Potato Wedges

Hello from Reuben

I had a friend to play today and got him to help me make our lunch. His name is Ethan, which confuses our smallest brother Joel as that's the name of our oldest brother too!

Anyway, Mattie made chicken nuggets (coming up in a later post) and so we made homemade chips, well potato wedges really, to go with them.

They are very easy peasy and lemon squeezy (Not sure lemon would taste nice come to think about it!)


Ingredients (What they are made from)

We used 5 potatoes (1 medium potato per person on average)
2 teaspoons of salt
4 tablespoons of cooking oil


You will also need, a saucepan, water, a knife and a roasting tray


Method

Oven on to gas 7

1  Wash the potatoes

2  Very carefully chop them in half

    And then into wedge shapes like this

Mum made me underline the very carefully bit because when we were doing it she was panicking we might cut out fingers, (she said at least 5 times Ethan be careful, your mum will be cross will me if you chop your fingers!) Why wasn't she worried about my fingers?!!

3  When they all chopped put them into a saucepan...

Or you could play basket ball like us! My turn to hold the 'net' and Ethan chucked the wedges

Then Ethan held the net

Anyone see where that last one went!

4  When all the wedges are in the pan, cover with cold water and put on the stove to boil

5  When they have reached boiling, turn them off, and strain with a colander

Anyone seen the colander?

6 Pop the wedges on to a roasting tray and cover with the oil, salt and stir very gently to make sure they are coated with out breaking them up

7  Cook for about 45-50 minutes until golden brown

8  When they are cooked, very carefully (the oil is really hot) use a slotted spoon to lift them onto some kitchen roll, this helps them to drain some of the oil away

9  Eat

We hope you enjoy these.

Sometimes we put a couple of teaspoons of mixed herbs or paprika on them before cooking, and you can make a nice dip by chopping a few chives into some mayonaise too.

Thank you to Ethan for helping to cook

Thank you for your time

Bye for now from Reuben

(Ethan, Mattie, Jacob and Joel bean too)

Wheat and Dairy free, peanut butter cookies

Hello From Mattie

We are off to a street party today and have to take some food. I sometimes find in difficult at parties because I can't eat lots of the food, I am allergic to wheat and dairy.  I asked mum if I could make something new to take with me, and this is what we came up with, I hope you enjoy them.

Peanut butter cookies {Wheat and dairy free)

Ingredients (What you need)

4oz/115g Soya butter
4oz/115g Brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
8oz/225g peanut butter, the crunchy one is better for crunchy cookies
4oz/115g Gluten free flour
A half teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
pinch salt



Method (How to make them)


Put the oven on too 180/gas 4


1  Mix together the butter and sugar, until its completely mixed

I weighed the butter then the sugar, the sugar stuck in the
weighing scales so i had to check I had got it all out

2  Crack the egg into a cup and then mix with a fork

3  Pour the egg into the butter mix, then stir in the peanut butter too

4  Add the vanilla extract if using

5  Stir in the flour, bicarbonate of soda and the salt

6  Mix really well


7  Grease your baking trays with a bit of soya butter, you can put some on a tray and use kitchen towel to spread it

8  Using a teaspoon, scoop up spoonfuls of mixture and drop them onto the baking trays. Try and make them similar sizes or smaller ones might burn or larger ones might not cook properly

9  Carefully put the trays into the oven and bake the cookies for about 12 minutes

10  Take the trays out and leave the cookies on them for a few minutes, then carefully move them onto a cooling wrack

11  Enjoy them, Ethan did, he had more than the rest of us put together

I hope you enjoy these cookies, you can use normal flour and proper butter if you like too


Than you for your time


Mattie

(Ethan, Reuben, Jacob and Joel bean too)

Rocket rockets? More rocket flopits!

Hello everyone

We have a few photographs to share with you of our Rocket Rockets....

A quick recap, in the beginning we made rockets, and planted them with rocket seeds, put them somewhere sunny, kept them watered and watched everyday, and blogged about them every week.  To start with they grew really quickly. Then there was the disastrous rocket launching dog incident and it was a bit down hill from then. Three carried on growing and three struggled a bit, before they all sloooooooowed right down altogether :(



Here is how they are looking today

There are even some proper rocket shaped leaves

But just when we thought there might be hope after all, the bugs came :(

Green fly Mum says.


Why are they picking on our rocket when there are these beans next door that they haven't touched at all..

We think we are going to have to start again, did anyone else have better luck? We would love to see your photographs or hear your tales.



Thank you for your time



Ethan, Reuben, Mattie, Jacob and Joel Bean

Lots of Lentils

Hello everybody

Sorry that we haven't written to you this week, we have had a busy time at school, including test weeks. Ethan has been doing his SATs and lots of other busy things too.  It isn't that we haven't been doing lots of exciting things, just haven't had time to write!

