Making blueberry muffins with kids

by Rebecca This is a perfect recipe to make with your little one. I got it from the Meals Matter Web site – they have lots of really great info about parenting and children from birth on, including many ‘to make’ together recipes.

These muffins end up being perfect in mini-muffin size for the Boy’s snack at preschool.

Have fun together – it’s okay if the flour spills (it will) or if they eat the blueberries and get it all over their hands (they will) – that’s part of the fun! The recipe can be found on the Meals Matter, but below are our pictures.

**NOTE: The recipe calls for buttermilk, but I rarely buy it. Instead, add 1 tbsp of vinegar and add regular milk until you reach a cup.

This recipe makes 24 mini-muffins and 6 large, or a dozen large yes, that is a baseball spatula. That’s the one he cooks with ;) Yum! Enjoy

Rebecca blogs about family and motherhood, is a self-professed foodie, and dabbles in online engagement and community giving.  She has a strange love for maple syrup that can possibly only be matched by her love for chocolate and coffee.

Kids can cook - Rainbow cupcakes

by Joanne I don’t know about you but at our house when March rolls around we start to get excited for the arrival of spring!  The kids want to get out on the bikes, we start discussing summer day camps and we love seeing all of the sidewalk chalk and skipping ropes we have in the garage.   We love taking family walks in the evening before bed and don’t even mind the occasional rain shower, especially those that provide us with magical rainbows!  But there is no need to wait until April showers to bring that touch of colour we are all looking forward to – with a little work you can bring the rainbow of colours into your kitchen.   We decided a few days ago that we needed to add a little bit of colour to our days and my daughter was up to the challenge – she would bake some yummy rainbow cupcakes for us!   This is an easy recipe that we found on www.familyfun.com .   It is a simple ingredients list:   Box of white cake mix – or you can make your own from stratch (you will need the ingredients required to make the mix) Food colouring (as few or as many colours as you would like) Cupcake pan liners White frosting (store bought or make your own) Green sprinkles (or even gold coins)   Instructions:   1.   Prepare your white cake mix, then divide the batter into the number of colours you are using.  My daughter used six colours so we needed six bowls.   2.  Once all the batter is divided into the bowls you add your food colouring.   Colour and number of food colouring drops  Purple: 9 red and 6 blue drops Blue: 12 drops Green: 12 drops Yellow: 12 drops Orange: 12 yellow and 4 red drops Red: 18 drops

 3.  Once you have lined your muffin pan with the liners evenly distribute the batter among the cups starting with purple and then blue etc.  It helps to spread the batter a bit with the spoon to make sure it goes down in layers. 4.  Once you have all of the colours in the muffin pan you bake according to the directions of the white cake mix. 5.  Once they are cool you can frost them with white frosting.  My daughter added some green sprinkles to hers but you could add some chocolate gold coins and your little ones will be thrilled to see that they have found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  

  Enjoy!

Joanne the proud mom of Amélie (8 years old) and Mathieu (5 years).  She is new at blogging and you can find her at Our Money Pit.

Budsie Shares His Porridge

by Ezmy From Monday to Friday, it’s just me and Budsie for breakfast time (A. leaves early for a workout before work because he’s ambitious and amazing like that). Before having kids, ‘breakfast time’ was me fumbling about with the coffee grinder, blindly dumping hot water into a French press, and sitting my pajama clad self in front of the computer for a morning write. My eyes did not open until the first sip of jet black coffee hit my mouth.

Breakfast time is an entirely different affair now, of course, but I’m still pretty groggy first thing so when Budsie started eating people food, I had to figure out a breakfast that was fast and simple, yet healthy and delicious. Oh and fun! Because my boy likes to be entertained. Enter ‘Budsie Porridge’, a super fast recipe that, when combined with sound effects, makes for a fun morning with my little man.

Budsie Porridge - serves one hungry baby boy

-1 1/2 tbsp ‘Bob’s Red Mill Scottish Oatmeal’ - this is small grain oatmeal that works for babies as young as 6 months -1/4 cup or so water -1 cube pureed prunes* -pinch cinnamon -splash homogenized milk or breast milk

*Every couple of weeks, I lightly boil and then puree a container of prunes (make sure they are sulphite-free!). I pop this prune-y goodness into ice cube trays and then transfer the prune cubes to a freezer bag. Incidentally, the water the prunes are boiled in makes a tasty dinner time beverage for babies.

Now. It is possible to microwave this porridge (put all ingredients together - except the milk - and stick in microwave for 3 minutes). But I’m going to outline the details for cooking on the stove because believe it or not, we didn’t have a microwave until a couple of weeks ago.

First, pop the water in a pot and put on stove to boil. When pouring water, make rushing water sounds - whoosh! - and explain what you are up to.

Water will boil very quickly. Turn the heat down to low and slowly add the oats, stirring as you add. Make shaking oats noise - my noise of choice: shooka shooka weeee! - and explain what you are up to.

