Infants and toddlers don’t must miss out on the entire enjoyable festive meals this Christmas! The next 5 concepts are extremely easy, nutritious, seasonal (for Australia), versatile, and so yummy that the entire household will love them.
All of them look fairly spectacular too, in order that they’re good to whip up and take with you to Christmas events with friends of all ages. We hope you take pleasure in making these along with your little ones.
1. Festive fruit shapes
This Christmas-themed finger meals concept is by far the best. All you want is fruit plus some cookie cutters or a knife. No cooking or baking required. For instance:
- Reduce Christmas timber out of small slices of watermelon by reducing the rind into thirds and trimming the outer elements to create a tree ‘trunk’.
- Use Christmas cookie cutters to chop shapes out of cantaloupe, apples, pineapple, or kiwi fruit. Alternatively, use a knife to chop out stars or hearts.
- Be happy to get as inventive as you want, and adorn the timber or shapes with shredded coconut, or drizzles of yoghurt or coconut cream.
2. Frozen yoghurt bark
Frozen yoghurt bark is enjoyable and straightforward to make with toddlers. There’s no must observe a precise recipe, so let your baby get inventive (and messy) with out you having to fret that it received’t work out.
It’s great for teething bubs or to chill everybody down on a sizzling day. To make it festive, you’ll be able to select pink and inexperienced toppings.
Substances:
- Pure Greek yoghurt or coconut yoghurt (about 500g)
- Berries
- Kiwi fruit
- Shredded coconut
- Pomegranate seeds
- Finely chopped mint leaves
Instructions:
- Cowl a big baking tray with non-stick baking paper (make sure the tray will be capable of match within the freezer first!)
- Unfold the yoghurt in a skinny layer over the paper
- Put together your toppings. For the fruit, you would possibly need to lower shapes out, finely slice, or chop into small chunks. To scale back the choking danger, guarantee any blueberries are lower into not less than halves.
- Sprinkle the toppings on the yoghurt until your coronary heart’s content material.
- As soon as the yoghurt is embellished, pop the tray within the freezer for about 2-4 hours.
- As soon as frozen strong, snap the bark into smaller items, and put them into one other container and again into the freezer.
Now, you’ve bought nutritious, refreshing snacks to tug out of the freezer anytime.
3. Merry mini muffins
Your child will love these muffins any time of day, and also you’ll be happy to know that they’re packed filled with goodness with none added sugar.
See our ‘Basic and versatile savoury mini muffin recipe’. The place it states 1 cup of veggies, you could possibly make them Christmassy by utilizing both (or all):
- Finely chopped child spinach or frozen pureed spinach (thawed)
- Roasted pink and inexperienced capsicum items
- Semi-dried tomatoes, chopped
- Inexperienced olives, lower into quarters
- Dried or recent herbs, akin to chives and parsley
4. ‘Xmas leftovers’ mini pies
Obtained some leftover Christmas Day turkey, hen, or ham, together with some leftover greens? Use them up in yummy mini pies on your baby (the remainder of the household will love them too) to cut back waste, lower your expenses, and inventory the fridge with a couple of prepared meals or snacks for the subsequent day or two. You’ll want a muffin tray to make them.
Substances:
- 1 packet of frozen quick crust pastry
- 1-1½ cup of leftover shredded meat
- 1 cup of leftover or frozen greens, chopped into small items
- ½ cup of thick cream
- ¾ cup grated cheese of selection (plus additional for topping)
- Further flavours akin to garlic and onion powder
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 220℃ (or 200℃ for fan-forced).
- If utilizing frozen greens, gently warmth within the microwave or stovetop for 1-2 minutes till thawed.
- Take the pastry out of the freezer to thaw.
- Add meat, cream, cheese, and any seasoning to the greens in a big bowl.
- Grease a muffin tray or coat with baking spray.
- Utilizing a spherical biscuit cutter or glass with a diameter of about 10 cm, lower out some circles and insert them into the muffin cups (it’s going to fill about half of the cup).
- Divide the filling into every mini pie. Sprinkle on some additional grated cheese.
- You would possibly prefer to high each with a small cut-out star of the pastry.
- Bake for about quarter-hour till golden and crunchy on high.
- Enable the pies to chill for about 10 minutes within the muffin tray earlier than gently eradicating them.
5. Strawberry Santa hats
If you happen to’ve bought a toddler, get them into the kitchen to assist with this straightforward festive fruit snack. In the event that they’re studying to make use of a kid-safe knife, even higher. Make it collectively at snack time to allow them to eat it immediately.
All you’ll want is a few banana, strawberries, and thick yoghurt (a pouch works finest) or whipped cream.
Instructions:
- Slice banana into rounds
- Reduce off strawberry stems
- Place a strawberry on high of the banana slice
- Prime strawberry with the yoghurt or whipped cream to create the ‘pom pom’
