We finally found time to cook again my son and me. It's been a long time and we both missed it. But since he is going to kindergarten everything got a bit more complicated.

Inspiration came as usually from the brilliant " je sais cuisiner pour mes doudous"
Dinner was little black spiders and skulls. Shane did all the cooking by himself. I was only allowed to cut some sculls .

Cut little orange eyes from red cheese or carrots or...
Decorate black olives with the eyes.
Boil black noodles or spaghetti in plenty of salt water.
Cut out some dangerous things ( with a knife ) from puff pastry and bake in the oven for some minutes ( on 170° )
Drain the noodles and make little spiders ( with 8 legs ;-) ) with the olives and the pasta.
Decorate the table and invite some friends.

Culinary travels finally took us to west africa. Shane was longing since long time to go there but my deficient knowledge of the african kitchen detained me.
Internet research tough me that fufu is the thing one eats in west africa.
For a start we went shopping to the local african food store timezone. Timezone was a nice discovery for me too, I have passed that shop plenty of times but it looks like a hair extension shop from the outside, I the back hidden from the street is a food corner with several huge fridges filled with fresh smoked fish. The smell in the shop is incredibly ( fishy ) definitely nothing for wimps. Next to some root vegetables and plantains they have also a huge selection of dried fish and shrimps :-)

We had a good look at everything bought some plantains, fufu flour, palm juice for kevin and plantain chips. Before leaving we asked the african lady to explain us how to cook fufu, and of we went.

Back home we did some more research:

Our menu we agreed on would be fufu with peanut soup ( recipe from the internet ), and fried plantains.

We all had no clue what to expect and were really pleased with the result - I think it's not the last time we had fufu and next time we gonna do it the real way!

Here's the recipe from the congocookbook:

Peanut Soup

Various peanut soups are common throughout Africa. Some are very simple, others more elaborate. They are often eaten as a main course along with Rice, or one of the Fufu-like staples: Baton de Manioc, Fufu, or Ugali.

What you need

two or three cups chicken broth or chicken stock
one small onion, minced
one small sweet green pepper (or bell pepper), minced
one clove of garlic, crushed (optional)
salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper or red pepper (to taste)
one hot chile pepper, minced (optional)
one carrot, chopped fine or one sweet potato or yams, boiled and mashed (optional)
one or two tomatoes, chopped or canned tomatoes (optional)
one cup natural unsweetened peanut butter (or make your own peanut paste, see the simple peanut soup recipe below)
What you do

If using homemade peanut paste, simmer it with the broth for fifteen minutes, then add all other ingredients and simmer over low heat until everything is thoroughly cooked. Stir often. Soup should be thick and smooth.
If using peanut butter: Combine all ingredients except the peanut butter and simmer over medium heat until everything is tender. Reduce heat, add the peanut butter and simmer for a few minutes more. Stir often. Soup should be thick and smooth.

"Je sais cuisiner pour mes doudous" is the name of the book that brought peace and hope back into our kitchen, and this only one week after the total food crisis. Last week my son made me completely loose my temper. I told him I would never again cook for him, that he would have to cook his dinner by himself and so on. What happened ? Nothing particularly dramatic just sometimes I just can't bear his fussiness anymore. He said something like he can't eat the carrot because it has globule in it and I totally freaked out.
In Paris I came across this book and I thought it might be a good idea to get him his own cookbook. The book is about cooking for your toys. Packed with seasonal recipes kids can easily cook. Heres how our kitchen looked the day after I came back from Paris.

We celebrated little monkeys birthday with little burgers filled with quail eggs, parmesan cheese, parsley and mayonnaise.

and for pudding we had milkshake!

one of little monkeys friends ate so much he fell asleep at the table!

Buy the book it's great (  and french ;-) ) HERE

Mister super fussy did help his dad with cooking yesterday ( something he likes ) just before he had to go to bed. He stirred the soy sauce into the fried onions and shiitake mushrooms and I could se his face when the beautiful smell filled the kitchen - surprise!

While putting on pijamas he told me that he wold love to eat dinner with us - that it smelled so nice and the poached egg looked so yummy. No question, for eating, I let my boy stay up till midnight ;-) of course he added that he would not eat mushrooms and avocado. And so he sat with us and happily snacked from our rice dinner. Mean as I am sneaked in some tiny avocado bits. Funny thing is he really likes cilantro - always did.

