TODDLER FUN RECIPES

Being a mom of a toddler is a roller coaster ride; running behind them is a regular scene in any toddler household. But the real challenge comes when we moms are running with a food plate.  These kids won’t settle easily for any food, and we mom won’t settle for anything less than healthy. The struggle is on-going and will continue always. To make this struggle little easy I have come up with below recipes. Why these recipes?  To which my answer is these are easy to make, healthy and extremely good to look at. So, all in all, we moms have a win-win situation. So here go the recipes.

PIZZA SCROLLS

These bites are easy peasy treats to our little ones, easy to make and fun to eat.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups Greek-style yogurt
• 2 cups self-raising flour
• 1 cup red sauce ( similar to the one used I red sauce pasta or pizza base )
• 3 cups mozzarella/regular Amul cheese, grated
• Vegetables of choice, diced small, preferably capsicum, onion, carrots etc.
• 1 tbsp Italian herbs and spices blend
• Preheat oven to 190°C. Line a baking tray with baking paper and set aside.

Method

• In a large bowl, combine the yogurt and self-rising flour and mix until a ball forms.Overnight hang a curd, then use it for such bases, it will give the dough a good rise.

• Roll the dough into a large rectangle of even thickness using a rolling pin.
• Spread tomato sauce evenly over the entire dough surface.
• Sprinkle vegetables and 2 cups of cheese all over the tomato sauce.
• Shake over the Italian herbs.
• Roll the dough into a log, starting at the short side. Slice into 2cm pieces and place cut side up on tray.
• Sprinkle with remaining cheese.
• Bake for 20-25 mins until golden.

 

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BANANA MUFFIN WITH WALNUT CRUMBLE

INGREDIENTS

• 1 ½ cup wheat flour ( can be replaced with all-purpose flour or any gluten-free flour )
• 1/4^th  teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon baking soda
• 1/4^th tablespoon cinnamon
• 3 large ripe bananas
• 2 tablespoon coconut oil ( can use butter too )
• ½ cup honey ( coconut sugar, maple syrup, regular sugar can be used )
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt ( overnight hang a curd )
• 2 1/2 tablespoons milk of choice (skim, soy, almond, coconut, etc)

For walnut topping – mix small bites of walnuts with oil and sugar grains.

Method

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and spray muffin pan with nonstick spray.
• In a large bowl mix flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt together
• In a separate bowl mix bananas, melted butter, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, greek yogurt, egg. Stir banana mixture into the flour mixture just until combined and add the milk. Batter will be thick. Fill each muffin cup 2/3 full.
• In a small bowl mix brown sugar, flour, walnuts, and cinnamon
• Cut in 1-2 tablespoons of butter until mixture is crumbly. Sprinkle evenly over the top of the muffins.
• . Place into the oven and bake for 18-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of muffins comes out clean
  

I hope you moms try it and like it too. Have a look at the beautiful pics of these recipes on my instagram handle @paper_planes_life

This blog post is a part of #Baby/ToddlerFood blog train hosted by Anisha from momzdiary , Danisha from Lovethatyoucanbuy and Deepali from myteenytot.

We 40 Mom Bloggers are here with some amazing Baby & Toddler Food Ideas just for you.

This is a month-long blog train. Stay tuned for some very healthy and yummy recipes every day.

I would like to invite Ankita from @momtoamunchkin to share her recipe.

Planning A Day Ahead With A Child

 

I am at home. Its summer time in Delhi. But the weather outside is hotter than the hot. I have a special liking towards such weather.  what !!! Or maybe I am lying to myself. I like all of it more because my son is at school and I am in my torpid state. I have just another two hours to plan my day. If I don’t do it I will lose it to the situations of the day.

Let’s talk about planning and how it’s important esp. in child rearing. If an unplanned person like me is emphasizing about it then it’s worth a try. I learned harder way about a day planning with a child and my life became slightly contended. This planning in advance will save mothers from the unending meal time, touch and go play time and the wraths of a super hungry tired child.

Planning the meals

This single work can have a positive impact on us mothers. As by providing the right tasteful food can save us from the guilt of feeding unhealthy options.  And the whole thought of preparing another meal in a very less quantity is daunting.  Over two years of struggling with it I have worked on my ways to cut short a meal preparation time.

