Karmel - Real food kids will love: 100 simple and delicious recipes for toddlers and up

CONTENTS INTRODUCTION My approach to family cooking has always been that you dont need to cook food for kids, you simply need to cook real food that the whole family will love nourishing meals that are wholesome, unadulterated and devoid of flavour enhancers, preservatives or additives. It is easy to underestimate how adventurous little people can be when it comes to new tastes but children learn new skills on a daily basis so why not new foods? Too often due to lack of time or fears over children going hungry parents end up cooking a limited number of tried-and-tested meals. While Im all for clean plates, this can often lead to fussy eating habits in children. This book provides you with a raft of new recipes to add to your repertoire that are simple to prepare but will broaden their food horizons. FITTING IT ALL IN We all know how important it is to keep the family fuelled on the right foods, but making time to pack in that all-important goodness is often easier said than done, especially with todays jam-packed schedules, when parents are wearing more hats and spinning more plates than ever before. As my three children were growing up, I often found myself scrabbling for time to prepare wholesome meals around starting up my business, devising new recipes and managing the kids social calendars (which were often busier than mine!).

After-school activities, play dates, work commitments, emails and other activities all take a bite out of the amount of time we spend eating together as a family. Cooking for your family is about making memories as well as menus in years to come the smell of a fish pie could transport your children back to the kitchen table of their youth; the taste of pasta bake or finger lickin chicken wings might remind them of post-match muddy knees and toad in the hole may be remembered as a welcome sight after a puddle-splashing Sunday stroll. Though many of us aspire to this level of evocative eating, the reality is that parenting is often more chaos than fine cuisine. The frantic nature of modern life can detract from the dinner table and our efforts to get everyone eating together. We all know that sitting down as a family is about more than food it is about connection and conversation, eye contact and intimacy; it is about being in the moment with the ones you love. Finding enough time in the day to cook up this aspirational atmosphere can be challenging, but the good news is it takes less effort than you might think.

My mission with this book is to empower and inspire you to give your family the best start in life with good honest food that diners young and old will love. FOOD FOR EVERYONE Catering to the different requests and requirements of your family may seem like the key to an easy life but it can leave you feeling like a short-order cook with no time to sit down and enjoy either your food or your family. If one of the reasons you dont eat as a family as often as youd like is down to junior meals being too bland and boring for adult taste buds, I have good news! Each and every recipe in this book has been especially designed to appeal to palates of all ages, so you can ditch the conveyor belt catering, rustle up real food that kids and the whole family will love, and perhaps introduce some new favourites for the big people, too. Millions of families rely on my cookbooks at that all-important weaning stage, but there is no need for my books to be put back on the shelf once your babies are old enough to go to school: mums often tell me that they serve up my famous finger foods for dinner parties and my easy-to-follow style is perfect for students wanting to study over more than burnt toast and beans! HEALTHY EATING Healthy habits formed early in life set children on the best possible path and eating a wide variety of foods together at regular times is a good discipline to practise. Many of the meals, like my Meatballs with Orzo (than you need and have them on standby for another day. Half of all the food bought by families in the UK is now ultraprocessed made in a factory with ingredients you cant pronounce and additives invented by food technologists to generate products that bear little resemblance to the fruits, vegetables, meat, chicken and fish you would cook at home.

Refined products such as pots of noodles with specks of dried meat and shrivelled vegetables loaded with salt and MSG, or snacks fortified with manufactured vitamins and minerals, washed down with sugary drinks, have lost virtually all their natural nutrients. We bear a responsibility to our children to allow them to grow up enjoying real food that sets them on a path of healthy eating that will last a lifetime. KIDS IN THE KITCHEN Helping to prepare a family meal can do wonders for childrens self-esteem and if they are involved in the cooking they are more likely to try the end result. OK, so inviting your pint-sized sous chefs to help in the kitchen could be a little chaotic, but the skills theyll learn will be well worth the slightly raised stress levels! Minimise the mess with a wipe-clean tablecloth, aprons and robust equipment like wooden spoons and plastic bowls. Give them simple tasks: children under three can mash with a fork or potato masher, stir ingredients, roll out dough and use plastic cutters to make shapes. Three- to five-year-olds can cut soft ingredients like bananas with plastic knives, tear herbs, hull strawberries and measure ingredients into a jug.

They will enjoy cracking eggs and whisking and of course decorating cakes. Once they are old enough to have mastered some basics, let your mini masterchefs loose in the kitchen to cook a meal by themselves. From the age of four, six and seven my three took it in turns to cook for everyone one day a week it gave them confidence and ensured they could make toast and scramble an egg as well as play a complicated computer game! Cooking is great for naturally inquisitive young minds, feeds a thirst for foodie knowledge and teaches them about more than just a balanced diet: as they weigh and measure ingredients they are developing maths skills without even realising, and following recipe instructions and being mindful of utensils are both good life skills. Supervising children while they learn to use knives and avoid steam from a hot kettle is safer than not teaching them and leaving them to experiment without you. Learning to cook from scratch is a great way to instil a real interest and understanding of what goes into the food you eat. Obesity is on the rise and allowing your children to cook a variety of meals will teach them about getting the balance right between indulgent treats and healthy options and recipes like my Teriyaki Beef Stir-Fry () are so yummy they wont feel short-changed by wholesome, healthy cooking.