Ned's Eat-Your-Veg Tart

Ned is a typical almost-two-year-old. He loves something one day, won't countenance it the next, will eat kale and broccoli but rejects most other vegetables, won't look at fruit and is most happy with sausages and chips (as long as some 'chup' is present). It sort makes you lose your mind a little - not only the problem of 'are they getting enough fruit and vegetables?' but the sheer waste of food. Thank god for my dogs. But we went to hang out with my friend Laura and her twin boys and she had been to her friends house the week before who had produced this tart that had been eaten by all the children. Laura made it for our boys and again it all went in and it's been a huge hit in our house ever since.

I now make sure that I have pre-rolled, puff pastry that I've cut into one child sized portions in the freezer so I can just pull one or two out and make one of these tarts to feel I'm getting enough goodness into the boy. It was also incredibly useful on holiday in France. We could get puff pastry sheets and the vegetables there are fantastic so it was a sure fire baby friendly hit... in fact I ended up making it for the whole family for lunch one day, it was so in demand.

This is incredibly versatile - you can use what vegetables you have in the house and leave off anything you know your child will reject (Ned will not countenance a mushroom). I'm putting Ned's favourite options below but you use what you like. I would say that a pesto base and cheese topping are always winners but anything seems to go in between! 

I was reluctant to post this because it seems very obvious but it's very hard to get stuck in a rut when cooking for children and this has been a real savior for us. It would also be a great option for if you had a vegetarian child for lunch or supper, though obviously leave off the tuna/ham. You can add red peppers, tomatoes to make it sweet and appealing.

Ned's Eat Your Veg Tart

1 x pack pre-rolled puff pastry (I pack will do 2-4 two year olds but I pre-cut and  freeze squares big enough for one child. You can always defrost a couple if there are friends for supper)
Pesto
Courgette
Tuna/tinned salmon/ham
Sweetcorn
Cheddar Cheese

1. Lay the pastry (cut to the size you need) on a baking tray and spread a thin layer of pesto over the base leaving about a centimetre around the edge for the pastry to puff up.

2. Thinly slice the courgette and lay that over the top of the pesto.

3. Next add the tuna, salmon or ham that you want to use.

4. Sprinkle over the sweetcorn.

5. Grate over the cheese.

6. Cook for 15-20 mins. You want this to be golden and puffed around the edges and the cheese to be melted. If you don't cook for long enough the pastry will be all limp and unappealing.

Spring Rhubarb Relish

We recently started getting a small Abel & Cole fruit and veg box delivered every week and although there are some things I've banned from the box one of the reasons I wanted to try out the delivery system was to widen my knowledge of how to actually use the fruit and veg that I'm not so keen on. This was put to the test a few weeks ago as I hovered next to the bin with the rhubarb that I hated, the baby I knew wouldn't touch and there was no point putting in a pudding for my away-with-work husband. There's got to be something I can do with this, I thought. And there was.

I like any excuse to get out my Preserves book and it didn't disappoint with my rhubarb problem. Really easy to make and Joe loves it this relish is perfect with cheeses, quiches and pork pies and makes a really nice change from more traditional chutneys.

Spring Rhubarb Relish

Makes about 4 x 340g jars

500g granulated sugar
100ml cider vinegar
1kg rhubarb (untrimmed weight)
125g raisins

For the spice bag:
50g fresh root ginger, bruised
2 cinnamon sticks, snapped in half
6 cloves

You will need a spice bag or 20cm square of muslin, a preserving pan and some jars.

1. First make the spice bag by tying up the bruised ginger , Cinnamon sticks and cloves in a 20cm square of muslin (or a pre-made spice bag).

2. Put the sugar, vinegar , 100ml water and the spice bag into a preserving pan. Heat gently to dissolve the sugar and allow the spices to release their flavours into the syrup. Remove from the heat and set aside to infuse for about 20 minutes.

3. While it's infusing, trim and wipe the rhubarb stalks and chop into 2-2.5cm chunks.

4. Add the rhubarb and raisins to the spiced syrup. Cook gently for 15-20 minutes until the mixture is thick, but the rhubarb is still discernible as soft chunks.

5. Remove from the heat and pour into warm, sterlised jars and seal with vinegar proof lids.

Use within 12 months.

Rhubarb relish does not photograph well...

