Tag Archives: Banana

July 16, 2013

Strawberry and Banana Yoghurt Pops

Wowsers things are busy round here. Packing and organising for the BIG move to the UK, working on a migration to a new blog (more on my exciting venture soon!), a trip to London for Food Blogger Connect last weekend (again more on this wonderful weekend shortly), snippets of time visiting friends for good byes AND it’s the big ten week school holidays here so have two kids desperate for some holiday action!. Needless to say there’s been many a trip to various water parks, swimming pools and lakes. So I offer my sincere apologies for the sporadic blogging now and over the next few weeks. The simply aren’t enough hours in the day for all I have to do!.

In view of my extreme state of busyness here’s a real quickie of a recipe today, Strawberry and Banana Yoghurt Pops which could probably be made and bobbed in the freezer in less than two minutes flat. And they’re good, really good. More importantly the kids LOVE them, and since they’re considerably healthier than any lolly you could possibly buy, containing only fresh fruit, natural yogurt and a weeny bit of honey to sweeten, that’s a very good thing in this baking hot weather we’re currently having!. Homemade lollies are definitely the way forward, and if you don’t have any lolly makers why not invest in a set or two, mine cost a mere two euros! And if you don’t want to use fresh fruit you could always just fill and freeze them with fruit juice (which is actually what I do more often than not!).

Feel free to vary your fresh fruit, a few days ago I also made a batch with raspberries and peaches (though admittedly I did add a little more honey), just use up whatever you have lurking. A great way to get your kids eating plenty of fruit, and to quickly use up any gluts.

Being notably cheaper than bought lollies I shall be entering this post to Credit Crunch Munch’s event, co-hosted by Camila of Fab Food 4 All and Helen of Fuss Free Flavours, and this month by Sian of Fishfingers for Tea. I recently happened to notice a new challenge on the block called Strawberry Preservation Fundas, hosted by Techie Cookie Freaky calling for bloggers to submit their strawberry preservation recipes, so naturally I thought of entering my lollies!.

Strawberry and Banana Yogurt Pops

Great For: Toddlers and Pre-schoolers, Big Kids, Grown Ups, Summer, Parties, Snacks, After School Treats, Fruit Gluts

Serves: Makes 6 Lollies (though this will depend on the size of your lolly maker)

Special Equipment: a hand held stick blender OR food processor or liquidiser, lolly makers

125g strawberries, washed and hulled

a large banana

125g plain yogurt, greek, cows, sheeps, goats are all fine (I’ve tried them all!)

dessertspoon of runny honey

1. Place all the ingredients in a bowl and whiz with a stick blender until the consistency of a smoothie. Or place in a processor or liquidiser and blitz.

2. Pour into your lolly moulds and place in a freezer for a few hours or overnight until they’re set.

And that really is all there is to it!. Off to do some packing…..

You might also like:

23 Comments | tags: Banana, Credit Crunch Munch, Kids, Lollies, Pops, Strawberries, Summer, Yogurt | posted in Bigger Kids, Finger Foods, Party Food, Puddings & Desserts, Toddlers & Pre-schoolers

March 29, 2013

Banana Pancakes!

By Eat Your Veg

I know, I know, I know I’m more than a little fashionably late for Pancake Day….but I had very much intended to write this blog quite some time ago!. Pancakes are big business in our house and barely a day goes by without a pancake request (breakfast, lunch or dinner!). But seeing as these days the monsters will only eat them with a gargantuan spreading of the not-so-healthy but so well-known Hazelnut and Choccie Spread, I’m loath to make them often. So I’ve been experimenting with healthier options and these Banana Pancakes have happily been gobbled down with great success minus any need for the naughty stuff. I’m certain they’d taste sublime with a decadent spreading but I’m not going there, these pancakes are served with fruit and fruit only at Chez Foti, plus a wee drizzle of honey or maple syrup and a dollop of creme fraiche naturally. Happy days.

Anyone who’s ever travelled any the more popular backpacker routes of Asia or Latin America should be familiar with the ubiquitous Banana Pancake. They seem to crop up on pretty much every hostel or backpacker cafe breakfast menu, and I must have tirelessly munched my way through an inordinate amount in the totality of my two and a half years of traveling. Making them myself has wonderfully taken me back to those heady days, albeit life is rather more different now than then!

