Creative Christian Mama

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All-Time Favourite Two Healthy Cake Recipes

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“Cakes are special. Every birthday, every celebration ends with something sweet, a cake, and people remember. It’s all about the memories.” — Buddy Valastro

God bless those noble Egyptian souls who once invented cakes for us. And since then, cakes of different types, kinds and flavours have been ruling over our hearts and minds. We possibly couldn’t think of something other than scrumptious yet appealing cakes to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries and other such special days of our lives over, of not over cakes. But one thing about cakes which stops us from keeping on relishing a piece or two of it is it is high in sugar and fat content. Not anymore! Because over this article we bring you two healthy cake recipes which are mostly naturally sweetened and low in the fat content. You can try baking these two cakes at home easily with minimal efforts and ingredients or can simply order these cakes in Hyderabad or whichever place that you are currently residing in. They are nutritious because they have fruits and some veggies too and people of every age group love to relish these healthy cakes. Let’s check out some of these healthy cake recipes, without much ado.

  • Healthy Carrot Cake Recipe – People absolutely love carrots in their cakes, whether or not they like it in their vegetable soup. A moist carrot cake with light cream frosting will be perfect for relishing on some special days and there would be no more stopping when you feel like relishing a piece more of it.

Ingredients:

  • 3 eggs
  • 1-2 bananas
  • 10-15 fresh dates (without seeds)
  • 6 tbsp sunflower oil
  • 1 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1 ½ tsp baking powder
  • 3 tsp cinnamon
  • ½ tsp nutmeg
  • ½ tsp cardamom
  • 3-4 carrots (medium size, grated)
  • ½ cup coconut flakes
  • ½ cup walnuts (roughly chopped)
  • 1/2 cup raisins

Ingredients For Glaze:

  • 200 g cream cheese
  • 3 tbsp honey
  • 1/2 lime (juice)
  • 1/2 cup hazelnuts

Instructions:

  • Start by preheating the oven at 350°F.
  • Meanwhile, take a medium-sized bowl and beat the eggs in it.
  • In another bowl, take bananas, dates and oil into a thick cream with the help of a blender.
  • Sieve flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and cardamom together and pour it in the eggs and banana mixture.
  • Bake the batter for about 40 minutes more. Pick a toothpick to check whether the cake has been baked fully or not.
  • If baked, then take it outer from the oven and place it on a wire rack for it to cool down.
  • To prepare the glaze, whip cream cheese and the honey together. When the cake has cooled down completely, add the glaze and sprinkle some hazelnuts or walnuts from the top. Your cake is ready to be served.
  • Healthy Beet, Seed, and Blood Orange Cake– Haven’t heard of this cake before? Well, you have to bake and try this super healthy cake at home. We bet you are gonna become a fan of it!

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups gluten-free flour blend

1/2 tsp baking soda

scant tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

3/4 cup walnut oil

1 cup brown rice syrup

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups raw red beets, shredded

juice of 1 blood orange

1/2 cup golden raisins

1/2 cup mixed seeds (flax, sunflower, pumpkin)

Blood Orange, Poppy Seed Glaze

Ingredients For Glaze:

juice of 1 blood orange

poppy seeds

Instructions:

  • Start by preheating the oven at 350°F.
  • Prepare your loaf pan by greasing some oil and lining up with a parchment paper. Set aside.
  • Take a large bowl and beat oil and brown rice syrup together in it. Then, proceed by micing a single egg at a time.
  • Grate the beetroot and keep adding blood orange juice, seeds, and raisins to the mixture.
  • Take another bowl and mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon in it.
  • Slowly pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients batter.
  • After combing the batter, pour it in the already prepared baking loaf pan and bake for about  55-60 minutes.
  • Take the toothpick test on the cake to check its doneness. Once done, let it cool for about 15-20 minutes by placing it on a wire rack.
  • Now, for the glaze, combine brown rice syrup, juice and a bit of zest of blood orange. Add a few poppy seeds from the top.
  • Refrigerate it for some time and then serve it chilled.

Hope you enjoyed these two healthy cake recipes!

The 10 Best Fruits And Vegetables To Grow In Your Garden

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If you’re just starting out growing your own fruit and vegetables, congratulations – you’ve made the right decision. Growing your own food is significantly more environmentally friendly than purchasing it. There’s also simply no substitute for sitting down to a home-cooked meal consisting entirely of ingredients you’ve grown yourself. Whatever your reasons may be for growing your own food, it’s a great decision to make.

