Eat Your Name For Brekky!

Give plain old breakfast pancakes a whole new spin with these cool Alphabet Pikelets.

These yummy pikelets are super easy to make. Enjoy a fun filled Sunday morning cooking experience with the kids as you help them to stir in the ingredients and fry up everyone's name. Its a breakfast the whole family can enjoy!

View recipe here.

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Posted in: Cooking For Kids

Monkey Tail Sandwiches (Chicken & Avo)

Trying to get kids to eat healthy in a world teaming with fast food and sugary snacks is tough but it needn't be a fight. Simply make it fun!

We found these fabulous Monkey Tail Sandwiches that are sure to please both kiddies and Mums alike. Made with fresh ingredients, they are super easy to assemble and make.

Serve freshly made for a great healthy lunch or as an afternoon snack for your next play date. View recipe here.

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Posted in: Cooking For Kids

Fit For A Little Princess: Sparkling Ring Cookies

I don't know about the rest of you Mums, but if I were under 10, these scrumptious fairy tale biscuits would a must for my birthday party. I can just see the royal princess theme building off this image alone!

The recipe is super simple enough to make and might even be a fun activity for your little princess partiers to make themselves!


If you do decide to make these clever cookies, we'd love to see your creations. Click here for the recipe and visit TheBubCafe on Facebook to share your pictures.

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Posted in: Cooking For Kids,Party Planning

Sushi for Kids...But Will They Eat It?

I dont know about you, but we just love sushi. Most times when my husband and I dine on Japanese fare our 3yr old son opts for the plain rice rolls, 'snowballs' as he calls them. I'd like to expand his culinatry horizons and perhaps if he is involved in the creation of these scrumptious healthy rolls, he might just eat one!

I found the recipe on Taste.com and it looks easy enough. I am trying to limit the family's sugar intake so I am going to be brave and bold and substitute the vinegar/sugar mix used on the sushi rice and instead use a great medium grain rice that I found and use all the time. It tastes great and has the same consistency as sushi rice, so here's hoping the little guy wont notice.

Try the Sushi for Kids recipe here. If you do, post your creations on our Facebook page.

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Posted in: Cooking For Kids

Baby Food Chef

Making your own baby food can not only be fun, and less expensive, but can also be much healthier for your child than store bought food. Baby food is not only easy to make, but is fresher and more loved by babies than the stuff out of the jar. Giving your child the best chance by starting out their lives with a better diet is the duty of every parent. So to start out your career as a gourmet baby food chef, here are a few recipes to try your chops on:


Cooked Leafy Greens
For the ultimate healthy lunch or dinner, try this leafy green recipe. Everyone needs the vitamins in vegetables, but especially babies. You will need a pound of fresh greens, especially kale and collards. You can really pick whatever you want and vary it each time you make it. You need a tablespoon of water, and the tablespoons of fruit juice (again, your choice). First steam your vegetables until they are soft and well-cooked. Put everything then into a blender and puree. This makes a lot, so make sure to refrigerate the leftovers for meals in the future.

Pops for Tots 
Popsicles are the favorite of kids around the world. Here is a great, healthy recipe to get your baby hooked on fruit. You will need a cup of plain yogurt, two teaspoons of orange juice, a half cup of strawberries, a fourth cup of mashed bananas, four teaspoons of lemonade, and a popsicle mold. Mash and puree all the fruit and then add the liquid ingredients. Mix well. Then place the mixture into Popsicle molds and into the freezer they go for about thirty minutes. Put in popsicles and then let them completely freeze overnight.

Apple Nut Bake for Babies
 For this hearty meal you will need four announces of apples, two teaspoons of orange juice, an egg yolk, and a tablespoon of almonds. First you need to cook the apples in the orange juice until very soft and shapeable. Then mash this in with the egg yolk, and smashed almonds. You need to bake this in a muffin fin for about fifteen minuets.

Article by  Joseph Devine

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Posted in: Baby Care,Cooking For Kids

Ten Kid-Friendly Dishes To Sneak Vegetables In

If your kids are not big on eating their vegetables, the most import thing is knowing which dishes are the best for hiding the veggie monsters. Hint: don't try to feed them your salad. The best way to sneak in vegetables is to puree them. This way, the texture of the original dish is not effected and the flavor of the vegetables is less noticeable.

The best dishes to sneak vegetables are those that are:

a. Child -friendly. Don't pick something form the French cuisine cookbook and expect your kids to love it. The may, but there is no guarantees.

b. Puree-friendly. Some dishes don't work if you add a vegetable puree to them. Souffle, anyone? Keep that in mind prior to cooking.

This leaves us with the following list:

1. Creamy pureed soups. Potatoes, squash, sweet potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower and even celery and kale can be successfully pureed and blended with some olive oil and spices. Sometimes, you need to use a bit of soft tofu or cream and sometimes croutons on top work well as a bribe.