I may be late for pancake day, but I’m hopefully not too late to enter my pancake recipe to this month’s No Waste Food Challenge, an event held by Kate from Turquoise Lemons and this month hosted by Elizabeth’s Kitchen and the no waste ingredient being eggs!. Now we’ve always got eggs to use up from our hens and pancakes are the perfect answer in my book. Plus these pancakes are a great way of using up blackened and over-ripe bananas too. Since our eggs are so local (the hen house being approximately ten meters away from the kitchen door) I’m also entering my pancakes to this month’s Breakfast Club which has the theme of ‘local’. The challenge is the baby of Helen from Fuss Free Flavours and is being hosted this month by Heidi at Kitchen Talk.

Banana Pancakes

Great as a Finger Food for very little littlies, Toddlers & Young Children, Bigger Kids, Family Breakfasts, Sleepovers (I’m too scared to go there yet!), Grown Ups

Enough for a Family of Four:

20g of Butter, plus a little extra for greasing the pan

175g of Self-Raising Flour

½ a teaspoon of Baking Powder

a tablespoon of Soft Light Brown Sugar

2 free range Eggs

170ml of Full Fat Milk

2 Bananas, preferably very ripe, mashed with the back of fork

To Serve: Creme Fraiche or Yogurt, Honey or Maple Syrup, Berries or other Fruits

Melt the butter and set aside to cool for a few minutes.

Place the flour, baking powder and sugar in a mixing bowl and mix together.

In another bowl or jug lightly whisk the eggs, then whisk in the milk and cooled butter.

Whisk the wet mixture slowly into the dry mixture and when you have an even consistency stir or whisk in the mashed bananas.

Heat a frying pan until hot. Grease with a little butter and gently drop in a tablespoon of the batter at a time. You should be able to cook three to four at once, depending on the size of your pan. Allow plenty of room between each pancake as they do spread a little. Once each pancake is a little risen and you can see bubbles appear on the surface carefully turn over with a spatula and cook the other side. Each side should be pale golden-brown.

Either serve immediately or keep warm in a low oven until you’re ready.

Perfect served with a drizzle of maple syrup or honey, a (generous) dollop of creme fraiche or yogurt and fresh berries or fruit of your choice. Absolutely no Nutella required.

Master J sabotaging my photo!

18 Comments | tags: Banana, Breakfast, Breakfast Club, Eggs, No Waste Food Challenge, Pancakes | posted in Bigger Kids, Finger Foods, The Chickens, Toddlers & Pre-schoolers

August 10, 2012

Super-Fruity Banana Mini Muffins

By Eat Your Veg

We’re just over the middle of the loooooonnnnng 10 week, yes TEN week summer school holidays here. France reportedly has more school holidays than anywhere else in the world, a great place to be if you’re a teacher. Actually I moan a lot about them but in truth I’m quite enjoying it really, well this holiday anyway. The first half we had lots of visitors which is always fun, and now we haven’t but I’m just enjoying being lazy and not having to get dressed and washed and breakfasted (well eventually we do!) and do the school run (not that it’s terribly stressful round here, 5 kms in about 6 mins, and it’s rare you ever see another car until you get to the actual school and there’s never any hassle parking). This holiday it’s lots of walks around the garden, fruit picking, marathon trampoline and paddling pool sessions, visits to local parks and the odd lake or swimming pool dip. Plus plenty of baking. I’m not going to mention the squabbling, squealing, screaming or sulking. Really I’m not. Ahhhrrrrr.

My daughter’s now nearly four and loves to bake (she’s been at school since she was just over two by the way, they start them young here!). Strangely though she’s not really a big cake fan (we really should have a DNA test done) but does love to eat anything she’s helped make. And Jacques at just over two has now decided he wants a piece of the baking action and is very much my master stirrer. He likes his cake but also has a partiality for savory. So during these long summer jollidays we’ve had many a baking session. Many way too messy to blog and show, but some just about okish!. Today it was the turn of some really-fruity fairly-healthy mini-muffins made with bananas, apricots and sultanas. I like to make my muffins small for the kids (and for me so I can eat twice as many) and tend to make them in the normal fairy cake sized cases and tins, but feel free to make them a normal muffin size too.

Use really ripe, preferably over-ripe with blackened skins, bananas.

Miss F the Urchin Child & Champion Spoon Licker

Makes 24 mini-muffins or 12 regular:

250g of plain flour

1 teaspoon of baking powder

a large pinch of cinnamon

180g of golden caster sugar

2 large eggs

75ml of sunflower oil

75ml of creme fraiche (half fat works fine) or yogurt

2 very large over-ripe bananas or 3 medium sized

80g of apricots, chopped (the slightly squishy ‘ready to eat’ ones are best, but dried work too)

80g of sultanas

Preheat your oven to 200ºC/Gas Mark 6.

