Vivaldi for toddlers

It is a wonderful, joyous, exuberant moment of pure bliss when your truck obsessed toddler boy asks to see violins after playing with his alphabet flashcards; and you realise with a shocked internal silence of gratefulness that you could watch youtube videos of the greats playing Vivaldi rather than monster trucks in mud.


Oh how I relished those 20 minutes. How I cheered inside everytime when Nigel Kennedy finished a piece and toddler clapped his hands and said 'yay! man with violin, yay!' and I let myself hope that maybe there is a spark of civilised cultured toddler inside the mud encrusted exterior that usually presents itself.

If I had enough eggs, I would be making civilised cultured cakes to celebrate. But alas, I only have enough for tonight's mini toad in the hole...but! if I had the eggs, I would make:

Orange Cranberry Banana Muffins

1 cup whole berry cranberry sauce
(you can make your own by boiling 2 cups of cranberries with 3/4 cup orange juice and 1 cup sugar until thickened, freeze the leftovers to make these again!)

1/3 cup butter (dairy free marg works well too)
2/3 cup white sugar
2 eggs

1 3/4cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2tsp salt
1/4tsp baking soda
1 cup mashed banana (2 bananas should do it)

Mix together the butter, sugar and eggs. Then add in the dry ingredients alternately with the banana. Fold in the cranberries at the end.
Bake at 200C/400F for 15-20minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Makes 12 big muffins. Also good as mini muffins for little people. Also good with chocolate drizzled over the tops if you want to make them a bit decadent.

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Now for those of you thinking, what about the mini toad in the hole you mentioned? Another wonderful use for a muffin tray. And a really inexpensive way to do dinner.

Mini Toad in the Hole

6 sausages, cut in half (I like lincolnshire for these)

125g plain flour
2 eggs
125ml milk (we use Sainsbury's sweetened soymilk or Alpro original)
125ml water

oil for the muffin cups

Pre-heat your oven to 200C/400F and put a little oil in each muffin cup and half a sausage. Pop those in the oven for 15-20mins until they are getting a bit brown. Meanwhile, mix up your batter of flour, eggs, milk and water.  When the sausages start to brown, take the tray out and pour batter into each muffin cup over the sausages, they'll be about 3/4 full.  Pop it back in the oven for another 15-20 minutes until they are puffed and golden brown.

Use a knife (plastic/silicon if you've got a non stick muffin pan) to go round the edges and turn them out of the tin. Serve up with veg and gravy. Yummy.

A hungry 2-3 year old will eat 2-3. A hungry adult will eat 3-4. With enough veg and maybe some beans, you should be able to feed 2 adults and 2 kids.

These also freeze really well and heat up fast in the microwave. Good to stash in the freezer for nights when you're in a rush. :)

comfort food is the best food.

what's not to love about the following items:  sausage, pasta, butternut squash and apples.  Therefore you should be able to put them all together in one lovely scrummy yummy pot of delishiness.

Pasta with creamy sausage sauce

4 pork sausages casings removed or 250sausagemeat
2 tbsp oil (omit if using non-stick pan)
225g / 1 cup of cubed roasted butternut squash (I like to roast the squash and then freeze it in portions to defrost and use when needed.)
1 granny smith apple, peeled, and diced.
150 ml water
3/4 tsp dried sage
a little less than 1/4cup of flour
450 ml/ 2 cups milk (we use soy milk to make it dairy free)

250g cooked pasta small shells

Cook the pasta as you do and drain it.  While that's cooking, get out a large saucepan and put the oil and sausagemeat in it. Break up the sausage into chunks as you cook it, if you aren't using a non stick pan, then get ready for some scraping and an arm workout as the sausage cooks!

Add in the apple and the water and cook till apple is softish. Add in the butternut squash-- it will not stay in cubes it will fall apart and just look lovely. Add the sage. Add a bit of veggie stock cube if you want. Salt and pepper to taste. Cook until sausage is cooked through, then add the flour and stir it together. Then slowly add the milk 1 cup at a time, stirring all the while. Simmer on a low/med heat until thickened but not gloopy. add more milk if you want to. Stir in your cooked pasta and mix it all together. Serves 4 people if you serve a side salad and bread. Serves 2 fairly hungry adults and 1 toddler with 1 adult meal leftover if you just serve it as a main dish.