For lunch he wanted the same again . Rice with soy sauce, cucumber, poached egg and lot's of cilantro. Oh and because he's not stupid he said if we would have had avocado he would only have eaten it cut into tiny bits.

The friends did like it to0.

For a long time I wanted to share this with you. When every I fell totally guilty again for our boys eating habits I read it.

It's just from A-Z how our culinary life with our son is like. Only for Alex Rentons son it's not the pasta but the cheese.

I strongly recommend you read this extremly funny article from Alex Renton in the food monthly June 2006 ( when I read this first I did not know what was waiting for me).

"What do you give the boy who doesn't like anything - except cheese?
Even the children of foodies need to be coaxed into trying something new, but how do you whet young appetites? Alex Renton takes seven-year-old Adam to the supermarket with his own basket and the pick of the aisles"

read the full article here

or if your to busy here are my 3 favorite quotes:

"But when Adam and I first sat down with a plate of boiled lobster that we'd caught and cooked together, he said 'Yuk!' without even trying it. I thought I might cry. If he'd come home with Black Sabbath tattoos, newly baptised into the Church of Beelzebub, it could hardly have been worse."

"While we were there, though, I managed to lose his trust in me, forever, as far as food is concerned. One day at a Thai restaurant table, when he was four or five, I offered him money if he'd just try something Thai and tasty. He remembers the event well - 'the day you made me drink the fish sauce'. Stupid Dad. His reaction was spectacular - he threw up all over the table. Who wouldn't? Now, if I offer him an olive or an anchovy, a macadamia nut or a piece of 70 per cent cocoa chocolate, and tell him it's just delicious, he'll go: 'Oh, no, I don't think so! Nice try, Dad.' I'm not catching him out again. "

"Or, as happened last winter, when the narrow list of foodstuffs he will eat with enthusiasm actually contracts. That was a bad time. Fish fingers, chicken breast and scrambled eggs all departed the menu in the space of a few weeks, and the only meat or fish protein left was little Piglet-pink Richmond sausages. But we bounced back, with Marks & Spencer's breaded chicken goujons (that's posh nuggets), boiled eggs (yolks only) and canned tuna. You keep trying, you don't give up, you're positive, encouraging and you offer variety without pressure. You keep your temper, you try to get off his case. But how we miss those fish fingers - and I never thought I'd find myself saying that."

Culinary travels and bad weather took us to new york the other day.
Making bagels is fun. It looks more complicated than it actually is. I know you could go and buy ready made ones.
But when the when the weather is cold and you are stuck at home with a little boy at home it's a fun thing to do.

The batter:
500 gr flour
2 tsp dried yeast
172 tbs sugar
1/2 tsp salt
340 ml water

Mix flour, yeast, salt and sugar with the water and mix in a blender or a food processor till very elastic.
Dust, cover and let it sit for 40 minutes.
Form 8 balls and let them sit for an other 5 minutes. Form the bagels. I always make a hole with my finder in the middle of the dough and start turning, sliding the the doug on the floured surface. The hole should be approximately 4 cm in the end. Let them sit for an other 30 minutes.
Heat a big pot with water. Put the bagels into the boiling water and cook for 30 sec on each side. Carefully take them out and put them on a dry cloth to drain.  Sprinkle with sesame, poppy seed, onions ete.
Bake for 25 minutes on 220°.
Cut into halves and fill as you like.

With marmite and gherkins.

Honey mustard, brie and cress or onion sprouts,

New York lox with organic salmon, cream cheese with horseradish and capers.

The next destination on our culinary trip around the world was Ireland. Emotional home country to his grand mother and his father and hopefully the next destination we are heading to.
Shane was very excited about  the beer batter, which I let him do by himself.
The lunch was a big success, he did try everything and liked almost everything except the peas. ( which he used to like some time ago;-))

Fish and chips, coleslaw and peas.

Last weekend was our sons Birthday party. He wanted it to be a witches party.

We made some really fun things like a very scary witches cave in our cellar and we cooked  some serious magic potion with our witches.

Kids party means chocolate cake but since we always invite friends for beer and chips afterwards and we never have enough food I started to rummage through some cookbook in search for more cakes I could bake. It happened what always happens ... I can't decide, I find plenty of things I'd love to do. Whilest my studies I came up with the idea of having a very scary round table with things witches eat  - like toad slime and bats poo.

I baked till total exhaustion but it was worth it. Lot's of fun and my son really loved it.

