Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Kids' Food Recipes!

Here are a few recipes suitable for children - healthy and tasty, that work or have worked with Puttachi.

Oatmeal: Takes just two minutes to make - and you have a healthy, wholesome, tasty meal!
What you need:
A handful of Quaker oats
Milk
Sugar/honey/jaggery

How I make it:
1) Put the oats into a microwaveable bowl
2) Pour enough milk on it to just cover the oats.
3) Microwave for 2 minutes.
4) Take out the bowl, add milk to dilute the oatmeal, which would have become very thick. Adding cold milk brings down the temperature, ensuring that you can feed it to your child immediately.
5) Add sugar or honey or jaggery to taste.

Puttachi loves oatmeal. It tastes far better when sweetened with jaggery.

Wheat Dosa:
A handful of whole wheat flour
Milk
Salt
Optional: A tablespoon of rice flour for crispness, chilli powder, jeera, onions, other finely chopped vegetables - whatever, depending on your child's age and taste.

1) Add the flour into a bowl.
2) Add milk and stir so that no lumps are formed. Add enough milk to bring it to a dosa batter consistency.
3) Add salt to taste, and other ingredients of your choice, and mix well.
4) Spread it out like a dosa on a tava. A suggestion - make many tiny 2 inch circumference diameter dosas instead of one big one. Somehow, it tastes better!
5) Use ghee instead of oil for the dosa. Great flavour!
6) Serve as it is, or with anything - sugar, shrikhand, honey, ketchup, chutney, etc.

Btw, this is a great instant snack for adults too. Very tasty.

A kind of Soup:
1 carrot
1 tomato
1 onion
A handful of peas
7-8 string beans
A piece of beetroot/chow chow/any other vegetable lying around in your refrigerator
1 clove of garlic
1 potato OR two slices of whole wheat bread
3-4 1 inch cubes of paneer
A piece of cheese or a dollop of cheese spread
Milk
Salt to taste.

1) Cook all the vegetables together with salt.
2) Blend it all in a mixer with the paneer, bread (if you are using potato, cook it along with the other veggies) and milk.
3)Add a dollop of cheese spread or a cube of cheese, mix well and serve hot.

Puttachi just gobbles this up - it is an entire meal of its own - easy to make, great taste, healthy and filling.

Khichdi 1:
1:1 rice and split greengram (hesaru bELe). The split greengram has to be dry roasted until light brown before use.
Ghee
Jeerige (cumin seeds)
Vegetables - carrot, beans, peas, chow chow, etc., chopped
1 onion
Cloves of garlic - according to taste.
Ghee

1) Heat ghee in a small cooker, and add the jeera to it.
2) Add chopped garlic and chopped onion, fry in ghee until fragrant.
3) Add all chopped vegetables, and the 1:1 rice-dal mixture, and cook it all together until done.


Khichdi 2 (Huggi).
1:1 rice - split greengram (roasted)
Ghee
A few pepper corns (menasu)
A few cloves (lavanga)
A piece of cinnamon (dalchini)

1) Heat ghee, fry lightly pepper, cloves and cinnamon.
2) Add rice and dal and cook until done.
3) Be sure to remove the pepper, cloves and cinnamon before serving to the child.

Both the above khichdis, if cooked such that it is sticky, can be eaten by the child herself. If it is liquidy, she will need a spoon, or you might have to feed her.

Mini snacks:

Boiled potatoes mixed with cheese
Boiled peas on a plate
Pomegranate seeds

The peas and pomegranates are great for keeping the child occupied for a while :D

I will put up more kids' recipes as I discover them. I would also welcome such recipes from you! :)

All the best!

15 comments:

Abhipraya said...

Ok excpet for oats...the rest of them look yummy enough for me to try for myself :D

This is very sweet of you...I am sure a lot of new mothers will appreciate this.

Anonymous said...

hey shruthi,
Thank u so much.........after reading ur blog and through urs visiting others blogs i got so much inspired tat i too started blogging.......

Dhanya said...

All r quick n looks yummy too.. I might try it for myself ;)

Unknown said...