2. Smoothies. Nobody really knows what's in them. Put a banana or two, add a pitted date and you are golden. Feel free to add kale leaves, while no one is looking.

3. Grain-based dishes, like risotto. It's going to look like a mash, anyway, so why not add some butternut squash, cauliflower or carrot puree?

4. Pasta sauces. As long as your sauce has fresh or sundried tomatoes and some olive oil, everything else is up to you. How about some broccoli, celery and zucchini, too?

5. Baked goods: muffins and breads. Virtually any muffin or bread recipe can include some fresh vegetables, pureed or grated. Carrots, green beans, peas, squashes, pumpkin -all work very well!

6. Baked chocolate goods. If it's dark, nobody will see what's in it! I always put some diced kale leaves in my brownies.

7. Mashed potatoes. Add any other vegetable puree and if you must lie, say you used food coloring. Mashed potatoes are so delicious, nobody will notice anything you did.

8. Dips. Homemade hummus, cheese dip: any dip can survive the addition of a bit of vegetable puree. Sometimes a bit of pureed celery or parsley can even improve the dip's flavor.

9 Creamy pies. Add a bit of cauliflower puree, for good luck. It wouldn't even change the color of the original recipe, so why not?

10. Casseroles. Nobody really knows what's in them anyway. So, no one will notice a bit of pureed veggies.

Article by Dr. Anastasia Halldin.
Dr Halldin is a stay at home mom of an active toddler and baby-twins. She has a Ph. D in holistic nutrition, is a yoga teacher and a former model. She has produced and appeared in thirteen yoga DVDs, wrote a brochure on nutrition and starred in a yoga TV show. She speaks four languages and makes yummy healthy meals for the whole family in twenty minutes. For recipes and more, visit: http://www.healthymamainfo.com. For yoga DVDs, visit http://www.yogapulse.com

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Posted in: Cooking For Kids

Easy No Cook Toddler Food

Have you noticed all of the special toddler food appearing in the baby food section of the grocery store? Are all those processed foods really good for your toddler? Maybe they're not the best for toddlers, but they are one thing - convenient. More importantly, toddlers usually like them.

The truth is, those foods are not good for your toddler, and it's not good to give your toddler a taste for processed junk. But you're busy and you need your little one to actually eat what you prepare. Here are some great ideas for easy toddler food:

Tiny Trays
Somehow things are always more exciting when they come in an ice-cube tray. Get a couple of ice-cube trays and reserve them for your tot. Cube some cheese, add some sausage chunks or deli sliced meats, and slice some vegetables and fruits and add them to the tray. Your child will love to have his or her own personal tray of food. Add a nut butter or another dip to one or two of the cubes. Little kids really like to dip foods. These trays are great for snack time. You can quickly put a couple of trays together in the morning, cover, and pull them out of the fridge when you're ready for them later in the day.

Fruit and Cream
Kids love fruit. And kids love cream. Get a high quality heavy cream (not ultra-pasteurized, which has been heated beyond all recognition). Pour over sliced fruit and serve. The cream helps your child's body absorb the nutrients from the fruit. Freeze the fruit first (berries work really well) and pour a little cream on for an instant "ice cream" - your tot will love seeing the cream freeze over the fruit in his bowl!

Trail Mix
Once your tot is able to handle nuts, trail mix becomes a great toddler food. You can easily buy a few different kinds of nuts and a dried fruit like raisins and mix them together to create your own healthy, homemade trail mix. Scoop out a little and serve to your toddler for a quick and easy snack.

Salmon or Sardine Dip
Believe it or not, most kids really like canned salmon and sardines. This easy dip is a real hit. Soften around four ounces of cream cheese. Take one can of sardines or one half a can of salmon and place it in a bowl. Use a fork to mash together the cream cheese and fish until well mixed. If your tot likes spicy foods, you can add a teaspoon of prepared horseradish for some "zip." Serve with vegetable sticks or vegetable shapes (cut them with a small cookie cutter). Steam the veggies for a very young toddler.

Avocado Slices
A classic favorite of babies and young children. Just slice the avocado and serve for a super easy food with lots of good fat.

It doesn't have to be hard to feed your toddler well. Forget about relying on unhealthy processed toddler food... and forget about being chained to the kitchen. You can make tasty, healthy foods at home... with just a few minutes of your time.

Article by Kristen Burgess
By the way, do you want to get more practical baby care information that will give you keys to a smarter, happier baby while building a strong bond with your little one? If so, download my free guide: How to Have a Smarter, Happier Baby. You'll get my guide and information packed with helpful tips on baby care and on managing life as a mom (and loving it!)Source

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Posted in: Cooking For Kids,Toddler Taming