Favorite Family Meals
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About this ebook
Do you find you are serving the same old meals week in, week out? Do you catch yourself staring at the contents of your fridge hoping for inspiration? Do you long for some original ideas to help you cook quick, healthy and tasty meals for the whole family? If so, help is at the hand from bestselling author and leading authority on feeding children, Annabel Karmel.
Favorite Family Meals is packed with more than 150 delicious, easy-to-prepare recipes that will appeal to the whole family, including brain-boosting breakfasts; “healthy junk food” like burgers, pizzas, and chicken nuggets; wholesome muffins; fabulous desserts; fish dishes that will tempt even the most finicky eaters; and dishes that children will enjoy preparing themselves (like animal-shaped cheese bread). Every recipe has been taste-tested by a panel of children, because it’s not enough to prepare healthy foods for kids—they have to want to eat them, too. Filled with dozens of essential time-saving tips for shopping, stocking, freezing, and planning ahead, four weekly menu plans, lunch box suggestions, ideas for spectacular party foods and sensible snacks, and inspiring color photographs, busy parents will wonder how they ever managed without Favorite Family Meals.
Annabel Karmel
With a career spanning over thirty years, London born mother of three, Annabel Karmel, has pioneered the way families all over the world feed their babies and children. Credited with starting a food revolution with her trusty recipes and methods, she has become the UK’s no.1 children’s cookery author, bestselling international author, and the mother of all feeding experts with over forty cookbooks including Real Food Kids Will Love and Annabel Karmel's Baby-Led Weaning Recipe Book. In 2006, Annabel received an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for her outstanding work in the field of child nutrition, and she has since become recognised as one of the UK’s leading female entrepreneurs.
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Favorite Family Meals - Annabel Karmel
Introduction
This book will take the worry out of everyday cooking, because with it alongside you, you will know that you’ll always have something in the house that can be made into a tasty meal for the family. These are some of my favorite tried and tested recipes for all occasions, from healthy breakfasts to lunch boxes, family suppers, recipes for entertaining, and even fun foods for children to cook themselves. As a busy mother of three children, I know how difficult it can be to find the time to make a home-cooked meal, so I have tried to create recipes that are quick and easy to prepare, healthy, and, of course, tasty. Each recipe has been tested on a panel of children who, naturally, didn’t care how healthy the food was and were only impressed if it tasted good.
For many children, convenience and junk foods are no longer occasional foods but are becoming a regular part of their diet, and in this age of instant gratification, fewer and fewer families are sitting down to meals together. With the proliferation of processed packaged foods, many meals emanate from the freezer to be cooked in the microwave, and the kitchen is fast becoming the coldest room in the house. Healthy eating for children is crucial as it often sets the dietary pattern for life, and eating healthily from a young age can reduce the risk of developing diet-related diseases such as heart disease and some forms of cancer. For fighting disease, food is still the best medicine.
Food is more than just a biological need; its preparation expresses parental love and caring, and it’s so very satisfying to see your family enjoy your lovingly prepared home-cooked meals. There was once a time when children ate mostly the same foods as their parents, and this book aims to provide you with recipes that the whole family will enjoy together. You don’t need to be a Supercook. These recipes don’t require split-second timing, special skills, or expensive equipment, and most of them can be prepared in less than 30 minutes.
Some weeks you’ll be able to plan ahead and know what you’re going to feed the family for supper on Friday when it’s still only Monday, and other weeks you may only have time to think about Friday’s dinner on Friday.
A bit of time spent planning, cooking ahead, and freezing some meals over the weekend will make the week ahead much more manageable. Decide on the week’s meals and what advance cooking you need to do over the weekend. Then make a shopping list for the week and jot down on a calendar the fresh ingredients you will need to pick up during the week. Naturally, there will be weekends when you’re too busy or the weather is too nice to spend time in the kitchen and so you can just plan simple meals for the week ahead such as Teriyaki Chicken Skewers (page 55) and salad and fresh fruit. There will also be occasions when you haven’t even had time to do the shopping and it’s already six o’clock, but you don’t need to panic since there are lots of ideas here for delicious recipes that can be made from basic ingredients.
Rather than thinking what are we going to eat and what are the children going to eat, we should be thinking of one meal for the whole family. A good solution to the problem of family members who want meals at different times of the day is to freeze some food in individual portion sizes so that you have your own stock of healthy convenience foods that can be heated in the microwave in a matter of minutes. Very often when you are making a recipe it takes very little extra time to prepare more than you need so you have portions left over to freeze.
