Sushi bites, some snack inspiration for you which can be shared as a healthy toddler meal idea too (a bonus rhyme!). This is a super simple recipe with just 2 main ingredients. But it can be easily jazzed up with different fillings to give it different flavours and get your little one used to different tastes. Sea weed can be quite a difficult food to include in your diet so this are a great way to include this sea vegetable that is a good source of iodine. Depending on the age of your toddler this is also a fun activity to get them involved in making.
Healthy snack inspiration; courgette, banana and almond butter muffins. This plant based recipe includes a vegetable, fruit and a source of healthy fats, so it is ideal for fuelling your little ones with energy. They are really tasty and can be made with sugar to make them a healthy treat or without sugar so they taste more like banana bread. The muffins can be batch cooked and stored in the fridge for up to 3 days and in the freezer for up to a month, which is really convenient and handy when you need a healthy snack quickly.
When you wake up really hungry (like I always do!), having options for breakfast is great for getting food in you faster. As porridge is a real go to for us (even in summer!) I like to try keep the toppings varied especially on days when I don’t work. So I have compiled a reference list of nutritious and delicious porridge toppings so there is less thinking to do when you are tired and for a bit of inspiration too. I have also included a recipe for mine and Jasper’s current favourite breakfast – carrot and walnut porridge. It tastes kind of like carrot cake but it obviously much healthier than having cake for breakfast!
Firstly, apologies for the lack of posts over here for the last few weeks! Between mumming and working there hasn’t been much time left for blogging, but I’m hoping to change that. I have a couple of interesting posts lined up for the next few days about Jasper’s first steps, some porridge topping ideas and a summary of the #othermothers summer instagram challenge, quite a mix of topics!!
Jaspy enjoying the warm weather in his make shift paddling pool!
Who else loves the sun but isn’t a fan of being too hot?! Cooling down in summer isn’t always an easy task, especially when running around after little ones. And cooling them down is even harder, I know Jasper is always quite sweaty. So I have created my take on frozen yoghurt style ice lollies which are really healthy and refreshing on a warm day. I use a dairy free yoghurt to make my ice lollies plant based but any yoghurt would work really well in this recipe. These lollies are packed full of banana for energy, berries for a Vitamin C boost and yoghurt for some added calcium, making them a great snack for all the family. This recipe will make approximately 6 ice lollies depending on the size of your ice lolly moulds.
When the weather becomes warm, you want to spend as much time outside soaking up the sun and enjoying lighter evenings as possible. That can make it difficult to want to spend loads of time cooking over a warm oven, so picky meals are a go to. But just because they are easy to prepare and quick to throw together doesn’t mean that aren’t as healthy as a meal that has taken longer to cook. The list below is a tasty mix of proteins, fats and carbohydrates and it includes plenty veggies to. All the ideas are plant based but they could be served as sides at a barbecue as well. These types of meals are also a great way of introducing some different foods to your little ones.
So here are some quick and easy, delicious and healthy food ideas to include in your summer picnic or barbecue (they are also toddler approved by Jasper!).
Who else loves risotto? It is a favourite in our house so I decided to create a healthy, plant based version. This one is loaded with peppers which are great source of vitamin A and vitamin C and tomatoes which are full of antioxidants. This meal goes down really well with Jasper (my one year old) so it is also really family friendly. The quantities listed below are to making a serving for 3 people.
About a month ago, we decided that it was time to start trying to wean Jasper off milk feeds in the night. Before this he could be awake up to 6 times in the night and wanted milk up to 3 of those times. As he is breast fed, I needed to do all the wake ups with him and I was starting to reach a point of complete exhaustion after 11 months of little sleep. It was really starting to affect my mood and ability to function throughout the and with my return to work looming we decided that this would be a good time.
Overall he has done really well with this change. Typically he will now have his bedtime milk between 6pm and 7pm and then next have milk between 5am and 6am so this is quite a big improvement fo us compared to what it was before. I think only once in the last few weeks have I caved and given him milk at 4am. Generally his sleep has also improved a little bit, he does still occasionally have up to 3 wake ups in a night or periods of being restless but it has still got better. Also because he doesn’t have milk in the night anymore it means daddy can help more in the night which has been useful more me to try and catch up on some sleep.
Just for a full disclaimer even though Jasper s playing in his cot in the picture below, he has never slept a full night in there. He has pretty much co-slept with me since he was about 4 months old because he was waking up so regularly it’s the only way I could get any sleep. I secretly really like that he sleeps in my bed so I can watch him sleep and we can we extra cuddles.
Hey! I’ve not written a ‘What I Eat In A Day’ post for a while and I really enjoyed doing the last one so I thought write an updated version. Jasper has actually just turned 11 months but I took these pictures about a week ago when he was still 10 months old and not much has really changed in how he eats in that time. I am still breastfeeding Jasper but he is having much less feeds than the previous post, although still quite a few, and I am slowly trying to wean him more. Me and Jasper eat basically the same meals now so I have also included what he eats. It’s usually presented slightly differently but its pretty much the same as what I have cooked for myself. If you want to know how Jasper’s eating has changed, I wrote this post of what Jasper ate when he was 6 months old.
Lunch – jackets potatoes and beans with baby corn.
Snack – cucumber sticks and houmous
Dinner – fajitas.
My breakfast – porridge.
Jasper’s breakfast – porridge with melon and pinapple.
A few weeks ago I posted a Healthy Green Pesto Recipe and I really enjoyed putting the recipe together and taking the pictures. So I thought I would post another recipe, this time its my leek and sweet potato soup. This has been one of my absolute favourite lunches over winter and Jasper really loves it too, which makes lunchtimes nice and easy when we eat the same! I find this lunch nice and filling because of the sweet potatoes and the added protein of the lentils and it is really tasty too. You might think that the soup looks too chunky for you because I like a really thick soup but I have included options in the recipes to make it the consistency you like.
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