Make it healthier – pizza sauce

Pizza is something the boys will always eat! If I ask what they would like for dinner, 9 our of 10 times, the 4 year old will answer pizza. He doesn’t get pizza 9 out of 10 times of course, but with some little tweaks to the recipes, you can easily make pizza a healthy meal for the family.

Fritatta with green vegetables

The quest for new, inspiring and healthy food for dinners continue. As the boys are still a bit young and picky in their dinner choices, I try to find quick and healthy alternatives for us adults to eat after the monkeys are in bed. One new dish I have tried that will definitely be made again is this fritatta. It is a pretty green dinner, but in a good way with all the added goodness of the healthy green vegetables. If you don’t have all the ingredients, you can always swap for something different.

Whole grain focaccia

I absolutely love a good focaccia. Focaccia is one of those sides that fit with almost any meal. You just change the seasoning on top (or inside) of the bread to fit whatever you are pairing it with. Good bread and especially a good focaccia is one of those things I just can’t stop eating, so I have tried a few recipes with whole grain flour to make it a little healthier. This version turned out really delicious, so I am sharing it with you.

Broccoli salad with seared duck breast

Trying to keep the mid-week meals high in vegetables and low in fat is always a challenge, but this is definitely a new favorite for a mid-week dinner with the family.

Gyoza

Recently I made an attempt at making the Japanese dumplings called Gyoza. I have to admit I did not have all the appropriate ingredients for the dish to make it fully Japanese, but they turned out delicious nonetheless.

Before you consider getting started, you need to find and buy gyoza wrappers. I found these in the freezer section in an Asian grocery store. The wrappers are extremely thin, but fairly easy to work with.

Summer potato salad

Even if the calendar says June and it is supposed to be Summer, the weather seems to think it is October! The wind is howling outside and it is raining horizontally. But the weather forecast seems to be showing some improvement for the weekend. Fingers crossed that we will finally see some Summer weather and be able to bring out the shorts and t-shirts. It just feels weird sending your kids to kindergarten in June with woolen longs on. But with the cold wind and temperatures still in the single digits, there is just nothing to do about that. At least they don’t look at the calendar when we dress them in the morning still.

Rhubarb and peppermint crumble

Yet “another rhubarb crumble” you might think, but this one has a tiny little twist as I have added a few sprigs of peppermint to the mixture. Getting the right balance gives a wonderful freshness to the pie without overpowering the rhubarb flavor. I recommend sticking to peppermint leaves when making this as other and stronger mint will quickly overpower the rest of the flavors in the pie.

Whole grain crisp bread with seeds

I thought I’d break up the rhubarb feature with a bit of a healthy breakfast/lunch treat. These are easy to make, healthy, tasty and great for a quick breakfast or to have in the lunchbox. My boys also enjoy these, so I see it as a great way to get a bit of fiber into them as well. I even use them as a little snack to tie them over before dinner.

Rhubarb pie

Rhubarb has been the first vegetable we could harvest from the garden. It really marks the season changes and invites the creativity on! Time to start thinking about what we can make with our homemade produce, which is quite different to planning from what is available in the grocery store! There will be more rhubarb recipes to come over the week on the blog, starting with a humble and simple rhubarb pie.

Savoury muffins

It is always a challenge to find new and exciting dishes to serve that is interesting to both the kids and us adults. The boys are still so young that they really prefer fairly simple dishes and would happily eat sausages everyday if they had been allowed to. And it is really difficult not to end up in a circle of serving the same dishes over and over. Every now and then I come across ideas for dishes that I can use to make meals we can enjoy together with the boys and that can fairly easily be made into an interesting meal for everyone.