International cuisine can be another source of inspiration—perhaps make a Chinese dinner for the family, choosing some of the delicious, easy to prepare Chinese-style recipes such as Super Vegetarian Spring Rolls (page 124) followed by Chinese Noodles with Shrimp and Bean Sprouts (page 102) and lychees with Caramelized Almond Ice Cream (page 158) for dessert. Wouldn’t it be fun to eat the food with chopsticks—you can buy child-friendly plastic chopsticks that are joined at the top, which makes it very easy for children to use.
This is a book of everyday family eating, and I hope it will be well thumbed and splattered with food and will help busy lifestyles become less chaotic. My aim is that this book will put the joy back into cooking, which is, after all, a labor of love.
Organization
It’s getting late, you’ve got work to finish for the next day, the phone keeps ringing, the children want help with their homework, and you haven’t even thought about what you can make for supper. Do you find yourself staring at the contents of your cupboard for inspiration? Well, here’s the answer to your problems.
First of all, here’s a list of ingredients to stock in your kitchen so that you will always be able to rustle up a delicious meal for the family, and second, lots of recipes that can be frozen ahead. It takes very little extra effort or time to cook more than you need and freeze extra portions so you always have tasty, healthy dishes on hand, which can be defrosted and cooked at your convenience.
Coming up with varied meals can’t always be done at the last minute. It’s a good idea to work out what you will make three to four days in advance, write a list, and buy all the fresh ingredients that you don’t already keep in your kitchen from the supermarket. With Internet shopping, you don’t even need to leave home and it’s a good idea to plan in advance.
Remember that it’s easy to make more than you need when cooking a recipe and freeze extra portions so that you don’t have to cook every day.
THE HEALTHY PANTRY
The key to making your life easier when it comes to planning weekly menus is stocking your kitchen with good basic ingredients. I have put together lists of the foods you need to try to keep in stock, basing them on the recipes in this book. Don’t feel that you have to buy everything at once, and you can simply choose a selection of recipes that you would like to prepare and just buy the ingredients for those recipes.
Dry foods
Bread
Rice: basmati, long grain, and brown rice
Flour: whole wheat, all-purpose, self-rising
Cornstarch, white
Baking soda
Baking powder
Active dry yeast
Pasta: penne, tagliatelle, spaghettini, macaroni, lasagne, Chinese egg noodles
Sugar: superfine sugar, light brown sugar
Breakfast cereal: oatmeal, muesli, wheat germ, etc.
Dried fruit: apricots, raisins
Nuts: ground almonds, pecans, peanuts
Grains that don’t take long to prepare: couscous, bulgur wheat
Split red lentils, green lentils
Desiccated coconut
Good-quality plain and white chocolate
Cocoa powder
Nonfat dry milk
Canned produce and jars
Chopped plum tomatoes
Corn
Baked beans
Coconut milk
Tomato puree
Good-quality ready-made tomato sauce
Sun-dried tomatoes
Peanut butter
Maple syrup, honey
Sardines
Tuna fish in oil or water
Condensed cream of tomato soup
Condensed cream of mushroom soup
Condensed milk
Evaporated milk
Mandarin oranges
Peaches
Dried herbs and ground spices
Mixed dried herbs, basil, bay leaves, oregano, thyme, marjoram, paprika, turmeric, cumin, chili powder, blades of mace, nutmeg, black peppercorns, cinnamon, curry powder, ground ginger
Fruit and vegetables
Variety of fruit
Salad vegetables
Onions
Garlic
Fresh gingerroot
Sauces, oils, and seasonings
Olive oil, sunflower oil, vegetable oil, sesame oil
Red wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar, rice wine vinegar (may find in Asian food section of store), cider vinegar, malt vinegar
Soy sauce
Oyster sauce
Worcestershire sauce
Tomato puree
Tomato sauce
Red pesto
Hoisin sauce
Salad dressing
Mayonnaise
Honey
Maple syrup
Curry powder
Ground mustard
Dijon mustard
Chicken stock and vegetable stock cubes or cans of stock
Sesame seeds
Pure vanilla extract
Lemon juice
Alcohol
Dry white wine
Sake (rice wine)
Mirin (sweet sake for cooking)
Sherry
IN THE REFRIGERATOR
To obtain the longest life possible from perishable foods, it would be a good idea to wash and tidy your refrigerator once a week.
