Healthy toddler granola

I can get a bit hung up on getting my toddler daughter eating what I hope is a balanced diet. She often eats well in the morning but we don't always have tome to put together a real spread of different foods and children's cereals are so refined they are nutritionally often pretty poor. I've discovered that she loves granola and with it's nuts, oats, seeds and fruit it contains lots of nutrition. The shop bought variety can be very sugary and contains big chunks of oats and nuts which are a choking hazard to small children. I've come up with a work around that she devours.

What I do is put 1 part sugar free muesli and 1 part granola in a food processor and whizz until it is broken down into small pieces. These proportions are approximate and the bigger the proportion of sugar free muesli you use the less refined sugar in the end product.

There are loads of ways to make this even more nutritious. Add in mixed seeds and nuts for healthy fats and minerals or different types of dried fruit such as unsulphured apricots or cranberries. Sometimes I add in dark chocolate chips or some Ovaltine for extra tastiness. Just make sure that it's all blitzed to a fine gravel.

You can make this in bulk but it's best kept in the fridge to preserve the fats in the seeds as they will go rancid more quickly once broken up.

You can then do all sorts of breakfasts with your ground up granola. Mix it with milk and serve or leave it to soak overnight. Grate in an apple and you have Bircher muesli. Turn it into porridge with a short blast in the microwave (also nice with grated apple). Transform it in a smoothie with a banana and yoghurt and any other fruit you or your little one fancy.

Rosehip syrup

It's the time of year for preserving the last of the summer's light in bottles and jars. Yesterday I got on my bike to see what goodies could be found for free in my area. It was slim pickings in terms of blackberries (or brambles), which will be a real disappointment to Little Girl as she shouts excitedly 'crumbles!' When we find a patch and then devours them faster than I can pick them for her. I turned some that she didn't get her mits on into crumble earlier in the season.
What were available in abundance was rosehips and sloes. There were clearly a few different varieties of rose growing along the paths as some rosehips were still hard and not ripe yet, so best left for a return visit later in the month, while others were soft and burst as I picked them from the bushes.
Today I got to work turning the kilo of rosehips into syrup. Rosehip syrup is famously rich in vitamin C but now that sugar is regarded as a public health hazard, I'm not sure that it's health credentials hold up so well as it took a kilo of sugar to transform my rosehips into 2 litres of syrup. Still, it's delicious and versatile as an ingredient in so many dishes. A drizzle transforms muesli or plain yoghurt into a delicious breakfast treat, or serve it with vanilla ice cream for a decadent speedy dessert. For something even more special try it in a cocktail at Christmas.

Rosehip Syrup

Ingredients
1 kilo rosehips
1 kilo caster sugar

You will also need a couple of bottles. Used screw top wine bottles are ideal. Wash them in warm soapy water and put them to dry and sterilise in the oven at 120 degrees Celsius.
A jam muslin is handy for straining but a clean tea towel over a colander works fine too.


The method for making roship syrup is straightforward.
Chop the hips roughly in the food processor.
Put them in a large pan with 2 litres of boiling water. Bring to the boil and then turn off the heat. Leave the hips in the water for about half an hour to infuse. Then strain through the muslin or tea towel into a large bowl.
Return the pulp to the pan and cover with 1 litre of boiling water. Bring to the boil and again turn off the heat for half an hour. Strain the liquid and put the pulp on your compost heap. Put the liquid back into the pan and boil until the liquid has reduced by half. Turn off the heat and add the kilo of sugar. Stir until the sugar is dissolved and then return the pan to the heat. Boil vigorously for 5 minutes. You are now ready to decant the syrup into the warm sterile bottles. It's easier to pour the mixture into a jug first and then into the bottles than to try to go straight from pan to bottle with a funnel.

Just remembery not to put your muslin or tea towel into the washing machine with other items. The fine hairs inside the rosehips make a really good itching powder and you don't want to distribute them through your laundry.