Fussy little eaters: lemon coconut balls

 

I am always on the hunt for easy, healthy baked treats for kids. I like to have one in a packed meals for school, either as part of lunch or as afternoon tea. As all Australian schools are nut-free,

What he eats

Little E has been at school for almost a whole term now and he is loving it! 🙂 I have also been enjoying packing his lunch bag every week, all those years I have been practising on Mr E has finally paid off.

Inside the May Goodness Me box: my favourites!

In our May Goodness Me Box, we received this cocoa spread and OMG! it is SO

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We started our trial run of The Goodness Box recently. I have been wanting to try out subscription goody boxes for a looong time. I think they are

Fussy Little Eaters: Basil Pesto Pasta

The first thing I noticed about being back at work is that I have a very limited window to cook dinner. We can’t actually get to Little E until 4.30pm and his dinner time is 5.00-5.30pm. That leaves me about 30 minutes to get dinner on the table, something healthy and nutritious for the little man. It is also something that needs to work for our (Mr E and I) taste buds. There were a few nights where we had take-aways and Little E had to make-do with steamed vegies. Not that he minds, as he loves steamed zucchini and broccoli, and the fact that he does get hot meals at lunch when he’s at care. However, I do feel like I should give him something better, and that Mr E and I cannot rely on take-aways.

Tonight, I made some basil pesto pasta. Little E didn’t go to care today, however, the weather has been pretty hot here, so we took refuge at a shopping centre. Little E found the airconditioned temperature so comfortable that he didn’t wake up until 4pm! So by the time we came home, it was 4.30pm – just like as if he did go to care lol

Basil Pesto Pasta

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of fresh basil
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan
• 2.5 tbs olive oil
• Pasta of your choice
• 1 piece of bacon, diced. This is optional to give a “meaty” taste, you can use normal olive oil.
• Vegetables of your choice – I cut up some zucchini, carrots, broccoli, and asparagus

Method:

1. With a stick blender, make the basil pesto by blending the basil, garlic, parmesan and olive oil until smooth
2. Cook pasta as per normal
3. In a pan, throw in the bacon (or olive oil) and all the vegetables until all is cooked
4. Prior to serving, throw in the cooked pasta and stir some of the pesto (or all, depending how strong you like it)

This recipe only took around 15-20 minutes to prepare. The things that took the longest were picking out the basil leaves off their stalks, as well as chopping up all the vegies. I made sure I didn’t give Little E any bacon, yet, he approved of this recipe and ate all of his dinner plus some 😉 Mr E also liked it, so double yay for me! Hooorah! You can make it a lot healthier by using multigrain pasta and cutting out the bacon. Yay for easy and fast healthy recipes!