Shooting stars

I've been wanting to make some corn fritters for my boy for a while. I decided to grate some carrot into them for a little extra veg too.

This is how I made them:

1 x 125g can of creamed corn

1 x grated carrot

1 1/4 cups plain flour

1/2 cup milk

2 lightly beaten eggs

1 teaspoon baking powder

Mix all together and add tablespoon full into a frying pan with a little oil. Cook for a few mins each side until golden brown.

Can't get much easier than that hey! Plus you can easily add in extra veg, herbs and spices.

I wondered whether putting the mix in a cookie cutter would work, kind of like you do when making eggs into the rings. I chose a star as it was a good size for his little hands.

It worked but was kind of awkward to get the fritter out to flip it! My mum suggested flouring the cutter to make it easier (I just oiled it) so will definitely try that next time.

I was quite happy with them anyway and I'm sure my son wouldnt mind them being a little rough. What to do with them though! I was going to do a space theme but the plate I have was too small, so I got out some cheese and sliced it up thinly to make shooting stars!! Simple!

After adding the cheese it really needed something green so I boiled up some peas to add a little something to it. Looked fantastic and was such a simple lunch!

Bento delivery!!

I ordered a few things from All Things For Sale, a bento site in the US that have so much cool stuff!

They just got in the new CuteZcute bread and egg molds which I HAD to get and because I was ordering from overseas I figured I may as well buy a few things to make postage worth it.

I ordered some sandwich cutters/stamps and some cute 3D cutters. Much to my surprise they arrive a little over a week after I ordered them! So excited!

I tested out the sandwich stamps and my son gave the approval by inspecting carefully and then eating them. During his nap I decided to try out the CuteZcute set.

I boiled up an egg and pressed it into the mold, let it sit 15 mins in some cold water then opened it up. I was so surprised at just how well it worked! The mold formed the egg perfectly, with no splits in it at all.

I am really happy with the set so far and would definitely recommend it to others! I am yet to make a pocket sandwich as I'm waiting on my bread to bake, but later today I will test it out. I suspect it will work awesomely!

My first bento meal

So my fascination with bento began after a conversation about polenta, I suggested maybe we can make some cute little shapes that my son could possibly feed himself with.(he was only 8 months old at this point)

I remembered about the bento sites I have been looking at, so decided to get a 'starter' kit from Neat To Eat. There are heaps of other places around that sell bento items but I wanted to get something then and there, so ordered a few things and waited. 

Much to my surprise they arrived 2 days later!! Yippee! At the time most of what I ordered wasn't suitable for an 8 month old so I decided to make him some boiled eggs for lunch, as well as some cute little polenta shapes.

First off the eggs: I got these 2 egg moulds, a fish and car.

Having never made these before I was a bit unsure on how they would go. I boiled the eggs, peeled them while hot (THAT was difficult!) and placed them into the moulds. So far so good! I squished them down and placed them into a bowl of cold water for 10 minutes. Once the 10 minutes was up I opened them with caution, not knowing if I opened it too fast they would break. Success!! A fish and a car shaped egg!! That is just SO cool!! My son will love these when he is older! But for now I have to cut them into smaller pieces, but that's OK, at least they worked!

Next step was the polenta. I had cooked and cooled it earlier this morning so it would be ready for his lunch. I only added vegetable stock to it as I thought I would try plain polenta and see if he likes it. (I was also going to fry up the rest for us adults to go with dinner tonight!).

All I had to do was cut out shapes. For this I had bought some little shape cutters - though any cookie cutters would work. I got these ones because they were little quite little, and at the time my son hadn't handled large pieces of food in the past, these would be absolutely perfect. Plus they are tiny and cute which I like! :) I figured I would just do a few shapes to start with to see how they work. I chose the smaller of the shapes and started stamping away at the thinner part of the polenta.

This also worked really well, the polenta did get stuck in there but a simple poking tool fixed that problem and I pushed them out easily. I made a small handful of shapes and put them on the plate ready to go.

Well, that's all done so it is time for lunch! I put the cut up egg onto the plate with the polenta. It was a decent lunch.

Woo-hoo! He loved it! First of all he grabbed a piece of egg and put it in his mouth. He wasn't quite sure of it but after a few chews he realised it is food, and he went in for more. The polenta got squished between his fingers for most of the lunch, but he did eat a lot of it too. In the end I think he ate roughly 3/4 of his lunch which I was super impressed with. He also didn't choke on ANY of it which was a major win in my books. He also enjoyed the bland-ness of the egg and polenta, which is great. I think I will add more flavour next time but it was great to know he liked it as it was.

After doing this meal I realised I may very well have a new obsession, and now,  6 months on I am absolutely loving making fun food!

Let me introduce myself...

I may as well start by telling you a little about myself and why I started this blog!

First of all, about me! I am mother to a 14 month old boy and have another little bub on the way.My partner and I live in Adelaide and I rarely cooked.

This all changed when I had my son. I always wanted to give him fresh food every day and by making my own I found it to be much, much cheaper than store bought, plus I have lots left over to freeze and use   for later on.

When my son got older I found he was losing interest in the purees and wanted more solid foods. This was fine until I just ran out of ideas on what to make! I then discoevered a little thing called Bento!

This is where my obsession with cooking for kids began! There are a million and one bento products around and I own at least half (may be a light exaggeration...)

Even though my son isn't old enough to get the concept of the 'fun food' I still love making it and it gives me practice for future meals.

When making his meals I always try to add some veg and dairy. He loves cheese so this is easy, and he tends to eat about 99% of what I give him, the only exception so far is olives and I don't blame him.

Now, not all meals HAVE to be fancy shapes and little figures, they can just be a lovely arrangement of foods, or even just a standard everyday meal. Kids are very visual creatures and lots of colurs and shapes are always fascinating.

The reason for my blog is to show others what you can do with foods without having to buy crazy ingredients or spend hours in the kitchen.