TOMATO AND CHEESE LOAF

You can do lots of variations of the flavours for this savoury cake (and it is a good way for children to learn about pairing flavours)

You need:
3 eggs
225 gr self raising flour
100 ml white wine
100 ml olive oil
salt
3 handfuls of goats cheese (cut into little cubes)
3 handfuls of dried tomatoes (cut into small chunks)
5 basil leaves, chopped.

Preheat the oven at 170 degrees. Mix the eggs, flour, wine, oil and salt. Then add the cheese, tomatoes and basil and mix well (but carefully so that you do not break up the cheese). Put it all into a greased loaf tin and cook for 45 to 50 minutes. Let it cool down a little before you cut it.

GRATED COURGETTES

We eat this often with any meat or poultry (especially good with chicken and roast duck). It also goes well with pasta.
You need:
- 4 courgettes
- a handful of parsley
-3 table spoons of olive oil
- salt
- a quarter of a teaspoon of grated nutmeg

Grate the courgettes (thickly as in the picture). Heat the olive oil in a frying pan. Add the courgettes and let them fry for 8 minutes (stir them a couple of times) then add the salt, the chopped parsley and the grated nutmeg and let it all fry for another 3 to 4 minutes.
You can alter all the measurements to your taste.

As you will see when you cook this the courgettes lose a lot of volume so you will end up with a relatively modest amount of veg at the very end. It is interesting for the children to see how differently the courgettes cook if you add the salt at the beginning ( they 'boil' as water is released) or at the end ( they fry)

KIDS' BIRTHDAY CAKE

This is a fool-proof recipe. We have used this to make all sorts of birthday cakes over the years: trains, castles, jungles, ponds, harry potter worlds, various football clubs emblems, t-shirts, cakes with candy and sugared pictures...you name it.  You can either decorate the cake with buttercream and royal icing of various colours (as in the picture) or cut it into different shapes and glue them with buttercream. It is a tough yet not too heavy cake so it stands all sorts of icing (when we did a jungle we used 500 g of green royal icing and it did not collapse even a tiny bit)

You need:
325 g self raising flour
150 g plain flour
325 gr sugar
325 gr soft butter
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
5 eggs

Preheat the oven at 180 degrees.  Mix the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until it becomes pale yellow. Separately mix the flour (sieve them if you are not going to use a lot of icing; also, if you are going to cut the cake into shapes then don't bother with the shifting) Add one egg, then one table spoon of flour, then another egg and so on until you use all the eggs. Add the vanilla essence and then add the rest of the flour by folding it into the butter mixture. Bake for 50 minutes (we have done this in all sorts of tins and frankly it always comes out well).

RASPBERRY SHERBET

One of my sons has been studying acids and alkalis, so we decided to make sherbet, which is a good way to practice how to neutralise an acid substance. All you need is:

- 2 teaspoons of citric acid (you can get this in your local chemist)
- 2 teaspoon of of bicarbonate of soda
- half a sachet of raspberry jelly powder
- 4 teaspoons of icing sugar

Mix all ingredients well (if you get lumps pass it all through a sieve). When the sherbet mixes with saliva (a neutral substance) it produces a tickling effect. You can also put a spoonful of the sherbet into a glass of water so the kids see how it becomes a fizzy drink.

You can change colours and flavours of the sherbet by using orange, lemon or strawberry jelly powder.

APPLE CHUTNEY

We had never cooked chutney beforehand so we adapted a recipe from the BBC website for this. You cannot go wrong with it.  One of my children hates raisins and another one thought the taste was far too strong, but my eldest liked it, especially with strong cheddar cheese. Like with all jams it is interesting for them to see how the pectin changes the texture while you cook it. You need:
- 2 kg apples (peeled and chopped into small cubes)
- 775 brown sugar
- 400 raisins
- 4 onions chopped into small cubes
- 2 table spoons of ground ginger
- 750 ml vinegar
- salt (one or one and a half spoons)
- one table spoon of mustard seeds

Put it all in a pan and let it boil first and then simmer for 45 minutes. Then put into sterilised jars ( see method in any of our jam recipes)

APFLESTRUDLE

This is rather laborious (only worth doing it to show off at Christmas really) but the result is just spectacular. I used to do this with filo pastry and it made an easy (yet impressive) dessert, but making the pastry by hand takes this dessert  to a totally different (and scrumptious) level.

You need:
For the pastry:
- 300 gr plain flour
- 100 ml water
- one and a half table spoons of sunflower oil
- one pinch of salt
- two eggs
For the filling:
- 7 apples cut into small slices
- a handful of raising soaked in brandy
- three handfuls of breadcrumbs
- two handfuls of sliced almonds
- a teaspoon of cinnamon
- 100 gr butter
- juice of one lemon
- 90 gr sugar

-Glass sugar

Mix well the flour, sun flour oil, salt, water and egg. You need to knead it for a really long time: knead it four or five times and then hit the pastry against the table (with strength!) Repeat this process at least 100 times (yes, really...it seems acwkard at the beginning but it is rather cathartic. The children thought it was fun for the first ten-ish times and then -predictably- got bored). Put it into a bowl, cover it with cling film and let it rest for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile prepare the filling: melt the butter and fry the breadcrumbs into the melted butter until they become golden. Cut the apples into small slices and toss them with the lemon jounce so that they do not become dark. Mix the apples, cinnamon, sugar, slices almond, raisins and half of the breadcrumbs.

Now comes the only difficult bit: you need to stretch the pastry until it becomes transparent. For this you need to cover a table with a tablecloth (preferably a printed or coloured one). Sprinkle flour on top of the tablecloth and then start stretching the pastry first with the rolling pin and then with the back of your hands and your fingers until you can see the printing or colour of the tablecloth through it. The thinner the pastry the more delicate the apflestrudle.

Preheat the oven at 180 degrees.

Sprinkle the remaining breadcrumbs on the pastry and then add put the apples mixture over one half of the pastry. Fold the two shorter sides as if it is an envelope. Then roll the mixture and pastry as if it is a swiss roll.

Put the roll on a tray lined with baking paper (making a u-shape if it is too big for the over tray). Paint the pastry with the remaining egg (beaten) and bake for 35-40 minutes until it becomes golden.

After it is baked just sprinkle it with glass sugar and eat while it is warm (on its own or with cream or vanilla ice-cream).

Compliments all over...

  

COD OMELET/TORTILLA DE BACALAO

This is very simple but delicious. You need:

- three spring onions
- half a green pepper
- 200 gr desalted cod (put it in cold water for 48 hours changing the water three times)
- 4 eggs
- olive oil

On a frying pan heat olive oil and fry the spring onions and green pepper (both diced into small cubes) over gentle heat. As soon as the spring onions are translucent and the pepper is soft (5-10 minutes)  add the cod and let it all fry for 3-4- minutes so that the cod brakes into small flakes. Put it over a colander so that you get rid of any excess oil.

Meanwhile beat the eggs, add the cod mixture to the eggs and mix it all well.

Clean the pan. Add more olive oil to the pan and get the oil as hot as possible. Pour the eggy mixture onto the pan and lower the heat to medium. After a couple of minutes turn the tortilla (by flipping it over a big dish) and fry it not the other side.

We do not add any salt to this but you may want to add some before you fry the omelet.

The children helped with all of it, except with turning the tortilla. The key to this is that you need start with very hot oil on the pan, otherwise the tortilla will stick to it.