Pizza Pizza Pizza!!

Today was Pizza day!
A spontaneous idea. And they turned out good.
So, thought of noting down the recipe:

Preparation time: 30-45 minutes
Oven temp: 200°C (390°F) electric oven / 180°C (355°F) convection oven
Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:
Pizza base:
1 packet (with 2 bags) Mondamin Pizzateig (pizza flour)
250-270 ml leukewarm water

Tomato base:
1/2 - 2/3 tin (400g) of pizza tomatoes
a pinch Italian herbs, dry(rosmary, thyme and oregano)
1 tsp fresh thyme and rosemary, finely chopped
1 tbsp capers
1 tbsp olive oil
salt, to taste

Mushroom Pizza:
1 green bellpepper, washed and diced or cut into thin slices
200-250g brown crimini mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
salt, to taste
parmesan, a small piece
gauda, grated
1 tsp fresh thyme and rosemary
a few slices of (cherry) tomato
4-5 slices of salami - only on one half (for my DH)

Tuna Pizza (half Pizza):
1/4 yellow bell pepper, diced
1 tsp fresh thyme and rosemary, finely chopped
3 cherry tomatoes, sliced
1 tin of tuna fish
1 tsp capers
parmesan, a small piece
salt
gauda, grated

Pizza Hawai (half Pizza):
2 thin slices of cooked ham (italian style, as per the packet), cut into small squares
2 slices of canned or fresh pineapple (fresh tatses better), cut into small pieces
1/4 yellow bell pepper, diced
parmesan, a small piece
half a hand ful of basil leaves
a pinch of fresh thyme
1 ball of mozarella, sliced
salt, to taste

Method:
Knead the dough using both the bags of pizza flour with 250 ml of lukewarm water, if needed add a few tablespoons more of water slowly while kneading. Divide into two. Roll out each dough immediately (no waiting required) into thin pizza bases, round or square.
Mix all the ingredients of the tomato base in a bowl and spread on both the pizza bases.

For Mushroom Pizza:
Fry the mushrooms and green bell peppers quickly on high heat in a tablespoon of olive oil and the herbs and salt. Spread on one Pizza base. Put some slices of tomato over it. Grate parmesan evenly over the pizza. Spread grated gauda cheese over it. Bake in a preheated oven for 30 minutes.

For Tuna Pizza:
Fry the yellow bell pepper with some salt and olive oil on high heat for a minute. Take out and set aside. Fry tuna in olive oil for a minute with the herbs and salt. Spread both on one half of the Pizza base. Grate parmesan evenly on it. Put capers (careful-are quite salty!) and sliced chery tomatoes over it. Put grated gauda on it. It is ready to be baked.

For Pizza Hawai :
Fry the yellow bell pepper with some salt and olive oil on high heat for a minute. Spread on the pizza base along with ham, pineapple and basil leaves. Grate parmesan over it. Put the Mozarella slices over it. bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes.

What does my son eat during the day

This is just for the record:
My son turned 3 years old end of February. And thi is what he eats on an average:

1) Breakfast
2-3 tablespoons of Müsli with 1/2 - 1 cup of milk,
or sometimes
one slice of bread with either cheese or a cold slice, or sometimes also liverwurst along with milk.

2) Fruits for his tiffinbox at the kindergarten
I give him, depending on the size,
an apple, sliced and peeled (very important , if I want him to eat it too!)
or a pear or a combination of one of thes with grapes or kiwi, or any other fruit I have at home.
Sometimes he may also get a carrot or cucumber, also cut into slices

3) Midday meal
I don't have any control over this during the week as he eats at the kindergarten, which I find wonderful, as he has develoed a a good rhythem and also a good appetite for the midday meal which was not always like this. It is difficult to write about what he eats as he does not like to tell me what he did or ate at his school.
He usually get to eat either noodles or rice or potatoes with some some seasonal vegetables and, I think, every other day some meat, which is usually chicken, which I find OK too.

4) Afternoon snack
1 cup (150ml) of Yoghurt with banana. Sometimes when he is hungry he also gets to eat bread or something else. Sometimes he is allowed to have a cookie or some small piece of chocolate he got on a birthday as a return gift. Some carots or cucumeber sometimes and sometimes in ther salad with the dinner.

5) Dinner
Either a warm meal or just bread and butter with some cheese, like Gauda, or a cold slice.
A warm meal could be Indian food: daal, chawal, sabzi or sometimes parantha. Making rotis is very hard on my ceramic cooktop, atleast I haven't figured out a convinient way of maing it. Another reason is that I never really made rotis as my hubby is not as fond of them. He prefers rice. But a warn meal could also be pasta, as you can see on this blog, or fish served with vegetables and either rice or potato. How much he eats is decided by him himself. I'm learning to control myself, but can't reisit feeding him couple of spoons,if he does not eat properly. which he eats readily sometimes and sometimes refuses, which is totally fine with me too. I rather not feed hm at all, but when he hardly eats anything, I just can't resist. :I

6) This is not the rule: Dessert (sometimes)
It could be a muffin or a piece of cake or an icecream. On days he does not eat much for the dinner ('cause he did not like it :I :) ) , he finishes a small piece of the cake or the whole muffin or the icecream, or half of of it, when he is already quite full.

