I get many requests to post kid friendly recipes. Ishaan starting eating what we eat from a very young age. There are many things that he does not want to touch – like most of the vegetables. But I always serve him everything that I have prepared. I give him very small quantities, sometimes I ask him to serve food by his own. He tries a little bit some days and other days he does not want to do anything with the vegetables. I am hoping, he will soon start trying new things. He is more open to pastas though. So I experiment a lot with different pastas and pasta sauces.
I have always loved Ravioli . So I introduced it to Ishaan and he loved it too. I usually buy these from the frozen section of grocery stores. I have tried raviolis with different fillings – like cheese, winter squash etc. I am not sure how he will like the spinach filling, yet to try that. I normally buy Ravioletti – which are miniature versions of Raviolis. I make the sauce at home by adding lot of veggies. When he was much younger, he would pick up the green bits from the sauce and throw them down. Now he does not mind them anymore. I use the same sauce for spaghetti also. He loves to serve himself and add the parmesan cheese on top :). The measurements are approximates only. Change them according to your choice. Sometimes I make this sauce in big batch and freeze some to use later.
Ingredients: 2-3 big tomatoes or 1 can tomato paste 1/2 cup zucchini grated 1/2 cup green bell pepper (capsicum) cut into small pieces 1/2 tea spn dried basil or 6-7 fresh leaves 1/4 tea spn black pepper 1/2 tea spn chopped garlic Olive oil/butter Spaghetti/Ravioli Oil Parmesan cheese
Method:
Blanch the tomatoes – bring a pot of water to boil, add the tomatoes. Remove the skin and blend to a smooth paste. You can also use canned tomato paste. Heat oil/butter and add all chopped and grated vegetables, garlic. Cook till they become soft.
Now add the tomato paste, basil, pepper, salt. Let it cook covered for 3-4 mins.
Cook Ravioli or Spaghetti in salted water according to package instructions. Add them to the sauce. Serve hot topped with Parmesan cheese. I also add some pieces of butter for the kid.
Preparation time : 20mins
We had a snow storm 2 weeks ago that dumped about 12″ of snow here in Kansas. Just when we thought we could move around again, we got the second one last week. Although the driveways were cleaned, it was too cold to move around. We still have lot of snow on the ground. This kind of weather calls for some hot soup.
I don’t make chicken soups at home because V does not like chicken flavor in his soups. I love these kind of soups which are packed with nutrition with vegetables and chicken. So I went ahead and prepared this. It came out so well that both V and Ishaan enjoyed it. To be very honest, I wanted to make my favorite chicken noodle soup, but instead of adding noodles (which I did not have), I added a mixture of bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese. I marinated the chicken so that it got nice flavors.
Ingredients: 1 cup onion 1 cup celery 1 cup carrots 1/2 lb chicken chopped into 1/2″ pieces 1/2 tea spn tobasco sauce (optional) 1/2 tea spn pepper 1/2 tea spn dried basil 1 tbl spn parmesan cheese 1 tbl spn panco bread crumbs A little butter/olive oil Chicken/Vegetable stock or water Salt
Method:
Add tobasco sauce, pepper and a little salt to chicken and leave it aside for around 30mins.
Heat oil or butter and fry onions for few minutes till they are translucent. Add salt to onions to help them break down easily. Do not brown them. Now add celery, carrots, water or stock and cook till they are soft. I cooked them in pressure cooker.
Add the chopped chicken and let it cook.
Then add cheese and bread crumbs. Mix and let it get mixed.
Now add dried basil, pepper, cook another min. Serve hot.
PS: I used boneless chicken because that is all I had with me. If you are using chicken with bones, you can cook the marinated chicken separately in water/stock. Take out the pieces, then chop chicken in pieces and save them. Use the stock/water to cook vegetables. When vegetables are cooked, add chicken back to soup.
Serves : 2-3 Preparation time : 20mins
