Frozen Yogurt Berry Dessert
This is my favourite quick and easy summer dessert. My children love it and it is made of only 3 healthy ingredients and you don’t have to add any sugar. All you need is bananas, yogurt, and frozen berries. The berries have to be frozen to get the icy effect, but if you have fresh berries in your kitchen you can add some as decoration, as I did.
Just put 250 g yogurt, 2 ripe bananas and about 350 g frozen berries in a blender. Add the berries in small portions, and make sure your blender is hard core enough to crush ice cubes. Adding more berries will create a sorbet or even ice cream effect and if you use blueberries as well you will get an amazing colour.
Berry cookies
This recipe is based on traditional oatmeal slices or breakfast bars. They contain a lot of oats, which makes them healthy, but because they are also quite sweet and sugary adding berries creates a perfect balance. You can use all kinds of berries, even frozen ones. I was lucky enough to have some fresh red currants from my garden. To avoid crumbling and falling apart when cutting, which always happens to me, just use a muffin tray lined with paper muffin cups instead of a square tin.
You need: 175 g butter, 125 g brown sugar, 50 g honey, 350 g rolled oats and some fresh or frozen berries, a muffin tray and paper liners.
Melt butter, sugar and honey in a small pot on the stove over low heat and stir until dissolved. Combine with the rolled oats in a large bowl. Add the berries and distribute the mix into the muffin tray. You can use a small bottle or a glass that fits into the moulds to gently press down the contents. It works best with frozen berries, with fresh ones you have to be careful not to squash them.
Bake at 180 degrees for about 20 minutes. Once they are baked and have cooled you can take them out of the muffin cups and they will have a beautiful shape. However, if you use colourful muffin cups and leave them in there, it will make them even more appealing to your children and they will look much nicer in their lunch boxes.
Chocolate banana cookies
This is a quick and easy recipe for chocolate banana cookies. They are perfect for afternoon guests and even more perfect for you children’s lunch box, if you decide to give them an extra little treat. I used my friend’s tip on what to do with left over Easter chocolate – you can find it in her lovely blog.
Ingredients: 125 g butter, 125 g sugar, 2 mashed bananas, 1 egg, 175 g flour with half a teaspoon baking soda, 100 g chocolate chips and 50 g sliced almonds.
Beat sugar and butter until creamy. Add the egg and bananas. Mix well. Sift flour with baking soda and carefully combine all ingredients. Add chocolate chips and almonds. Distribute into even portion onto a baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake for 15 – 20 minutes at 180 degrees.
Mother’s Day thoughts
My daughters really wanted to buy me some presents for Mother’s Day. They wanted to buy me books, because they know how much I love them. However after thinking about the commercial side of Mother’s Day, I didn’t want them to fall into such a consumer trap so early in their lives.
So I told them I didn’t want anything from a store for Mother’s Day. I said I would be happy to just sit on the balcony, in the sun, and drink coffee with daddy, while I watch them play downstairs in the garden (that really is my favourite way to spend any free time). They were a bit puzzled, but quickly accepted my request.
And then they went off to make me the sweetest gift. A handmade heart and and a written invitation to the lovely new cafe down the street, which they know I really want to, but didn’t have time to go to yet. It really made me happy.
Fun for kids: Easter eggs and bunnies in miniature watering cans
This year I’m totally hopeless with Easter. Unexpected work, travel and a long lingering flu prevented me from doing the preparations I normally love to do weeks in advance. So, when I went to the Supermarket yesterday to do my last minute Easter shopping I still had not thought about what I would use as Easter egg nests.
The little baskets I used in the previous years were somewhere in a box in the attic and finding them would have probably taken me at least an hour, which I didn’t really have to spare. But then I saw these little watering cans in the flower section – reduced to 50 cents- and I instantly had the idea of using them instead of the baskets.
So I went home, cleaned them and filled them for my little nephew and my daughters. The nice thing is the watering cans can be used during spring and summer to water little freshly planted seeds, or they can be used as little flower pots to plant cress, or other small sprouts or herbs. A perfect gardening toy for little children. Happy Easter to you all !
Spring decoration: Candy twigs
I always wanted to be able to build a nest like a bird, just to put it on the table or somewhere else as a decoration. Maybe that’s why I always start to collect the little twigs from the birch trees in front of our house, as soon as they come down with the first spring storm.
So far I have decorated presents with them or made wreaths with spring flowers, but today I had a different idea. I was inspired by all the beautiful things I had seen on pinterest, especially this one.
I used Haribo Pico-Balla because of their nice colours and their perfect small size. Their soft centers can be gently pushed onto the little protruding bits of the twigs and they just stay there like magic.
Fun food for children: Popcorn
Here is a little tip for everyone who loves making popcorn the traditional way, without using a microwave. To avoid any burning and to make sure as many kernels as possible pop, just use this simple trick.
Cover the bottom of a saucepan with sunflower oil. Heat the oil just a little bit, then put in 4 kernels and wait until all of them have popped. Quickly add the rest, which shouldn’t be much more than a handful and listen to the beautiful sound of the bursting kernels. As soon as the popping slows down take the popcorn away from the heat and immediately pour them out into a large glass bowl. Add your favourite seasoning and voila!
I love to make them as a little afternoon snack when my children have visitors. To add to the fun use a glass lid and let your children (carefully) watch how the kernels explode.
Potato Stamps
Do you remember being told not to play with food when you were a child? Well, this is one occasion were you can ignore this rule. Making potato stamps is such fun and when you use your stamps to make cards you actually save some money as well.
We used a little trick to create even shapes. Just cut away the top third of the potato and then punch a cookie cutter into it and remove the bits around the cookie cutter with a knife. It works best with big potatoes and small cookie cutters.
Once everything is removed carefully lift off the cookie cutter and you have a beautiful stamp. We used our stamps to make a card for our new little cousin and niece Mia in Australia.
Raspberry Muffins
These Muffins are perfect for birthday parties, school and kindergarten festivities or just to have with friends or family when they come over for a coffee. They contain less sugar than most other muffins and thanks to the sour cream they taste very light and fluffy.
I always use frozen raspberries, because they contain their shape. If you like you can substitute some of the sour cream with yogurt or mascarpone. Or, if you live in a country where it is available you can use some quark, which works really well. When using this recipe I often end up with to much batter which I then fill into a miniature spring form to make a cute little cake for my children.
Easy Raspberry Muffins:
250 g flour, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
120 g sugar, 120 g butter, 1 medium sized egg, 300 g sour cream, 150 g frozen raspberries
Mix flour, baking soda and baking powder in a bowl and set aside.
In a separate bowl, beat sugar and butter for about 2 minutes . Add the egg and mix until combined. Add sour cream and stir well. Gently fold under the flour mix, until all ingredients are just combined. It’s best to use a large metal spoon.
Distribute the batter into a muffin tray lined with paper cups and add three frozen raspberries to each mould, gently pressing them into the batter. Bake for approximately 25 minutes at 170ºC , depending on your oven. Let them cool down and dust with some icing sugar.
