Anyway, back to CBeebies. D's interest in programmes has changed over time. While he's not allowed to watch very much he has had a few programmes that have been favourites - Sarah and Duck, Alphablocks, Andy's Wild Adventures and Octonauts. Recently, he's been clamouring to watch I Can Cook - clearly some of the desire to cook has rubbed off on him.
Every time he does watch an episode he asks if we can make the meals. They always seem to be good meals but some of them don't really appeal. What's nice is that all of them are meals that could be made with the help of a little one and they all consider fruit and veg and how to incorporate them in a fun way. There is no hiding of vegetables and the descriptions for how to make the meals is engaging.
So, I decided to give one of the recipes a go with D one afternoon. We both love falafels and so Falafel footballs was a good one to choose. The CBeebies website provides all of the recipes, so you don't have to scrabble for a pen and paper or keep re-watching the episode to work out what is going on.
Having said that though, I did do a bit of a tinker with it in that not having chickpeas in the recipe at all seemed a travesty.
Stats: - Feeds two adults and one child. Best made with a small helper.
Ingredients: -
Olive oil spray
1 400g tin of kidney beans, drained
1 400g tin of chick peas, drained
1 garlic clove, minced
2 continental spring onions, finely chopped (or snipped by small one if you would rather)
1.5 teaspoons dried cumin
2 teaspoons fresh coriander
2 teaspoons plain flour
Preheat the oven to gas mark 6. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
Put your minced garlic and drained beans into a large freezer bag and squish up - you can either do this with a rolling pin or by squishing the bag between your hands. Make sure that you don't overfill the bag or that you secure it at the top. we had to do three lots in a medium sized bag. When they are well squished (chickpeas are harder than kidney beans, meaning that more of them are retained whole or nearly whole). Transfer to a large mixing bowl.
Add the spring onions to the bean mixture and stir well to distribute through the mixture.
Chop up your coriander, either using scissors or a mezzaluna (with supervision, this is quite a good tool for D to use) and add to the bowl. Reserve a few leaves for dressing.
Add the cumin and flour and stir. Squeeze together.
Take a large handful of the mixture and form into balls. This is a bit of a tricky part of the recipe for D as he has a tendency to use too much strength and flatten the balls. The recipe says that it makes eight balls, we managed ten slightly smaller ones.
Put on your lined baking tray and spray with the oil.
Bake for 12 minutes. Allow to cool for a few minutes before serving, sprinkled with the reserved coriander.
I served with some couscous and houmous. The couscous was made with vegetable stock and the juice of half a lemon to add flavour.
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