Hack 1

Keep aside a handful of cut and chopped vegetables before the meals are prepared for the family. If this work is done by a cook in any household, it should be informed to him as a standing instruction so as a child never misses out on any veggies. These cut veggies can always be used in making instant porridge (Daaliya, Khicadi), Upma, sandwich filling etc. and for a vegetable like a brinjal which is universally disliked by kids can also have a way inside a child’s tummy. It can be mixed with mashed potato and rolled into an Aloo paratha. Brinjal if slightly roasted will enhance the taste. It is a difficult vegetable for a kid to eat but is very nutrient like all others so should be tried harder for.

Alert! These cut vegetables should always be used for a day, no storing and refrigerating.

Hack 2

Prepare as many meal elements as possible in advance. Roast and store Ragi flour, semolina flour or any other flour used for making gruel (don’t do it for fragile grains like rice and gram flour). If the main ingredient is so handy then boiling water and adding sweetness will be done in no time. Roasted grains should be stored in a refrigerator. I always have a handful of Ragi, Semolina and oats( steel cut not instant) ready with me. it helps me in dishing out porridge, gruel, pancake or Upma.

Hack 3

Children don’t need sugar till a long time or can remain this way to have a healthy adult life. But what piques interest in food? Variety. Then why let a kid not enjoy it. A hot piping halwa without sweetness will be straightaway rejected.

One can make a date and Jaggery syrup at home or buy one from the market (read the label, lot of brands replace the term sugar with the more scientific and unrecognizable names). I prefer making one in winter, as the supply of Jaggery is fresher and easily available.

Recipe –

1 bowl – Jaggery (powered or pieces)

1 bowl – pitted dates

Boil Jaggery first and strain the mixture after cooling to remove the impurities. Again put the syrup on a boil, add dates, bring it to boil. Adjust the consistency with water, as everything is going to thicken soon. As per wish add cinnamon powder or black salt. Stir it on a low flame for half an hour. Use a ladle to crush the dates and strain the cool mixture and its ready. This can last for 15-20 days and should not be kept longer than this. With no preservatives it cannot survive the moisture in the air and Jaggery will start becoming bitter.

I almost add this mixture to everything, as a topping on a paratha, with curd, alongside roti etc.

Planning activities

 

This particular planning becomes more important at around one and a half year of age. By the time child is one we are aware of lot things and have accumulated enough material for kid’s development. Stacking toys, colour building blocks, touch and feel books and lot more. Also by now, we are aware of The Montessori way of bringing up a child.

Making a time table helps us recognise activity building and controls repetitions.

Below is an example of what I have made for my personal use. It can be changed as per materials at home and suitability.

All this can sound exhausting to us mothers. Sleep deprived and half fed minds can’t bring themselves to start making charts so my take here is if you make it for once and put it on a refrigerator. Chart will humbly remind you every day for the missed activity. Try it for once and it will change the playtime for good. Like having a song and dance session is exhilarating for both.

If you see there is an expression book in social emotional learning – to explain it further, it’s a book made of your baby’s close up pictures of his various emotions, happy, sad, funny, laughing, crying, angry, joyous laughter. Child can go through this and become aware of various emotions and taking control of them. I didn’t make this as for me right time is now. Will share the pics once is ready.

 

Planning sleep time

Often a cranky kid cries and then out of tiredness dozes off. We have to make sure that a child doesn’t miss on a meal for the day. He should be fed well before it’s a nap time. A filled tummy rests for long. Also if we don’t plan about various food groups we are essentially not doing it right. Like it’s said to have fruits in the day. I believe it to be totally true. May be science doesn’t prove it right but our grandmothers knew it right. Little exception of the fruits like seasonal mangoes, litchi, berries, melons are there but more risky ones like banana, guava and citrus family to be strictly avoided post lunchtime.

So we have to plan when we can feed fruits to kids, before a nap time or after (risky for few fruit groups and for colder weather)

I understand that before until two years of age its child led sleep time. But this is also a time when we can sow the seeds of a sleep pattern. If we want to binge watch a new series without interruption then plan it. A nap time by early noon will lead to an early good night time. This will foster many other benefits. One such as a lazy mother like me getting into a routine.

A school going child will have this pattern ready and he/she will not go through a bouts of anxiety once the school starts.