Sieve the flour, baking powder and cinnamon into a largish mixing bowl then stir in the sugar.

In a separate bowl whisk together the eggs, oil and creme fraiche or yogurt. And in another bowl roughly mash up the bananas with the back of a fork.

Now for some serious stirring action. Throw the wet mixture into the dry along with the mashed bananas, chopped apricots and sultanas. Stir until well combined.

Place in cake or muffin cases in cake or muffin trays. It’s about a dessertspoon of the raw mixture for a fairy cake sized mini-muffin.

Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes until a little golden on the top, firm to touch and an inserted cake skewer or fork comes out crumb free.

Remove from the trays and cool on a cooling rack for as long as your little ones will allow. Go gobble.

Here’s some other easy peasy baking with kids ideas: Cheesy Biscuits, Cheese, Ham & Sweetcorn Mini-Muffins, Chocolate Brownies

The new Naked Chef, admittedly it was 38°C and we were baking!

2 Comments | tags: Apricots, Banana, Birthdays, cake, Dried Fruit, Muffins, Sultanas | posted in Baking with Kids, Cakes & Biscuits, Finger Foods, Party Food, Toddlers & Pre-schoolers

May 8, 2012

Go Bananas! A Trio of Banana Baby Purees

By Eat Your Veg

First foods 6 months +

Here’s some super-fruity super-healthy and super-yummy first purees all using my personal super food, the humble banana. Bananas contain three types of natural sugars which when combined with their fibre content give an instant and sustained energy boost. They are also high in iron and potassium, the latter being thought to boost brain power. Bananas are wonderful for babies and one of the very few natural convenience foods that can be eaten by babies without blending or cooking, and can be eaten from day one of weaning. They’re also a great natural sweetener and perfect to combine with less sweet fruits instead of adding sugar.

Bananas can be simply mashed raw with a fork and fed to your baby like this or with the addition of a spoon of creamy yogurt or made up baby rice you have something a little more substantial. Most babies adore anything with bananas and these three recipes were my own two little babies’ favourite purees.

With the exception of the Banana & Avocado puree which can be simply mashed, my recipes today do actually require some blending due to the additional ingredients. If you don’t already have one invest in a stick blender, baby blender or a Baby Bullet, they’re totally wonderful for quickly and easily whizzing up baby food.

All three purees produce one serving. Unfortunately banana based purees do not keep well and are not suitable to be made in advance.

‘Banado’ Banana & Avocado Baby Puree

What a combination for little tums? Super powering banana and super nutritious avocado together creating a super calorific double dosing of brain boosting potassium! Now isn’t that what all babies need?. And this is ooooohhhh so simple, and great if you happen to be out and about without a blender.

½ of a medium banana, or a ⅓ of a larger one

⅓ of a very ripe avocado

Place the two together and mash very thoroughly with a fork OR whiz up with a stick blender, baby blender or baby bullet for an ultra smooth and creamy puree. Serve immediately.

Banana & Strawberry Pink Purée

Strawberries are a wonderful source of Vitamin C, the B Vitamins and K and are high in ‘phenols’ that protect the body from diseases like cancer. Advise used to be to not feed babies strawberries for the first 12 months because of the potential of allergic reaction. However guidelines in the UK and US have dropped this to 6 months although parents or babies with any pre-existing allergies or history of allergies, or babies with asthma or eczema should be extremely cautious in the first year and seek medical advice before offering strawberries or other potentially allergenic fruit like kiwis, raspberries or citrus fruits.

½ a medium banana

2 strawberries

Place the banana and strawberries together and whiz up with a stick blender, baby blender or baby bullet. Serve immediately.

Creamy Banana & Mango Purée

Mango’s are another great first baby food, and are very unlikely to be snubbed by little mouths. They contain oodles of vitamins A & C, E & K as well as Vitamin B6 and potassium. And you can’t beat adding a little rich and luxuriously creamy greek yogurt to a purée.

½ a medium banana

1/6 of a ripe mango, cut into chunks

a tablespoon of greek yogurt

Place the banana, mango and yogurt together and whiz up with a stick blender, baby blender or baby bullet. Serve immediately.

Have you seen my other weaning recipe’s….. Sweet Potato Daal for Babies, Two First Pasta Sauces, Bejewelled Eggs or my 5-a-Day Pasta Sauce?