Banana sandwitch

In the afternood when my son is hungry, I like to give him half a banana (these South American ones are usually so huge that half is really enough), as it is a fruit, i.e., has vitamins and minerals, is sweet (a very important factor for my son!) and has calories too (important for the mom, as his weight is really on the margin). I may sound like one of those worrying mothers always complaining about how little their child eats, but just can't help it!
So, I find it a good thing for an afternoon snack.
Now that he was getting bored of eating a banana which I had already cut into slices for him. He asked for it himself, but then did not want to eat it once it was on the table. Hhhhhhmmm....
So, I had to think up of something, as always ending up eating away his leftovers is doing me no good (Need I explain?!). And this is how he enjoyed eating it, atleast half of it and then he was not hungry anymore, but that is OK! :
Whole wheat bread with a layer of a haselnut nougat creme (one famous brand is Nutella)
and banans over it.

Bananas playing hide and seek

In this picture you don't see bananas. 'cause they are hiding! That is how I made my son eat his yoghurt the first time. I tried to persuade him to eat yoghurt. And now he himself askes for it.
"Versteckte Bananen" is how I called it in German, to make it a game for my 3 years old son. I guess in Hindi I would call it " केला खेले छुपन छुपाई".

Basic cake recipe

I got a recipe froma friend of mine which is very easy to memorise. It helped me a lot in my baking efforts. After having made a couple of trials with it I was confident enough to make varaitions which lead me to make appropriate changes and am now surprised at the easiness of baking. Of course, simple baking as it follows.
I will first write down the recipe I got fom my friend. It is called:

The Recipe of 2's

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 200g (7 oz) sugar
• 200g (7 oz) butter
• 1 pk. vanilla sugar
• 200g (7 oz) flour
• 1 packet of baking powder (as per the manufacturer, the amount needed for 500g of flour)
• fruits of choice as topping

My proportions for the ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 200g (7 oz) sugar
• 150 or 200g (7 oz) butter, both the amounts are possible
• 1 pk. vanilla sugar
• 250g (8 1/2 oz) flour
• 3tsp baking powder
• fruits of choice as topping

Method:

• Mix the baking powder with the flour in a bowl.
• beat the rest of the ingredients together with an electric hand mixer in another bowl.
  
• Add the flour slowly to it and beat further to make the batter light and fluffy.
  
• spread it with a spatula on a greased round tin (Ø 26cm) or a square tin of similar size.
• Cover with fruits
• Put fruits as per desire and amount on top of the cake. Like berries or apples (peeled, cored and sliced). Apples make a lovely combination with walnuts. Or just add some nuts and raisins or dry fruits to the batter. Roasting the nuts sligtly before adding to the cake gives a good flavour.

Preparation time: 30-35 minutes
Temp.: 200°C (390°F) electric oven / 180°C (355°F) convection oven
Baking time: 45 min.

Yesterday I baked a cake for my hubby, which he wanted to take to the office. An apple cake. But like so often I forgot to take a picture. But there will be a next time.

Tips:

• use 200g (7 oz) flour and 50 g (3 1/2 tbsp) cornflour or any other edible starch
• add some teaspoons of milk if the batter is too stiff. It should be easy to spread with a spatula.
• I also like to add 50g of powdered or finely chopped almonds (or any other nuts) when I have them at home.
• serve cake with whipped cream. To whip add some sugar to the cream and a few drops of vanilla flavour(optional) and lemon peel (buy readymade, if not sure about pesticides).

Some good links on health

BZgA: Bundes Zentrale für Gesundheitliche Aufklärung
Unsaturated fatty acids
Omega 3 fatty acids

The food pyramid

It is good to have a look at a food pyramid to check on our own cooking habits and to make sure that we are not missing out on anything which is important for our children. I went to wikipedia and did not like the new food pyramid so much, however fancy it may look like. It shows all that we should eat, but not very clearly in what proportions. I mean, just imagine you had to teach this to the children in school and would expect them to learn from it. I don't know why the stripes have to be vertical and not horizontal.
I still like the older one shown here.
Well, the lower one shown here is a german version which I liked as well. In both the cases at one glance you get to see the distribution and the right proportions.



And here my interpretation for them:

Every day
whole grain products (pasta, rice, bread, potatoes, oat flakes, müsli, all high-starch vegetable sources like taro, yam, sweet potatoes and so on) as the main food on the plate, less often the white flour products (less minerals and fibres, leads to health disorders)

Every day
vegetables (3 portions)
and fruits (2 portions)

Every day in smaller amounts
Milk and milk products like joghurt and cheese
2 to 6 year olds need about 2 cups of milk and milk products
(joghurt and cheese)
6 to 8 onwards and teenagers need 3-4 cups of milk and milk products;
cheese is a more concentrated form of calcium and vitamins A and E.
Joghurt and (fermented-) cheese are more easily digestable than milk.
For vegetarians:
lentils and beans(vegans: see link below)

2-3 times per week

(in small amounts):

meat and eggs (not more than twice), fish (atleast once weekly; contains the important omega-3-fatty acids)
white meat (poultry) is much healthier than red meat
lentils and beans
nuts and dried fruits

In very small amounts :

Fats and oils use daily but sparingly to cook food, an average adult has a daily requirement of not more than 80 ml of oils and fats which also includes the hidden fats like in milk, sweets, meat and fish, etc.
Sugar (in products like cake cookies, toffees, chocolate, icecreams and sugar as such; only now and then)

I'm still working on this topic, it is not final and would appreciate any suggetions.

And, at the end, these are just guidelines.

Some good links:
Dietery Guidelines, USDA
Food pyramid, USDA
Vegan pyramid
Vegetarian Food Pyramid
Die aid Ernährungs Pyramide