We have had time to make lunch today though, so we are back on track.

Lentils, yummier than you might think.

This is another easy peasy dinner that we can make all by ourselves (With mum in the background reminding us about hot pans etc)

so...

Lentil dhal

Ingredients (What you need)

200g dried split red lentils
1 can chopped tomatoes
Water, (measured out in empty can, see method)
1 heaped teaspoon of turmeric powder
1 heaped teaspoon of cumin seeds
1 level teaspoon of mild chilli powder
25g or largish slice of butter (Or soya if dairy free/Vegan)
half teaspoon sugar
half teaspoon salt

You'll also need a couple of frying pans and a wooden spoon

(Mum's note - If you missed out the sugar and salt this meal would make a good weaning food)


Method (How to make it)

1  Weigh out your lentils

2  Pop them in a frying pan, add chopped tomatoes

3  Using the empty tomato can, fill twice with water and add that

4  Add turmeric, stir and simmer for abut 15-20 minutes, they will go from hard to crunchy

    To soft

5  Keep stirring, you may need to add a little more water, but not too much, mind that it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan, or you'll be in trouble at washing up time!

Whilst it as cooking mum said that the tumeric smelled earthy, it sounded silly to me so I thought I'd check.... and I'm still not sure

6  In a second pan melt the butter, add the cumin seeds and cook for 1 minute, then add chilli powder, stir, and cook for another minute.

7  Pour the butter mixture into the lentil mixture. Stir.

8  Add sugar and salt if using. Stir.

9  That's it, done.  We had ours with rice and salad, but you can have it on its own, dip pitta bread in to it, have it with baked potato, have it cold for lunch with crackers to dip in to it... you get the idea.

Mum said to tell you that it is really good for you and very cheap to make, she said it has protein, fibre and lots of good for you things. She also said it makes for happy bottoms!!



Hope you are enjoying our recipes, my value animal from school is

Love Mattie

(Ethan, Reuben, Jacob and Joel bean too)

Busy bees

Hello everybody

We have had a busy few weeks and here are a few pictures of the things we have been up to.... apart from the testing at school, we might have got into some trouble for photographing that !!



Tyneham to Warbarrow bay

Tyneham

Walking in the Woods

Walking

Hanging out with our friends from Canada

Taking time to smell the flowers with friends

Foraging for nettles and wild garlic (Ransoms)

Fruity Chicken (very easy)

Hello


Ethan would like to share one of our favourite chicken recipes, it is very easy because you just put everything in together, and tastes great. Mum says it works well if you cook it up the day before you need it, then reheat it, we don't know why but it tastes even better.

(Note from mum - because this recipe has no stock, salt or added sugar it is a great toddler food too and I have pureed it for all of the boys as a baby food from 9 months, adding some freshly cooked rice or cous cous for texture just before serving) Also for slightly fussy children you can whizz up the tomatoes, apricots and sultanas before adding chicken so that it is more smooth sauce texture and the fruit is less obvious!! Ethan says "Mum, that's really sneaky, cool!"

Ingredients ( What you need )

One packet of diced chicken or a couple of chicken breasts chopped
One can of apricots in juice (Not in syrup!)
One can chopped tomatoes
One onion
One handful of sultanas
One teaspoon mixed herbs

You will also need one large sauce pan with lid, we used mum's Le crusset pan, boy is that heavy, you wouldn't want to drop it on your foot! Even the lid weighs a ton!!


Method ( How you make it


1  Carefully chop your onion into really small pieces, (this is called finely diced) If you put a fork in one end then use you knife you are less likely to chop your fingers off

2  Put it into your saucepan and add your apricots with their juice

3  Put in your handful of sultanas

4  Add you tomatoes, herbs, chicken



5  Using your empty cans, fill both with water and add that too. Stir and then heat. Note to self, when using mum's posh pan don't use a metal spoon, she can shout quite loudly about scratching it, seriously this pan is like the thickest metal ever but apparently it matters and I have to tell you to use a wooden spoon!

6  You need to bring the mixture up to boiling ( When its bubbling really fast and tries to splash hot bits into your eye you have got there) and then turn it right down to low and leave it to cook slowly for about and hour and a half, or until the chicken is really soft and falling apart.

7  There might be lots of liquid left, but this is useful when reheating, If you want to use it straight away just simmer without the lid for a while and the liquid will start to disappear and your mum will say "Open a window!" as the kitchen steams up :)

8  We like to eat ours with rice, cous cous or jacket potatoes

Thanks for reading, have a try and let us know what you think.



Bye for now

Ethan

(Reuben, Mattie, Jacob and Joel too)