 

Planning play time

This is by the far the trickiest planning. Kids as we know get bored easily. No toys and no activities can keep them hooked for hours. Not their fault too, theirs is a short attention span and our is short patience, temperament span. How we make peace with both is the deal. To arrive at a common consensus is to have a plan for it. There it goes-

Mommies, please don’t give yourself away to motherhood. Having a special tea or extended bath routines will have a positive impact and further, it helps improvise our relationship with the child.

Hack 1  

Decide on one good thing you want to do today. And start working towards it. Positivity will start rolling and body will be filled with new energy to get going with the play time.

Hack 2

Mommies, please keep the massage routines steady till a least two years .back pain, knee pain can be slightly taken care of with it.

Hack 3

Playing with a child is a like a high-intensity workout, you do one activity and jump on to another soon.  Kids are small beings and get tired easily. Start with all jumping and running around in the beginning and then after tiring a kid out sit down with toys or books or any calmer activity.

Hack 4

When going out to park or walks around the house, make sure you keep talking to the kid and keep them engaged with the environment. Else small beings get overpowered with the surrounding and some kids totally shun the idea of seeing any new thing. It’s not a waste of time to have some meaningful one-sided conversations with the little human.

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Disclaimer – Above ideas are coming from a mother. Totally workable and helpful for mothers.

How to prepare yourself for second year of babyhood. Aka ………terrible two.

As i am touching down my second year of parenting in next few months, I was thinking what I will do with the self-taught lessons and all the wisdom I gained. How I wish I had an access to such handy pointers.J

Let me assure you guys that I am not stating the obvious or repeating what’s already been said. In times like these when solutions are just click away. Why will I bother myself with it again? As rightly said by clay shirky. “It’s not the information overload, it’s the filter failure. So here I have cohesively put what worked for me and can work for lot of us mothers if paid heed to in advance.

I am listing down few things which can change the course of our parenting game alongside some hacks on saving ourselves from the greater mess.

Food, food, and food – very rarely I meet mothers who praise their little ones for having homemade food or not complaining about how their hard work is all wasted and played with than being at the right place i.e tummy.

Something must be right in my parenting style as I don’t stand in the queue of above mentioned mothers as my kid doesn’t hate food esp. homemade food.  Apart from his parent’s genes into the play, I think the most important part here is BREASTFEEDING. Yes we heard it right. Like everyone must be holding a copy of what to expect when you are expecting, if we see the information on breast milk, it clearly says babies’ taste buds are developed through the milk; they get the taste of everything what mother is relishing. Of course pizza ,burger and all the junk converts itself into gas and troubles the baby further but all other natural, homemade food is relished. So when after six months baby is all set to taste rice, daal etc. it doesn’t get repelled immediately.  Mother of all hacks: keep feeding the baby as long as you want, Indian doctors say minimum six months, Indian families say ,”just do not do it for more than three months”. But listen to your heart and essentially mind and continue it for as long as one is comfortable. Apart from various other benefits mother’s milk has I just wanted to say to all new mothers that, “you are going to save yourself from hours spent in kitchen thinking of making some innovative food”.

Disclaimer – didn’t intent to hurt anyone who fed their babies formula or some other conditions made them try something else. My thoughts are for the most moms who give up breastfeeding to be at ease but unknowingly it makes their future feeding time with kids difficult.

Free play– kids are bundle of energy. They are fully charged and always on the go. And one fine day our nightmare comes true when babies suddenly starts walking and starts exploring the house. We start fretting over our furniture coming down and babies eating dust and mites from the floor. We Indians moms are always so dramatic and over analyse things. Woman! hold  your horses , babies are behaving the same way we do when we rent an airbnb on an exotic vacation and touch an see everything .we adults have our grips developed so we don’t break things. Even babies of such tender age don’t intend to break or throw it happens like it happens. Coming back to the point, what worked for me –hack no 1. Keep minimal furniture hack no2.Aim should be to tire a baby so that he doesn’t indulge into a nasty play at home, take them outside. Open spaces will make them calm and running and jumping on grass stronger.  Babies want to feel objects and materials and putting into a mouth is an extension of same touch and feel development. We mothers start bringing the house down. We will get all those must have toys and further increase the boredom by playing with it again and again. Hack no 3. Put a mashed banana put in front of a baby and step aside, the gooey touch & feel will make them happy, same can be done with papaya. Take this activity to next level and put a chart paper and let them paint on it. It’s very likely that some part of the fruit will be gulped inside, but with no harm. Hack no 4. Knead a wheat flour dough and make it colourful by adding beetroot juice and it’s done, let them play. One can extend the activity for older kids by using a rolling pin and stamping out various shapes and sizes hack no5. Tearing a newspaper is another most loved activity in my household even after second year. Keeping them engaged is the key and don’t expect them to play toys, it’s for adults.