That said, you’re probably wondering where to get started in this endeavour. What are the best fruits and vegetables you can grow? This, of course, will come down to your personal preferences; do you want easy growth or is versatility more of a priority? Whatever your answer is to this question, this guide should be helpful. We’ve put together a list of the 9 best fruits and vegetables for beginners to grow in their garden.

1. Potatoes

Potatoes are one of the most versatile, useful, and delicious vegetables you can grow in your garden. Thanks to the widespread availability of premium greenhouses in the UK, potatoes are incredibly easy to grow, too. Simply fill a potato sack half-full with compost, then when the shoots start to appear, add more compost. You’ll need to water them too, but this is a seriously easy crop to grow.

2. Strawberries

Perhaps one of the most famous English fruits, strawberries are naturally easy to grow in the UK. They’ll keep coming back year on year, too, so you can expect regular crops if you look after them. You can grow strawberries in tilled soil in your garden, but you can also grow them in hanging baskets, pots, and anywhere else you can situate soil. They make a delicious snack with cream!

3. Garlic

As a member of the onion family, garlic can reasonably be expected to grow in pretty much any conditions. If you want it to grow during the winter, you’re going to need to invest in a high-quality greenhouse, but it’s such a staple of almost every meal that it’s worth having a greenhouse just for garlic. Be sure to expose your garlic to cold weather so that the cloves separate!

4. Onions

We couldn’t create a list like this and not include onions. Just like garlic – with which they share a significant kinship – onions are pretty much a staple food. They’re in everything from pies to curries to stir-fry dishes. Growing onions is relatively simple for beginners and many can be grown in the same plot; they’re more of a leaf crop than a root crop, so think of them that way when you position them.

5. Tomatoes

Whether you’re thinking of making a quiche or a Caribbean-style jerk chicken curry, tomatoes are an essential part of so many meals that not growing them feels like a missed opportunity, even if you’re not cultivating a vegetable (or fruit) garden. Both big and small varieties are simple enough, and they’re hardy, so you won’t need to worry too much about bad weather.

6. Cucumbers

You’ll need a trellis if you want to effectively grow cucumbers. Unlike many of the other fruits and vegetables we’ve included, cucumbers are vining plants, so you’ll either need to grow them in a container or allocate trellis space for them to climb. Once you’ve grown them, though, cucumbers are an incredibly useful crop, great for everything from salads to Mediterranean vegetable medleys.

7. Radishes

Radishes grow to completion within about a month, so you won’t have long to wait before you can harvest them. You’ll need to sow them about four weeks after last frost, so they’re perfect for planting in around February to March. They make an excellent addition to the kinds of salads you can create with cucumbers, so they’re a great all-rounder to include in your garden.

8. Cabbage

If you’re more of an autumn gardener, cabbage is the perfect crop for you. It’s entirely possible to plant cabbage in late summer and still have a usable crop come autumn, which is down to the fact that cabbages love cool weather. Don’t wait until winter; if you do, you’ll need to plant them in your greenhouse. You can use cabbage in everything from a nice stir-fry to a classic Sunday roast dinner.

9. Caneberries

We’re including everything in the caneberry family here: blackberries, raspberries, and so forth. Not only do caneberries make an excellent fruit salad or pie, they’re also wonderful if you’re looking to attract birds and other wildlife to your garden. Blackberry and raspberry bushes do need to be regularly pruned, but if you can spare the effort to do so then you’ll have a rewarding and simple plant to grow.

10. Bell peppers

Did you know that every bell pepper is the same kind of pepper? This blew our minds – green peppers are simply red peppers that haven’t ripened yet. This makes them ideal to grow in your garden; no matter what your particular pepper flavour preference is, you can harvest them whenever you like and add them to your meals for a different effect every time! 

Hands-on ‘Cooking’ Projects Your Little Ones Will Love

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Summer is fast approaching, and all the little people will soon be out of school. Whether you have preschoolers or elementary students off for the summer vacation, what will you do to fill those long and tedious days. Of course, every kid looks forward to getting out of school for a couple months, but the anticipation is much more pleasant than the reality of day after day with nothing to fill the hours.