Work in progress.

Pierre Herme's Nutella tart .

The spider ring.

Insects pie.

the lovely cheese cake from foodbeam for the fearful ones.

spiderweb cakes.

matcha cupcakes.

and of course some jelly and a proper birthday cake.

Did I ever tell you about the high expectations I had of my son? I was so looking forward discovering the culinary world with him. I dreamt of eating sushi in japan and sea urchin fresh from the sea. Picking berries from the bushes in our garden and hunting for blueberries in the woods. How naive was I ! I must have read to many food blogs. :-) I got confronted with parenting reality when we introduced him to his very first home made carrot mush - he hated it. He got this really red face he get when he is seriously upset and started screaming. It only got better when we introduced pasta some month later. Plain pasta I mean.

We tried everything to make him eat "normally". In the end everybody was upset and dinner was just plain stress. At a certain point we decided , or he forced us with his behavior, that he'll get his pasta with parmesan cheese in the evening and we eat our dinner when he's in bed. I don't feel particularly good with this solutions but dinner and cooking is less stressful and to me it's more important that everybody is enjoying his food.
For a long time we lived with this arrangement quite happy. The list with what our boy eats got longer and sometimes shorter again. Basically he doesn't like when different foods are mixed together ( except maybe risotto which he loves ). He his very fussy with textures. He likes vegetables but only raw. He was keen to try cooked asparagus and artichokes, and likes them, but would never try strawberries or any other fruit except apples . All red things all come from hell in his eyes except tomato sauce which has nothing to do with(red) tomatoes of course.
But when, on a trip to france,  I found myself hunting through the city of Narbonne for a place we could find cooked pasta for our boy I became desperate again. This is the last thing I thought I would ever do.
We love to travel and he likes it too but where can we go with a boy who only eats pasta and raw vegetables?  Next year we plan on going on a big holiday so there is some work to be done.

So some weeks ago we embarked on a culinary travel around the world. He gets to choose the country he wants to visit. Then we collect images from this county. We talk about the animals which life there and what is different and special about that country. Most important we check if they have a football team and how good they are. We even listen to some local music. A modern parent would be lost without the internet! Then we make a collage for our travel journey and then finally it's shopping time.

When we sit down for our lunch he is really quite ready for the adventure. It's not that he would like most of it but at least he tries and has fun. It's fun for me to. First I have to find out what the national diet in the selected country is and then I have to come up with a children adapted menu. Next is Ivory cost - I'm pretty lost, what can I cook with with jams and plantains? Any tips?

Here where we've been so far:

Greece:

We started our trip in greece. Because a good friend of him was in greece by then.

On the menu were:
Tzaziki, Moussaka,  rice and lot's of black olives.
Conclusion: Tzaziki: well cucumbers are better without yoghurt he thinks, Moussaka, didn't help that I used the left overs from his fathers tomato sauce ( which was spicy as hell ) but the rice and the olives can feed you too.

Vietnam:

In vietnam we had for lunch:
Fresh spring rolls, peanut butter dip, fresh asian herbs and rice.
Conclusion: Two bites of spring rolls, lots of thai basil and cilantro, he liked the dip but did not like to dip in... and he ate lot's of rice (as long as it comes with soy sauce) . The making of the spring rolls was popular though.

Mexico:

On the menu ware burritos filled with saffron rice and peas. tomatoes, Onions, cilantro and avocado to roll in. Tortilla chips and guacamole.

Conclusion:

He did not like his burrito but said this is strange since he liked everything he rolled into it. I suggested to unpack it and eat all the ingredients separately. This worked fine. He tried a tiny bit of avocado but did not like it at all. Meanwhile he was happily dipping his tortilla chips into the guacamole ;-)

My son and I, we do a lot of baking. He's a fuzzy eater and I hope helping in the kitchen will open his mind and his taste buds. These little chocolate cakes are cute and easy to make. He loved everything about them, so small, so cute and so easy to make.

120 gr dark chocolate
120 gr Butter
120 gr sugar
4 eggs
1 pinch of salt
70 gr ground almonds
60 gr flour

Pre heat the oven on 175°

Melt the chocolate, butter and the sugar in a pan over medium heat.
Beat the egg white with the salt till stiff. Mix the yellow with the almonds. Add the chocolate mixture and slowly add the egg whites. Fill into the buttered cake forms and bake for approximately 15 min.