Mud play – as I write this and approve of it, I am standing against the wishes of my mother and many mothers and aunts and granny’s .as she doesn’t like my boy to play with mud in the park or jump into a puddle. This activity has brought me some half an hour to one hour of easy time. And for this I would like to thank Mr Husband for bringing it in. so why does our Indian household hates it so much, prime reason being the dirt and amount if it going inside. There are proven studies stating that soil has good bacteria essential for developing the immune system of a child. Pls counter check the info at various forums on net or books. (https://handsonaswegrow.com/10-benefits-mud-play/) it’s one of the blogs I follow. How do we solve this problem for city dwellers and people in apartment and with no park in vicinity. Hackno1. Make a mud pit at home, flex those muscle get good quality soil from the park and let the baby have some messy time. Initially babies will try and taste it but if this activity is repeated babies will dislike the taste themselves and not put in the mouth. Keep a watch, never leave a child unattended, sip your tea nearby or talk on the phone but eyes set on your precious one.

Mums wellbeing – we have heard this many a times about how to keep our health stable and what to eat to stead up. i only want to poke my nose in this subject to tell my peer mothers that knees are very important in motherhood, keep them strong, eat , exercise , meet a physician , get supplements or do yoga . But knee health will make your journey easier in toddler years of your child. To take you deeper into the situation.

Exemplary Scenario (a one year old child poops, you are squatting and cleaning. Once done, you are dressing the kid in squatting position. 10 mins later baby pees and the whole process gets repeated. During the day you are playing with the baby, to roll that ball on floor or to pick up that crying child. Your knees have the maximum pressure. So some yoga and stretching, squatting pre hand will warm up the knees and make them more efficient to face the hard day).

Adding to the list of body parts getting maximum jolt in bringing up a baby is hair, our silky strands become lifeless and we blame in on the lack of folic acid which beautified them during pregnancy. And apart from falling hair condition due to hormonal imbalance, we don’t have enough time to look after our mane, all we do is wash it and roll them in a real unkempt bun. We aggregate the problem further by entangling them and never properly combing it. My hack is: oil your hair day in and out, and keep them oiled until you want to flash them at a party .believe me life will become much easy and calm with oiled hair pulled back in a neat plaid or bun. Your happiness too will increase when see your mane getting healthier.

Above list of things are truly from a moms perceptive raising a toddler. Feedback & suggestion will be loved and will help me in the upcoming write-ups.

THE FIGHT TAKES OFF

Hi

Welcome to paperplanes !!

I am extremely excited to start my journey, it was so difficult to shed my initial inhibitions of failing miserably, I always falter at writing but my heart speaks infinite amount of words every day. It became very important to channelize my inner self and along the way bring some new dimension to life.

Before i take you on this journey, I want to share few things, leaving a corporate life was not easy, I have worked for eight years in the field of fashion before everything came to a screeching halt with a baby. But soon it hit me that bringing up a responsible human is no joke. I choose to drop everything off and embraced the baby time. Bringing up a kid is not at all easy, but along the way I realise t it has always been very difficult when we detour from familiarity. Setting my path aside also made me very strong and I wish more power to myself. (Sorry for being so needy, but believe me I need super powers I am a mother duh!)

Now you must be wondering what paperplanes would be like. Paperplanes will take you on a journey of being a mommy and its tad bits. I will also explore my undying love for everything design, craft and fashion. “Cooking” cooking is something which came very late to me and how. But the downside of this late coming is that I love to cook for occasions, cuisines and try new dishes, but when it’s for everyday meals, it’s a thumb down.

Let’s embark on this sojourn and have some fun, while I work harder towards bringing out the best in me.