Recipes, Meals, Snacks.
Sleepy Gummies
To assist in sleep for your little ones. These are yummy “jellies” or “lollies” that boosts melatonin (natural sleep hormone), and is rich in antioxidants, vitamin C, folate, iodine, and iron, and tastes like aeroplane jelly ☺️
I purchased both the gutsy gummies mix (I use strawberry flavour) and organic tart cherry juice from Go Vita, and Foraged For You online (highly recommend the mothers blend too, here’s your reminder to care for yourself too).
You need:
NutraOrganics Gutsy Gummies
Tart cherry juice
Foraged For You children’s blend
Water
How to:
Add 1/3 cup gutsy gummies into a bowl or glass measuring cup
Add 100ml tart cherry juice and mix together until you have an even texture
Add 250ml recently boiled hot water into mixture
Add 1TBS foraged for you blend, stir until dissolved
Pour into moulds and put in fridge for minimum 2 hours
Loaded Lasagna
This is a crowd favourite, packed with nutrients, totally from scratch, and the secret is in the sauce. I like to make this gluten free as myself and Azura are sensitive to it, and humans don’t really do well with gluten anyway! But you can use normal lasagna sheets and normal flour if you like. Prepare the white sauce in the morning to infuse flavours, then make the lasagna in the afternoon. I like to do second steps of the white sauce + cook bolognese at the same time for efficiency, or even better, next time you make spaghetti bolognese, make a double batch and freeze the mince so the lasagna doesn’t seem like so much effort ☺️
You need:
White sauce
2 cups milk (almond doesn’t work well, I use full cream cows milk)
1 garlic clove (halved)
1/4 onion (sliced is fine)
1 bay leaf (can buy dried ones if you don’t have a tree)
6 whole cloves (spices section)
Any other herbs - I like to buy a mixed herb packet from cold section
2TBS butter
2TBS GF plain flour
Bolognese
800g beef mince
1/2 onion, diced
1 celery stick, diced
1/2 eggplant, diced
1/2 zucchini, diced
400g pasta sauce (Mutti with Parmigiano Reggiano is 🤌🏼)
Lasagna
Latina fresh GF lasagna sheets (cold section)
Shredded mozzarella (to top)
How to:
Prepare your white sauce in the morning, so all flavours soak through by the afternoon when you’re putting the lasagna together.
In a glass measuring cup, add all white sauce ingredients except butter and flour. With the mixed herbs, only use about 1/3 of the packet.
Microwave for 3 minutes, leave to sit for 20-30 mins, then transfer to fridge for rest of the day to allow the flavours to infuse the milk.
When it’s time to prepare the lasagna, melt 2 TBS butter in a saucepan on low-medium heat, then add 2TBS plain flour and mix together.
Strain the herbs through a sieve/fine mesh strainer, pouring only the milk into the saucepan with flour and butter.
Stir mixture frequently over 10 minutes until it thickens into a sauce. If it’s too runny, add a little more milk.
For your lasagna, cook all meat and chopped vegetables in a frying pan until meat is brown (I like to add in some mixed herbs from the packet you used in the white sauce too), then mix in pasta sauce.
Time to layer your lasagna in a baking dish! Starting from the bottom, I personally do meat > white sauce > pasta sheets until full, but you can do any order you like. Just ensure the final top layer is the white sauce
Top with mozzarella (Azura loves helping me with this part) then cover with foil. Try not to let the foil touch the top of your lasagna as it can bake stuck and rip your cheese off
Cook in oven at 180 degrees for 30 minutes, remove foil, then cook for another 10 minutes to brown the cheese. I’ve tried other methods, and this is the tastiest!
Serve and enjoy ☺️ I love to freeze half and leave for a day I can’t be bothered cooking!
Caramel Slice
Info
You need:
Base
1 cup (135g) plain flour (I used gluten free)
1/2 cup (100g) brown sugar
1/2 cup (45g) desiccated coconut
125g melted butter
Caramel
1/3 cup (130g) golden syrup
2 cans sweetened condensed milk
125g butter
Choc Top
250g milk baking chocolate
20g coconut oil
How to:
Preheat oven to 160° fan forced, and line rectangular baking tray with baking paper (set aside)
Base: Sift flour into a cooking bowl, add brown sugar and desiccated coconut, stir to combine
Add melted butter and mix well until crumbly and completely combined
Press the mixture firmly into the base of the prepared tin and smooth with a spoon
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until lightly golden
Caramel: Whilst base is baking, put butter, golden syrup, and condensed milk into a small saucepan over low heat
Stir continuously for 10-15 minutes or until the caramel has thickened (don’t let it sit and burn!)
Pour caramel over the cooked base and return to the oven for a further 15-20 minutes or until golden and firm to the touch
Remove from the oven and set aside until cool, then place in the fridge to cool completely (you can put it in the freezer to speed up process)
Choc top: Boil a saucepan of water, and place the chocolate and coconut oil into a glass cup/bowl (I use a glass measuring cup) inside the water to melt it. You can just throw it in the microwave for 3 minutes (stirring frequently), but I like to melt my chocolate the traditional way ☺️
Pour the chocolate topping over the cooled caramel layer, and place in fridge to set!