Dairy and cooked foods should be stored at the top of the refrigerator with raw meats below in a sealed container.
Butter
Soft margarine
Low-fat plain yogurt
Cheddar cheese
Swiss cheese
Edam cheese
Parmesan cheese
Cream cheese
Eggs
Milk
Ready-made pudding
IN THE FREEZER
It’s a good idea to freeze bread and butter for emergencies. It’s also good to keep some ready-made frozen foods such as pizza or breaded chicken or fish in the freezer.
Frozen peas
Frozen spinach
Frozen corn
Frozen low-fat oven fries
Frozen pizza
Frozen boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Fish fillets with or without bread crumbs
Lean chopped meat
Lamb chops
Good-quality ice cream
Frozen raspberries
If you are buying fish or chicken in bread crumbs or batter, choose larger-portion sizes, as there will be less coating in proportion to the fish or chicken.
Buy thick-cut oven fries (steak fries
)—the thicker they are, the less fat they contain.
TIP
Keep a shopping list in the kitchen and have house rule that whoever uses up the last of something adds the item to the list
The Food Pyramid
Eating a balanced diet is all to do with choosing the right foods and eating them in the right proportions. For most of us that will mean eating more bread, cereals, starchy foods such as potatoes, pasta, and rice and more fruits and vegetables. This is the type of diet that adults and children over five should be eating.
Children under five need a diet higher in fat and lower in fiber because of their high energy requirements, and unlike their parents, they are also growing. Gradually, their diet will change to become more in line with that of an adult, lower in fat, particularly saturated fat, and higher in fiber. It is helpful to think of food groups rather than individual foods. The foods at the bottom of the pyramid are the ones we should be eating more of, and we should aim to eat less food from the food groups near the top.
A balanced diet should contain approximately 20 percent protein, 35 percent fat, and 45 percent carbohydrates.
CARBOHYDRATES
These are the body’s main source of energy and also provide vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Bread, pasta, potatoes, and rice can be used as the basis for many quick, healthy meals. Many people believe starchy foods such as bread and potatoes are high in calories, but this is not true. Plain boiled new potatoes are not fattening, but adding lots of butter to a baked potato can double its calorie content. A slice of bread contains about 65 calories, but buttering it increases this to 142 calories and spreading jam on top adds another 39 calories. Of course, this is less important for children who need more fat in their diet under the age of five, unless they are overweight. Whole-grain cereals and breads boost your intake of iron, vitamins, and fiber.
There are two types of carbohydrates: sugars and starches. In both types there are two forms again.
Sugars: natural fruits and vegetables, refined sugars and honey, soft drinks, cakes, cookies, jam, desserts.
Starches:Complex carbohydrates: whole-grain breakfast cereal, whole-grain bread and flour, brown rice, potatoes, peas, bananas, and many other fruits and vegetables.
Refined carbohydrates: processed breakfast cereals, white flour, bread and pasta, white rice, cookies and cakes.
It is the complex carbohydrates and natural sugars that should form at least 50 percent of the calories in your diet.
Refined carbohydrates such as white bread and processed sweet breakfast cereals have lost many of their valuable nutrients during processing. Eat more complex carbohydrates; these energy-rich foods keep your blood sugar level constant because they release their sugar content into the bloodstream slowly. They also retain their vitamins and minerals and contain fiber, which encourages the elimination of toxins in the body.
See Vitamins on page xv for information on fruits and vegetables.
PROTEIN
It is reassuring to know that protein deficiency is almost unheard of in this country and most of us eat more protein than we need. Protein is essential for growth and repair of body tissue, and an inadequate supply of protein can lower resistance to disease and infection. The major protein foods are meat, chicken, fish, eggs, dairy products, beans, and lentils. It is good to serve one of these foods for lunch and supper. It’s also quite likely that you might serve protein foods such as cheese or eggs at breakfast, too. Protein should make up 15 to 20 percent of your daily diet.
As a rough guide, eat meat or chicken three to four times a week, and it is recommended that two portions of fish are eaten each week, one of which should be an oily variety such as mackerel, tuna, salmon, or sardines. These and other oily fish are high in omega-3 fatty acids, which help lower blood pressure, and there is evidence that these fatty acids may