under the water level. I actually did this on Thursday night, and took the tea bags out when I made my pancake batter on Friday. I put the sultanas and the tea in a covered Tupperware dish in the fridge to wait for Saturday morning. Leave overnight. In the morning, remove the tea bags, and drain off the tea - you can drink it if you like. Add the sultanas to the pancake batter and very, very gently stir through, being careful not to knock the air out of the batter.

For the pancakes:Place all the dry ingredients into the bowl and stir together. Add the wet ingredients and stir until well blended.

Store covered overnight in the fridge.

Spray a frying pan with cooking spray, and heat over medium high heat. Pour about 1/4 cup of batter into the frying pan for each pancake.

Brown on both sides and serve hot with syrup, or strawberry ice cream (if you are the sort of house that allows ice cream for breakfast!)

Spinach and Ricotta Lasagna

Time for another Cooks Clubs Challenge from the Taste.com.au forums!

Spinach and Ricotta Lasagna
Serves 4 – 6
Dried instant lasagna sheets or fresh ones
500g tub ricotta or cottage cheese
Bag of fresh spinach or box of frozen spinach
3 -4 spring onions
2 - 4 cloves garlic – according to taste
Nutmeg
Ground black pepper
1 Egg (optional but tends to keep its form better, hence easier to serve)
2 tbsp grated parmesan
Tomato pasta sauce – homemade or jar
Shredded cheese – cheddar, tasty or mozzarella or a combination

In a food processor, combine the spinach, (prepared as per pack if not fresh) roughly chopped spring onions and garlic, process until combined, add the ricotta or cottage cheese, egg, parmesan and a generous grind of nutmeg, a good grind of black pepper and process until combined.
Smear a layer of tomato pasta sauce on the bottom of a suitably sized baking dish. Cover with a layer of pasta. Then layer the cheese/spinach mixture alternately with pasta. Cheese layers should be approx ½ inch deep each.
Top with a layer of pasta then pour over the remaining tomato sauce.
Sprinkle with grated cheese
Bake at 180c for approx 40 minutes.

Fresh from the oven

My "proper" sized dish is in the freezer full of mac n cheese, so I had to be crafty with alfoil and a roasting tray. It still was a little too big though, so I only had enough tomato sauce for the half layer under the first layer of pasta, and one full layer in the middle. So there was no tomato sauce over the top, just a generous layer of grated tasty and mozzarella cheeses.

Check my funky loaf pan 'divider'!

It didn't suffer from that lack, although me forgetting to buy parmesan, and just skipping that DID make a difference - our spinach mixture was a little bland, but the Parmesan would have prevented that. We did use the egg, and it kept it's form wonderfully. All three kidlets wolfed this down, and I quite liked it too. If DP likes it, we have a make again dinner to add to the list. This was so easy and quick to make!

Agnolotti & Broccoli Bake

DP wasn't impressed with this, because he is not a fan of store bought filled pasta. He doesn't mind filled pasta, as long as I were to make it myself.

Yeah, I laughed too.

This is yet another way of making my favourite Creamy Lemon Chicken Pasta. Note, there is no actual chicken in this. In fact, there was no meat at all, so vegetarian friendly!

Agnolotti & Broccoli Bake
1 jar Chicken Tonight Creamy Lemon Chicken sauce
630g pk Fresh Agnolotti with Ricotta, Spinach and Cracked Pepper
1 head broccoli, cut into florets
2 cups frozen corn kernels
1/3 cup crumbled feta
1 1/2 cups grated mozzarella (or to taste)

Preheat oven to 180°C.
Cook the pasta as directed on the packet, throwing in the broccoli for the last 3 of the 5 minutes cooking time. Drain pasta, and place into a large casserole dish. Add the corn, feta and sauce, and mix thoroughly. Top generously with mozzarella, and bake until golden brown.

Fresh from the oven

Super Simple Chocolate Mousse

I know I made chocolate mousse only recently but this was such an easy recipe, and it was for the Cooks Club Challenge on the Taste.Com.Au forums.

Super Simple Chocolate Mousse
Serves 4-6
60gm Milk chocolate
2 eggs, separated
2T caster sugar
Grated milk chocolate, to serve

Break chocolate into small pieces, place in a bowl over a saucepan of boiling water to melt. Remove from heat when melted.
Whisk the whites until stiff peaks form. Add the caster sugar and blend well.
Lightly beat the yolks into the melted chocolate.
Add the egg whites to the chocolate mixture and fold in gently, mixing well.
Pour into serving glasses/mugs and chill in refrigerator for a couple of hours before serving.
Grate some milk chocolate over top before serving.

