Vegetable Muss: A Baby Food Recipe

Check this out, awesomely simple, packed with vitamins, easy to prepare baby food recipe. 4 Steps: Peel it; Steam or Boil it; Blend it; Freeze it and you are done 🙂

There you go, my second attempt to make food for my little T. We started giving him some food a few weeks ago and quite quickly I realized that boiling 1/3 of a carrot with 1/6 of broccoli every time he wants to eat won’t work. It takes so much time and effort for a tiny one-off meal. So, to make my life simpler I decided to act:)

Please remember that to make baby food you DO NOT have to buy special containers for storing homemade baby food, as they are ridiculously expensive! Instead, I used a variety of silicone trays I had at home. Some were for ice cubes, some for small cup cakes. Don’t worry if you don’t have them. Even the ice cube tray will do- we all have it in our freezer or a silicone muffin tray- just don’t fill it completely.

Why you should do it yourself instead of buying?

When done in bulk and frozen, it takes little time to prepare and its so handy.

It cost very little in comparison to store bought ready made baby food.

Its healthier!

You do not create any rubbish (many baby food packaging is non recyclable)

Recipe:

• 2 Organic Beetroot
• 3 Organic Kumara (Sweet Potato)
• 2 Organic Carrots
• 1 Cup Organic Lentils

1. Peel all the vegetables.
2. Steam Beetroot, Kumara and Carrots together.
3. Boil lentils without any spices or salt
4. Blend veggies together until smooth
5. Wash your blender and process lentils until smooth
6. Cool both mixtures down, put the paste in silicon forms and freeze overnight.

Next take them out of the form and put into a plastic bag and keep in a freezer:)

5 Step Vegan ‘Snickers’ Cake

You are literally 5 steps away to an amazingly tasty, spongy, sweet&salty masterpiece. 60 minutes from the thought ‘I want to try this recipe’ to ‘Omg its so delicious’ 🙂 

No complicated ingredients, no complicated instructions.

Flexible recipe that is open to adjustments, all to suit your personal preferences 🙂

Cake Recipe

Step 1: Make a Wet Part

2 ½ Cup of Non-Dairy Milk (soya; almond; rice; oat or any other)

¾ Cup of Oil (canola; rice bran; sunflower or any other)

2 Tbsp. Apple Cider Vinegar

Juice of 1 lemon

Vanilla extract

Step 2: Make a Dry Part

3 Cups of All-Purpose Flour

1 Cup of Sugar (white, brown, demerara or coconut)

2 Tsp Baking Soda

2 Tsp Baking Powder

Pinch of salt

Step 3: Mix, Pour, Bake

Combine wet with dry using a spoon (doesn’t have to be a wooden spoon, and you don’t have to turn right only:))

Pour into a baking form.

Bake in 175 Celsius for approximately 30 minutes (that depends on your oven) J

To remember:

Grease and flour your baking form before you pour the cake mixture.

Choose a correct size baking form as you will be cutting the sponge horizontally to put the cream in

Step 4: Peanut Cream

½ Cup of Peanut Butter (Almond butter; Cashew Butter, Sunflower Butter)

1-2 Tbsp. of Water (might be less or more depending on the consistency of your nut butter)

Blend it well and spread on the first layer of the cake. Cover with the other half and press gently.

Step 5: Chocolate Icing

2 Cups of Soaked Dates (drain the excess water)

2 Tbsp. of Cocoa Powder

Blend together and cover the cake.

And you are done!!! Enjoy a guilt free vegan snickers cake:)

Sunflower seed ‘nut’ butter recipe

This is my first post in Cooking4Less Category so I’m really excited about it 🙂 A simple recipe for sweet ‘nut’ butter made of Sunflower Seeds.

Its fast; simple; cheap; healthy and most importantly delicious !

In New Zealand you can only get plain sunflower seed butter in health shops and its crazy expensive in comparison to the price of raw sunflower seeds! The good news is that you can make it yourself in less than 30 minutes:) So, read it; make it and tell me what you think about it 🙂

Recipe:

• 3 cups of raw sunflower seeds (amount depends on how much ‘nut’ butter you want to make)
• 1/4 cup of sesame  seeds ( you can alter the amount to your liking)
• 1/4 cup of maple syrup (optional, you can alter the amount depending on how sweet you want it to be, also if you want add honey or rice syrup instead)
• Pinch of salt (sea salt, Himalayan salt or normal salt- this one is optional as well)

Steps:

1. Roast sunflower seeds on a frying pan and let them cool down. Make sure you stand over it and mix it constantly to avoid burning the seeds.
2. Roast sesame seeds on a frying pan and let them cool down. And again, make sure you stand over it and mix it constantly to avoid burning the seeds.
3. Put roasted sunflower to your food processor and mix until you get buttery texture.
4. Put in a bowl and add maple syrup, sesame seeds and salt and mix it all with a spoon.
5. Enjoy 🙂

Roasted Sunflower Seeds

Mmmmmmmmmm…delicious:)