Painting Pasta, Making Rainbows

Every day my daughter's early years teachers send us some ideas of things we can do as part of her home learning. She's four, nearly five. Today they suggested some pasta painting, something they regularly do at school but not something we've ever done at home before. We're a little limited on pasta at the moment so we had to think ahead about what we wanted to make and plan it out so we didn't waste any. My daughter decided she wanted to use lots of different colours with the aim of making a pasta rainbow. 

I wanted her to be involved in every stage so as part of the planning she wrote down the colours she wanted to use for her rainbow, she decided on seven in total. 

She then carefully counted out three pieces of pasta for each of her chosen colours. 

We are also limited on paint colours so she started off painting with the colours we had and then we discussed how we could make the colours we were missing. 

She enjoyed experimenting mixing the colours together and was quite particular about the shades she wanted so took her time adding more colour and blending.

Once she'd finished painting and let the pasta dry she arranged them on the paper in the order she wanted them. We discussed that rainbows are normally in horizontal ribbon form but as we didn't have enough pasta we had to do it in blocks of colour. Once she was happy with the design I helped her glue the pasta to a thick piece of paper.

Although it was a really simple activity it required lots of different skills. She did some planning and writing, having a guess at how to spell the different colours. As well as counting and adding. She also got to test her ideas about which colours to mix together to get a desired additional colour. Finally she was able to practice delicately painting small items. 

She really enjoyed the activity and with the beautiful weather it was something we were able to do outside.

She even drew a few extras to the finish off the picture.

Spicy Peanut Butter Baked Cauliflower

Another week of lockdown is underway and I've been avoiding supermarket shopping by relying on fruit and vegetable box deliveries to top up what we've got left in the cupboard. As I don't get to choose what comes in our weekly fruit and veg delivery I'm being a lot more adventurous in the kitchen and enjoying trying new things and adapting recipes based on ingredients I already have in the cupboard, fridge and freezer. 

This week we got a cauliflower as part of our delivery and it's probably one of my least favourite vegetables and one I rarely buy. I sought out various ideas on how best to cook this cauliflower and decided spicy was the way to go! I came across plenty of recipes that looked delicious but I didn't have all the ingredients so based on what I had available to me this is what I made.

Ingredients

For the Spicy Peanut Butter Coating:

130g smooth peanut butter

2 tbsp light soy sauce

1 tbsp honey 

1 tsp vinegar or Chinese rice wine

1 or 2 tsp hot sauce or sriracha, to taste (I used 2 as we like spicy food)

2 TSP ground ginger, could of course use fresh ginger grated or puréed ginger but we only had ground ginger in

3 cloves of garlic

100ml water

1 tsp vegetable oil (or sesame oil)

Generous pinch of salt and black pepper

1 Cauliflower chopped into sliced florets

1 Carrot cut into thin strips or ribbons

½ Red Pepper cut into thin strips

Spring onions to garnish (approx 2)

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Blend all the ingredients for the peanut butter coating. Taste and add more seasoning as required.

In a large casserole dish or baking tray lined with greaseproof paper, lay out the chopped florets and cover with the peanut sauce.

Bake for 20 minutes, then add the red pepper and carrot mixing the ingredients gently, at this point I also added another tablespoon of water to help mix and coat all the veggies. Then back in the oven to bake for another 10 to 15 minutes or until cauliflower is tender.

Serve on its own, as a side dish or with rice, noodles, salad and grains or in a wrap.

It went down really well and is definitely something I would make again. Next time I make it, I may make some extra of the peanut butter coating so I can water it down ever so slightly to use as a sauce. Would also work with chicken, pork or vegetable kebabs.

Orange Polenta Cake

During this time of lockdown due to the Corona Virus one thing I'm doing more of is baking, cooking and gardening. Tasks that I used to find a chore are now a welcome distraction from our new monotonous routine of homelife. 

With all four of us spending the last four weeks confined to our little house, and trying to juggle working from home whilst also overseeing that our two children (aged 4 and 9) are keeping up with their school work, as well as keeping them entertained and in good spirits during this difficult time, a little cooking escapism has been really appreciated! No one ever wants to help me prepare meals so it's a little time to myself exploring a more creative side! I've even been surprised that some of my culinary creations have been well received, even by two somewhat fussy children! 

One of my most successful and popular bakes so far has been an orange polenta cake. First made due to the small amount of flour I had left in the cupboard, polenta that had been in the cupboard for ages and some sorry looking oranges that needed to be used!

Ingredients

250g unsalted butter

200g caster sugar, I've also used demara when I ran out of caster sugar, have to adapt and experiment at the moment!

4 large eggs

150g polenta

200g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

3 medium oranges or 4 or 5 small tangerines or satsumas (whatever you've got in basically!) and the skin from 1 (steamed and puréed)

Method

Steam the oranges including the skin from one in a pan with a small amount of water for about 10-15 minutes. Drain off most of the water and blend the oranges and skin until a smooth purée. I still have an Avent steam and blender that I used to make baby food when weaning which I kept because it's really useful for this sort of thing. Leave to cool. 

Heat oven to 140C (fan). 

Grease a large cake tin with butter, I used a large round cake tin about 25cm.

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. If the butter is straight from the fridge, chop into cubes and give it a blast in the microwave for 30 seconds to soften it up.

Add the eggs and mix thoroughly. Add the orange purée and mix.

Add the dry ingredients flour, polenta and baking powder. Mix well with a spoon or electric hand whisk/mixer.

Transfer the mixture to the tin, spread evenly, then cook for about 45 mins or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. 

Remove from the oven and turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

Serve with cream or ice cream, or perfectly moist on its own.