Nigella Lawson's Italian Apple Pie

We've unpacked my cookery books! Finally after months of having to cook from memory I'm able to try out the huge list of recipes I've flagged for testing. One of the books I was really looking forward to getting my hands one was Nigellissima: Instant Italian Inspiration and so when I decided to have my family for a summer supper in the garden I cooked two recipes from it. The first was a pasta dish which was perfectly nice but needed some tweaking (in my opinion). The other recipe was this Italian Apple Pie which I did at the last minute realising I'd forgotten about pudding and I had some apples that needed using up.

I was really focussed on the pasta and indeed so focussed that I was happily gossiping outside not realising that the alarm was going off to let me know the pie was reading - meaning it had a few charred patches. A disaster I thought, bin it immediately. However, I was persuaded to serve it and I am so glad it was saved from the bin. It was incredibly delicious and unusual and actually very light for what is basically a cake (the sponge was so good I'm going to use this method for other cakes) and great with double cream (and strawberries on the side) for a pudding or indeed with a cup of coffee as elevenses, It is incredibly easy to make and Ned loved it so much that he learnt to say 'cake'!

Italian Apple Pie

Serves 8

100g soft unsalted butter, plus more for greasing
250g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder 
pinch of salt
150g caster sugar
2 eggs
zest 1 unwaxed lemon
1 tsp vanilla extract
75ml full fat milk, at room temperature
3 pink lady apples, or any crisp eating apples (approx 500g in total)

You will need to grease a 22/23cm springform cake tin and line the bottom with baking parchment. Pre-heat the oven to 200C/Gas Mark 6/400F.

1. Into a food processor put the flower, baking powder and a pinch of salt, 100g soft butter, caster sugar, eggs, lemon zest, and vanilla extract, and blitz until it forms a thick smooth batter. Then, with the motor still running, pour the milk gradually down the funnel to lighten the mixture.

2. To do this by hand, beat the butter and sugar together until pale and creamy, then beat in the eggs, followed by the flour, baking powder, salt, vanilla, lemon zest, and milk until you have a batter with a soft dropping consistency.

3. Halve 1 of the apples, the peel, core and chop one half into approximately 1cm cubes, add these to the batter and either pulse to mix, or beat in. Pour your batter into the springform tin.

4. Quarter and core the remaining apples (including the unused half apple), leaving the skin on, then finely slice them and arrange in concentric circles (or how you can) on top of the cake batter.

5. Mix together the brown sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle this over the apples, then bake for 40-45 minutes, by which time the cake should be risen and golden. Piece with a metal skewer, should have only a few crumbs sticking to it when removed.

6. Leave to cool for 1 hour, before springing it out of the tine to cut and serve warm, or leave to cool completely once out of the tin

How to switch a Bugaboo Bee pram from parent facing to outward facing and how to get your kid to sleep on a train

On my other blog I try to do a video every Friday. As it's a make-up and beauty blog I don't put the videos up here very often but one of my most popular videos is about my pram (typical) so I thought another one may be useful...

Jamie Oliver's Incredibly Delicious Chicken Salad

As you may know my latest love is Jamie's 15-Minute Meals and anyone who's been coming to our house has been getting fed from it. I could do each recipe as I try them but as I've yet to try a dud this would be a bit of a one theme blog and I would be in trouble with the publishers. So I thought I would go for this one because so far it has been the one that Joe made the most excitable noises over and it's the one I thought he'd like least because it has 'salad' in the title and he's a boy.

It didn't take me 15 mins but not far off and it was really filling. We finished it between three of us but we're quite gluttonous - it would do four (as the recipe suggests) for lunch or if you had a pudding. I left out the lemons though because I hate them and THIS IS MY HOUSE JAMIE. And the cress. I just can't be doing with cress.

Incredibly Delicious Chicken Salad

Serves 4

for the salad:
1 head of broccoli
4 x 120g skinless chicken breasts
1 heaped tsp ground coriander
olive oil
1 mug (300g) Bulgar wheat
2 preserved lemons
1 bunch radishes
2 spring onions
½ a bunch fresh mint
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tbsp sunflower seeds
1 punnet of cress

to serve:
4 tbsp fat-free natural yoghurt
2 tsp harissa
1 lemon

1. Fill up a medium pan with a lid, with boiling, salted water. Trim the end off the broccoli and cut the head to florets and add to the pan., cover and boil for 4 minutes.

