How to add variety to children's evening meals
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Version 0 of 1. I love wearing an apron. I like the motion of putting one on, and feel empowered when it’s upon me: a battledress, ready for action. My favourite kind of apron is the sort that’s made of thick cotton, worn and faded in butcher’s-stripe blue. I’ve been a chef for over a decade, and I’ve worn an awful lot of aprons. At the end of a restaurant service, the state of my apron would always tell the story of my shift. Beetroot-smeared fingerprints; risottos – so many risottos – leaving stray, dried-out rice granules stuck on to the fabric; lively spitting saucepans and bright-green smudges of salsa verde … On occasion, my apron would even be left scorched black and cindered, the result of moving too hastily around a nearby hob. A spotless apron, so I thought, was a lazy apron. Nonetheless, late at night, at the end of my shift, untying my apron strings and hurling that much-splattered bib into the washing basket always felt triumphant. These days, I am hardly ever in an apron past 7pm in the evening. I have three children at home, the older two of whom almost always fly out of the school gates with a cry of “I’m starving”, so I am often in my apron by 5pm. It was this change of routine that inspired the moniker 5 O’Clock Apron, the name I use online when I blog about cooking for kids and, more recently, the title of my book. Related: Let them eat cake ... for lunch | Cook residency Nightshifts at my restaurant – Flinty Red in Bristol – became unsustainable a few years ago, when I had a third child on the way. I felt myself evermore drawn to being at home for tea, bath and bed times with my kids. So my apron-wearing shifted to a late-afternoon slot – much as I sometimes miss the fast-and-furious pace of a night at the stove, sharp knives, puerile kitchen banter and beers at the end of service. My priorities have changed. My friends with children and other parents at my daughter’s primary school often ask me what I like to cook at home for my kids. Many are surprised by the meals I make: beetroot pilaf (pink rice), Syrian-style lentils, barley and hock broth, Egyptian koshari rice with a cinnamon tomato sauce and Sichuan oxtail stew, and much more. Lots of these parents feel themselves to be stuck in a rut when cooking for their children. Spaghetti bolognese Thursdays, fish pie Fridays and ubiquitous pesto pasta offer them a reassuring, albeit lobotomising, rhythm to a busy working week. In my apron, my mission has been to document what I am feeding my kids, demonstrating to parents that cooking good food for children need not be so tedious. Social media has helped with this and, at 5pm or thereabouts, I serve up and take a quick snap of the kids’ tea. My three think this is an amusing pursuit as, I suppose, do I. But it is definitely effective, and I have a growing number of parent followers who witness – day in, day out – the healthy and imaginative meals that are possible at home. Making vegetables a mainstay along with thrifty storecupboard ingredients, such as rice, pulses and pasta, mean I create nourishing, flavoursome meals for small stomachs – and quickly, too. There are times when I like nothing better than sitting at the table and eating together as a family, but on weeknights, and with masses to do, I am keen to feed the kids early and kick-start their trajectory towards bed. With this in mind, the food I cook for my children is always food that we would like to eat ourselves (more often than not with extra salt and a glass of wine) when the kids have finally hit the hay. As for this recipe, who doesn’t find they’ve often cooked too much pasta? For all that leftover spaghetti, this dish is a belter, where one night’s leftovers become another supper entirely. There’s no going back when you start making spaghetti tortilla. In fact, now I find myself cooking extra pasta in the first place so I can have a second night’s supper as good as done on the first. “Chop-chop” salad is a great accompaniment to serve. It is, quite simply, bright and fresh salad ingredients chopped small and mixed with a little citrus or vinegar and some olive oil. It keeps vegetables central to their diet and the flavours pack a punch. In my experience, kids also enjoy eating meals that they have helped to prepare in the kitchen – however menial a task. This is a salad that my eight-year-old loves to make for her sisters at teatime - wearing her apron, of course, as she chops next to me in mine. Leftover spaghetti tortilla Serves 44 eggs25g parmesan, grated1-2 tbsp of roughly chopped herbs (sage, rosemary or thyme would be my preference here) 250g leftover spaghetti (mixed through with any leftover tomato pasta sauce: all the better)50g mozzarella (the grated sort, or a whole ball, but sliced and well-drained)Salt and black pepperOlive oil, for frying1 In a bowl, beat the eggs and the parmesan together with a little seasoning. Add the herbs and the leftover spaghetti. 2 Using a nonstick frying pan (mine measures 20cm across), get the pan very hot and then add the oil and heat until it begins to shimmer. Add half the egg and spaghetti mix to the very hot pan and spoon the mix over for a few seconds as you might if making a thick omelette. Turn the heat down, giving the pan a bit of a shuffle to distribute and flatten the mix, then add the mozzarella evenly across the surface of the spaghetti and egg mix. 3 Add the remaining half of the egg and spaghetti mix to cover the mozzarella, always conscious of the frittata’s underside not catching too much. 4 When you are confident that the first half of the tortilla is cooked adequately, cover the pan with a snugly fitting plate, then flip it over and tip the tortilla out on to the plate. Return the pan to the hob, add a little extra olive oil and heat it up until it’s very hot once again. Now carefully tip the flipped tortilla back into the pan to cook and colour on the reverse side. Turn the heat down and continue to cook until the frittata is cooked through. The whole process should take from 8–12 minutes. 5 Turn the tortilla out on to a chopping board or plate and leave for a few minutes before cutting. Chop-chop salad Use as many or as few ingredients as you like – the kids can always pick what they like to eat. One child’s cucumber is another child’s avocado and so on. Serves 4TomatoesCucumberAvocadoLittle gem lettuceSpring onionsSmall bunch of parsleyLemon juice or red wine vinegarSalt and black pepper 1 Use some, or all of the above, chop until they are all roughly the same size and dress with lemon juice/vinegar, olive oil and season with a little salt and pepper if you like. |