I made a half batch, using Toblerone chocolate. It took a long time to set, and was a bit runny, probably because of the lower quantity of chocolate in 30g of Toblerone. But it was super delicious regardless. I ended up putting it in the freezer to try and firm it up a little, but forgot about it overnight. It made a lovely choc-honey ice cream that wasn't too hard to eat straight from the freezer, and I'll be using this recipe again to make ice cream!

Kids Cooking Thursday: In-the-house Muffins

Something really easy and simple today for a change. This was from a recipe called 'Bells of St Clements Muffins' because the lime was supposed to be lemon. But I have limes in the house, and not lemons, and I had everything else in the house, so I wasn't going out to buy a lemon. Besides, I like limes, and the green is so cheery. With the low amount of sugar in these, I feel they are healthy enough to send to school with Master 5, whose school has a very strict healthy lunchbox policy. (Mind you there is plenty of rubbish on sale at the canteen! Chicken nuggets and biscuits and icy poles etc!)

In-the-house Citrus Muffins
2 cups SR flour
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 oranges
2 limes
1/3 cup oil
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 180°C. Place muffin paper cases into muffin pan.
Zest oranges and limes into a large bowl. Stir in flour and sugar.

I just missed a finger lick in this shot!

Juice the oranges and limes. (Master One loves to do this, with my hand on top of his, yelling "squee, squee!" - he has a little trouble with the zz sound still!) If you have less than 1 cup of juice (we did!) top up with any juice you might have in the fridge. Preferably orange, but apple will do. Combine juices, oil and eggs in a jug, whisk to combine. Pour liquid into dry ingredients and mix until just combined.

Master One having a ball - not doing much stirring though!

Spoon muffin mixture into muffin pans and bake for 20-25 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

If you'd like to join in with Kids Cooking Thursday please leave a permalink to your own Kids Cooking Thursday post, as per the rules.



Don't forget today is your last chance to enter Kids In The Kitchen, training our next generation of food bloggers! ;)

Chicken & Ranch Hot Pasta Salad

Last night's dinner was so easy I won't dignify it with a recipe tag. Boil pasta in the usual way, and while that's cooking, fry a crumbed chicken tenderloin in a little butter. Use a pair of kitchen scissors to chop up the green of 3 or 4 spring onions, and add them straight to the frypan, along with a large heaped teaspoon of minced garlic (about 2 average cloves chopped if you don't have a jar kept in the fridge).

Remove the chicken to a plate once cooked, and cover with foil to keep warm. Turn the heat down on the pan as low as it can go, and add about 3 Tbsp of bottled Ranch dressing. Stir it around to get all the lovely cooking juices off the bottom of the pan.

Drain the pasta, and tip into the frypan with the hot dressing. Turn the heat off. Stir the pasta through the dressing, adding more dressing if needed to cover all the pasta. Serve in big bowls with the sliced chicken tenders on top.


Don't forget to get messy with your young 'uns for Kids In The Kitchen, training our next generation of food bloggers! ;)

Creamy Tomato & Onion Gnocchi

One of the easiest, and tastiest things I've cooked in ages. And only 3 ingredients!

Creamy Tomato & Onion Gnocchi
800g gnocchi
250g French Onion dip
1/2 cup tomato based pasta sauce (approx)

Cook pasta as directed on packet. Drain. Put the dip in the pasta pot, and add in the tomato pasta sauce to your taste. (I used a very strong herby one, so I didn't want much). Mix together, then return gnocchi to the pot and mix thoroughly. Serve with a bit of shaved parmesan, or just plain old tasty, like us.

Tuna Risotto of Awesomeness

Tuna "Risotto"
1 cup Aborio rice
2 cups water
splash Maggi
2 sticks celery, diced
1 onion, diced
125g tin tuna, drained
125g corn kernels
2 tbsp sour cream
2 tsp good quality tomato sauce or chutney (we used Outback Spirit Bush Tomato sauce)

Place the rice, water and Maggi in a microwave safe bowl. Cook on medium (600w) for 15 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes. Lightly spray a frypan with oil, then brown the onion and celery. Add the corn and tuna, and allw to heat through.
Once rice is cooked, tip the whole lot into the pan, and finish with the sour cream and sauce. Season to taste and serve.

Hardly a recipe for purists, but my kids didn't know the difference, and it tasted great!