Why not spend some time teaching your little people their way around the kitchen? Kids love to ‘cook’ with mom and there are quite a few easy recipes Cinnamon Spice and Everything Nice suggest for children.

When Is Cooking Not Cooking?

The funny thing about the term ‘cooking’ is that we aren’t always referring to something actually cooked or baked. How many times do you tell the family that you are cooking dinner when actually you are making tuna sandwiches to be served with chips?

We use the term loosely instead of the more properly descriptive ‘preparing dinner,’ and so kids will think they are cooking even when no heat is used! However, even when you must use the stove or oven, there are prep or garnish steps which kids can help with at no danger to them.

Let Them Add the Ingredients

Have you ever noticed how much fun kids have dumping things out? Just leave your shampoo on the side of the tub during bath time one night and see how quickly your little ones will pour it all into the tub with them. They will then proceed to splash around until bubbles are formed. Then there is the sand pail at the beach. Most kids will work diligently to fill it up, only to dump it out and start all over again.

If you pre-measure your ingredients when baking a cake, for instance, let the little ones pour the ingredients into the bowl as you need them. Not only will they believe they are ‘cooking’ but they will begin to develop stronger motor skills as well. It does take coordination to hit the bowl after all!

Shaping and Cutting

Kids also like to get that hands-on experience. It is one of the most effective ways they learn. One night, make meatballs and let the kids form the balls after you’ve mixed all the ingredients. Did you know that this can also be a lesson in personal hygiene? By teaching them the 20-second rule of handwashing before working with food and, of course, after as well, you are teaching them one of life’s most important lessons.

So many germs are spread by contact that it is a good idea to teach kids early on the importance of scrubbing away those invisible creatures! Don’t forget, when you make sugar cookies, let the kids do the shape cutting while you put them on the cookie sheet and into the oven. It’s loads of fun without letting them anywhere near that dangerously hot oven. From shaping to ‘cutting’ to the frosting, there are many ways kids can help you cook while learning some of life’s most valuable lessons. Spending time with mom in the kitchen is the best part of all! See for yourself.

4 Delicious and Healthy Meals That Children Will Love

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Getting kids to eat healthy foods can be quite a challenge and for many years I tried and failed with umpteen recipes which I thought that my kids would enjoy. I know that my kids have to eat well, but the last thing I want to do is demand that they eat their veg and health portions, I will if I have to, but nobody wants to force food down their child.

Instead of this then, I went back to the drawing board and came up with some great recipes which my kids love as much as me. If you are trying to get your kids to eat well, try one of these four delicious and healthy options.

Pasta

I love to use pasta with the kids because it is so flexible and can lend itself to a variety of meals, plus it gives you the chance to sneak in some healthy goodness. I like to use wholewheat pasta for its health benefits and my pasta meal of choice is pasta in a Philadelphia sauce, served with mushrooms and fresh green beans. I always make sure that I add a little garlic and herbs to the Philadelphia sauce and the kids absolutely love it. This is also very easy to make, throw the beans in to cook with the pasta whilst slowly frying the mushrooms. The Philly sauce is made by simply adding it to the hot pasta, throw the mushrooms in, add some herbs and voila.

Turkey Burgers

I love to et my kids cooking with me and making burgers is a great activity, nice and messy! Use turkey mince as it has significantly less fat than beef mince. Simply mix the mince with some whisked egg and whatever flavors you can think of, bake it in the oven and then add some fresh salad to finish it off. Healthy, fun to make and the kids really like it.

Homemade Pizza

Shop-bought pizzas are usually very fatty and filled with preservatives and chemicals and it is far better to make your own. Use either a tortilla wrap or make your own very simple pizza dough, before letting the kids go wild with healthy toppings for their pizza. Bake the pizza in the oven and see who’s pizza turned out best.

Lamb Tagine

I was bought a tagging some years ago and it was only last year when my eldest asked me about it, that we started using it. Tagines will slow cook meat and other ingredients like fruit and veg, to give you a succulent and flavorsome meal, and my kids absolutely love it. We bought a tagging cook book and we are gradually working our way through the pages. Because of the way that the meat cooks, plus the veggies inside, these are some very healthy dishes, which kids really enjoy to eat.

What healthy meals do you make for your kids? Let us know in the comments, we’d love to hear from you.