2. On a large sheet of greaseproof paper, toss the chicken with the salt, pepper and ground coriander, then fold the paper over and bash with a rolling pin til it's about 1.5cm thick. Put into a large frying pan with 2 tablespoons of olive oil on a high heat turning after 3 or 4 minutes until golden and cooked through.

3. With tongs, remove and drain the broccoli (leaving the water in the pan on the heat) and put on a hot griddle until nicely charred.

4. Cook the Bulgar wheat according to the instructions on the packet in the broccoli water with the preserved lemons if you are using them.

5. Halve or crush the radishes, trim and finely slice the spring onions and the top leafy half of the mint then toss it all in a bowl with the extra virgin olive oil and vinegar and season to taste.

6. Drain the Bulgar wheat and tip into a large serving bowl, then mash and mix in the preserved lemons and arrange the broccoli on top.

7. Toss the sunflower seeds in the chicken pan, then slice the chicken and add to the salad scattering over the seeds and snipping over the cress.

8. Serve dolloped with the yoghurt and drizzles of harissa and with lemon wedges on the side.

Jamie's 15 Minute Meals

I don't usually do full book reviews on here. I think it's more useful to review individual recipes that I have tried that worked, however I love this book so much it's getting it's very own post. SO THERE.

I wasn't that keen on the Jamie's 30-Minute Meals: A Revolutionary Approach to Cooking Good Food Fast . Because there was often three parts to each meal there would usually only be one part that I liked the sound of and that seemed to defeat the point of the book for me. I bought it for Joe because he wanted it and it really is his sort of food and he really likes the whole timed aspect of it (never taken him less than 45mins but our kitchen is tiny and Jamie doesn't factor in having to actually wash up half way through) and it's really the only recipe book he cooks from. But while I was at a friends house waiting for her to change my godson's nappy I picked up Jamie's 15-Minute Meals and flicked through it and was incredibly surprised to find I wanted to cook 85% of the things in there. That's huge - I'm an incredibly picky eater.

I may be getting old (veering towards 31) but I recently decided that if I could have ten minutes to sit down with a celebrity-that's-not-Slash, Jamie Oliver would be in the running for that prestigious honour. Why? Because I think he is generally interested in people (and it's all about me obvs) and is actually a nice guy I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU SAY.

Anyway I bought Jamie's 15-Minute Meals and tonight I'm planning on cooking my second thing from it and I've only had it a couple of weeks This is unheard of. It just lives on the kitchen table tempting me to cook from it. If tonight's recipe goes well and I remember to take pictures then I will post it up here but for now here are some reasons why this book is awesome...

1. It has great compromise food. Quite often Joe will get home at 9pm and want to eat. I don't want to eat at 9pm but I'm too gluttonous to cook and watch him eat and not eat anything myself. It has a lot of lighter, salady things but with meat in that suit both of us and actually are great for this time of year when you want to cook something filling but not meat-and-two-veg.

2. It's completely different to his other books. New recipes, new types of ingredients, slightly new way of writing. It must be really hard to keep churning them out even if you do have new recipe ideas but it's a completely different book to Jamie's 30-Minute Meals: A Revolutionary Approach to Cooking Good Food Fast (and I mean that in a publishing way not in a literal stupid way...).

3. There are great ideas but it's not too wacky. I don't like lemon (but you know that), I don't like courgette or aubergine but I also don't want to be driving to a business park in Park Royal (no park, no evidence of royalty) to buy some suspicious smelling paste or a gadget to make edible cellophane (sorry Heston). If there's something I don't like (preserved lemons in tonight's recipe) I leave it out or substitute it and it doesn't really matter. You are not going to get halfway through a recipe (supposedly 7.5 minutes in) and discover you need something that is hard to find during daylight hours let alone 8.30pm. Don't get me wrong sometimes I want wacky. I do. But with an 18 month old, two dogs and a husband who thinks that playing football on a Tuesday until 9.30pm is fun I mostly want yummy and simple.

4. I LOVE JAMIE (sorry that slipped out).

5. I prefer his outfit on Jamie's 15-Minute Meals to Jamie's 30-Minute Meals: A Revolutionary Approach to Cooking Good Food Fast (this is a well rounded review isn't it).