Once oats are stirred in, add your frozen prune cube - Boop! (Budsie loves this noise)

The prune cube will start to melt. Once it is all melted, your oats are done (about 2 minutes). During melting time, I like to do a little dance in the kitchen. It perks me up and sends Budsie into fits of laughter. When the porridge is done, take off the stove, pour into a baby breakfast bowl and stir in your pinch of cinnamon and milk. By the time you get this and your breakfast gear to the table, the porridge should be cool enough for baby to eat. Check first of course.

Result: One porridge covered baby!

 

Happy Breakfast Time!

Ezmy is a new mum to son Ewan (aka Budsie). When she isn’t working on her master’s thesis, or playing games with her boy, she’s blogging furiously about life as a stay-at-home mum in our nation’s capital. Follow Ezmy on Twitter (@ezmytweets) where she posts daily resolutions and updates on life with an active and very vocal baby.

Who doesn't love a big breakfast?

by Joanne Who does not love a big breakfast –bacon and yummy eggs with buttery toast and maple syrup – yummy!  But in my house I am the only one.  My family prefers cereal (cold or hot) and toast… boring.  I have tried and tried to get them to eat a nice bacon and egg breakfast but it always ends up in frustration.  For Christmas this year, I decided I would ask for a waffle maker.  My DH thought it was funny but the kids thought it was a great idea.  But I had a plan for this gift – they love frozen waffles and I thought if I could find a recipe that they liked I could make them their waffles from scratch instead of buying them.  Christmas morning arrived and I was anxiously waiting to see if I would receive what I really wanted…. And the kids did not disappoint!  Under the tree was a waffle maker – little did they know but I had already found a recipe for a basic waffle and had all the ingredients ready to make a big Christmas breakfast which included waffles for everyone!

Here is the recipe… it makes yummy homemade waffles – the recipe is for 8 waffles but I make mine smaller so I can get about a dozen from one batch.

2 cups of all-purpose flour (I mix in a bit of whole wheat flour) 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar 1 tablespoon of baking powder ½ teaspoon of baking soda ½ teaspoon of salt 1 ¾ cup of 1% milk (or whatever you have) 6 tablespoons of vegetable oil (I use canola) 2 large eggs

Mix all your ingredients into a large bowl and combine until well blended and smooth.  Once the batter is all mixed you need to let your batter rest for about 5 minutes.  In the meantime preheat your waffle iron (follow the instructions of your machine).

After the 5 minute waiting time is done and the iron is preheated you can now pour 1/3 cup of batter onto the centre iron.  Then close the lid wait a few minutes – my machine has an indicator light that tells me when they are ready.

A few minutes later, open the lid and there you go a yummy waffle!

These are really yummy when you serve them immediately but can also be frozen.   My DH will pop them in the toaster or microwave (depending on the child) and they have a nice homemade breakfast everyday!  No more store bought frozen waffles for us anymore.

These waffles are great with maple syrup, icing sugar, fruit compotes, fresh fruit, whipped cream and even ice cream with some chocolate sauce!

This waffle machine is a great compromise.  I get the nice weekend breakfast with my family and they get the yummy waffles they love!

Joanne the proud mom of Amélie (8 years old) and Mathieu (5 years).  She is new at blogging and you can find her at Our Money Pit.

After school blueberry crumb muffins

by Vicky When Joel gets off the school bus, he's ravenous. He walks in the front door and immediately asks 'what did you make today'. I don't always have time to bake after school snacks, but when I do I know he's a happy boy!

Recently I found this recipe for blueberry muffins with a crumb topping. I can honestly say they were the best muffins I have made, and they didn't last long! They were moist, loaded with blueberries, and the crumb topping was a nice touch! I highly recommend them:

Blueberry Crumb Topping Muffins

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 cup fresh blueberries
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup butter, cubed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1. Before you start, preheat oven to 400. Spray a muffin tin with Pam or use muffin liners.
2. Mix the flour, sugar salt and baking powder and set aside.  In a 1 cup measuring cup, place the vegetable oil, the egg and fill the rest of the cup to the top with milk. Stir carefully, and mix the liquids with the flour mixture.
3. Fold in blueberries, and spoon the mixture into the muffin cups.
4. Sprinkle with crumb topping. (Do not overload the muffins with the crumb topping or they will sink).

To Make Crumb Topping (optional):

1. Mix 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1/4 cup butter (room temperature works best), and 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon in a small bowl. Wisk with a fork and sprinkle on top of the muffins before baking.
2. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.

When I followed this recipe, it made 8 very large muffins. I think the next time I make it, I will put a bit less in each muffin cup and stretch them out to a full dozen (since the crumb topping does add a bit more to the muffin).

I hope your kids will enjoy these as much as mine did!

Vicky is the mom to 4 year old son named Joel and 1 year old daughter named Mieka. You can read her blog at blog Some Kind of Wondermom.