Thanks for those recipes, Shruthi! Here are a few of my tried and tested ones:

Oatmeal variation - add chopped fruits after cooking. Bananas, strawberry and blueberries have worked well with my daughter.

Spicy version for oatmeal (more for you than Puttachi, maybe!) - add curd/yogurt to the oatmeal after it is cooked, and mix it with uppinakayi or thokku (any pickle) and eat.

Grilled cheese sandwich - spread butter on both sides of two pieces of bread and toast one side on tawa for 3-4 minutes till brown. Place a slice (or two) of American cheese on one slice of bread, and cover with other slice and toast till cheese melts.

(veggie option from a book I have- puree cooked carrots and sweet potatoes to paste and spread that on the bread before you toast it, add cheese on top of the veggie mixture to hide the difference if kids are picky about how their food looks.

*** The book is called "The Sneaky Chef" by Missy Chase Lapine; www.thesneakychef.com)

A variation of your mashed potato - I mash carrots in with the potatoes, and a spoon or two of baby cereal along with cheese, milk, salt and pepper
(the cereal is handy to up the iron content in any food, I mix it in with saaru anna and other things as well)

Anonymous said...

the wheat flour dosa sounds tasty, am going to try today. the rest will have to wait..:)

praneshachar said...

shruthi when u will come up with a CD or a book which can be a compilations of all right from day one of puttchi to now it is 18 months if I am right

Sumana said...

That is so kind of you to share these truly awesome recipes. I will try each of those for my kids. When you say puttachi loves it, it gives an inspiration to try.

Chitra said...

Heeeey....is this applicable for 'big kids' as well :P?

Mama - Mia said...

Excellent job yet again!! :)

am gonna try em with Cubby for sure!!

cheers!

abha

Unknown said...

Hello Shruti,

You could also try this recipe for Puttachi.

You can modify this to make it more simple instead adding kesar and kishmish and badam altogether.

Regards,

Ritu

Doodh Dalia

Recipe: (Makes for 4)
1 & 1/2 cup dalia (cracked wheat or wheat rava)
1 & 1/2 - 2 cups doodh or milk
Sugar as per sweetness
some kesar (saffron)
2 -3 elaichi or cardamom split open and powdered
A few kishmish or golden raisins
A few badam or almonds slivered
1 -2 tbsp ghee or clarified butter

In a pressure cooker, heat ghee and saute the dalia until you get the aroma and the dalia turns a little brown and looks toasted. Add twice the amount of water and pressure cook it until done. Soak the kesar in some warm water and keep it aside for a few minutes so that color is infused in the water. Soak the kishmish also in another vessel with warm water so that it plumps up. In the meantime, bring milk to a boil and add the cooked dalia, sugar to it and stir for a few minutes. Add more milk if the mixture becomes too thick. Let it be of a thick pouring consistency as this tends to becomes more thick when it cools down. Add the elaichi powder; kesar water, kishmish & stir well. You will smell the aroma of the elaichi and kesar infusing into the dalia doodh mixture. Turn off the stove and let it cool a little bit. Decorate it with slivered almonds, a little more kesar and kishmish. Serve warm.

Veena Shivanna said...

dosa with 2 inch circumference? then its just one drop of batter..

Shruthi said...

Abhipraya, Dhanya, Anu, Sumana, Abha: Do let me know how you/your child liked them!
Veena: Good to hear that! Will check out your blog soon.
Deepa: Thanks a ton. Will let you know how she likes them!
Pranesh: Oh :D
Chitra: Absolutely. Who do you think eats her leftovers with glee?
Ritu: Sounds wonderful. Will try it for myself first :D
Veena: Hardly. I make six or seven fat little dosas with 1 soutu/ladle of batter

Shruthi said...

Veena, my apologies. I meant diameter, not circumference. Corrected it in the post too.

Anonymous said...

Hey

Just once advice. I wanted to write long back but just could not find time.
Don't mix milk with everything. or don't include yogurt/milk in all meals. Calcium in that prevents absorption of iron found in Veggies. And even a well eating child can develop iron deficiency.
The night time milk can be given at least half an hour after dinner.

Anonymous said...

Some Kids food recipes here
http://eatwellkids.blogspot.com/

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