Valentine’s Activity: Cooking with your little one

It is Valentine’s month and time to spread the love. Why not combine this holiday with preparing a recipe with your little one?

Lover’s French Toast

As the saying goes, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach”… and we are sure this applies to the little ones too! Include your little one in the preparation for daddy (or mommy) on Valentines day this year!

Ingredients:

• 4 slices of brown bread
• 2 eggs
• ¼ cup low-fat milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• ½ cup of cottage cheese
• Fresh berries

Method:

1. Using a non-stick pan, preheat the stove to medium heat.
2. Take a cookie cutter, or cut by hand, a heart from 4 slices of bread.
3. Whisk together eggs, milk, vanilla essence and half the cinnamon
4. Put the bread in the egg-mixture and turn around to soak in.
5. Transfer to the pan and cook until browned.
6. Spread with cottage cheese and top with berries.
7. Sprinkle remaining cinnamon just before serving.
8. Enjoy!

Heart-shaped vegetables and hummus/tzatziki

Pack various cut and prepared vegetables into a heart shape and enjoy with delicious hummus and tzatziki.

Ingredients:

• 300g package frozen lima beans
• 170g container plain low-fat yoghurt
• 1 small onion, peeled and coarsely chopped (¼ cup)
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives
• 2 cloves garlic
• ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
• ¼ teaspoon salt

Method:

1. In a medium saucepan, cook lima beans in a small amount of boiling water for 10 minutes; drain.
2. In a food processor, combine lima beans, yoghurt, onion, lemon juice, honey, chives, garlic, pepper and salt.
3. Cover and process until smooth.

Surprise Heart Salad

A lot of moms fell in love with this recipe because their picky eaters actually ate their salads with this tip and activity.

Create a green tossed salad with whatever vegetables you’d like. Take the smallest heart cookie cutter (or cut it by hand) some ingredients (apple, cucumber, red pepper, roasted butternut, etc) into the shape of a heart.

Toss into your salad. Your children will be excited to find the little hearts in their salads

Ingredients:

• 1 head of lettuce and baby spinach
• 250g cherry tomatoes
• ½ medium cucumber
• 1 green/yellow/red pepper
• 250g strawberries
• 1 Granny Smith apple, sliced into thin half moons
• ¼ butternut
• One cube of Feta cheese, crumbled
• Olive oil

Method:

1. Preheat the stove to 180°C.
2. Prepare the butternut by using a cookie cutter (or cutting by hand) to shape into hearts.
3. Spray with olive oil and roast until crispy (the smaller the hearts the shorter the roasting time, roughly about 10 minutes).
4. While the roasting is taking place, cut the lettuce and baby spinach into bite-sized portions.
5. Cut strawberries into a heart shape by cutting the top off (see photo).
6. Cut the apple and cucumber into hearts.
7. Toss everything together.
8. Enjoy!