Last week I saw a friend of mine who has made her allotment in Bristol her escape from the world. She is growing all sorts of wonderful things and we have a date at the vegetable patch at the end of September!

In the meantime I have supermarket mini veg to the rescue! 

I wondered if anyone else finds it tricky to get all 5 of the recommended 5 a day fruit and vegetables into their children? 

Sammy has refused to eat sweetcorn over the last couple of months so I decided to try a different tact. 

Here's a simple idea to make vegetables fun.

Mini Allotments! 

Ingredients: 

• Mini whole vegetables of your choice but I used...
• Baby courgettes
• Baby carrots
• Mini leeks
• Asparagus
• Tenderstem broccoli
• Baby sweetcorn
• Ready to roll puff pastry
• Butter for greasing
• Olive oil
• Roasting herbs like sage, thyme and rosemary
• Pastry horns

Pre heat your oven to 180 degrees or Gas Mark 4. 

Prepare your vegetables by washing them and cutting their tops and tails off. Except the asparagus & broccoli that's the best bit! 

In a roasting tray, place your vegetables, which take a little longer to cook, the courgettes, (I cut them in half length ways)  carrots and leeks and sprinkle with herbs and a drizzle of olive oil. Place in the oven. Cook for 10 minutes and add the rest of your vegetables.

Whilst the first set of vegetables are roasting, take your pastry horns and grease with butter. I tried both without butter and with margarine and butter wins!

Roll out your sheet of puff pastry and cut 1cm lengths. Start at the bottom of your pastry horn and wrap around, overlapping as you go up to the top. I needed 1 and a half strips per horn. Leave a little of the metal horn showing.

Place on a baking tray for 10-15 mins. 

Tip: Check your veg occasionally and cook until they are roasted but not limp. 

Take both trays out of the oven and leave aside to cool. 

When cool to touch gently tease your cone from the pastry horn. Poke, that's a technical cookery turn ;) your roasted vegetables into the cone and you are done!

I'm thinking of mashing the veg down a little and making it more ice cream like. Maybe next time! 

I told the boys they were vegetable ice creams and they ate 90% of them before they said "Mama! This is not an ice cream cornet!" 

Super simple but super effective. 

How do you get yours to eat their greens? These were the only leftovers, not bad from two small boys!

ps. Did you spot some of the props from my #SundayPropShop intro?! 

There's something about miniature cakes that is just so much sweeter! I've seen gorgeous giant rainbow piñata cakes but even one slice is too big for my boys. So why not try a mini version of the piñata classic.

Perfect for little ones to help with and a total surprise for your party guests.

One of my oldest friends from University just happened to be able to stop in on route to Cornwall for the weekend. I haven't seen her for over 3 years as, she and her husband have been living and working in Australia. 

So what do you do when you have a child asleep mid afternoon and you can't leave the house on a grey, drizzly day? 

Bake a cake. Or rather, Mini Piñata Cakes! 

I have seen the large versions before but never small ones, eat in 3 mouthful ones. 

So we gave it a go. 

Ingredients (Makes 6 small cakes) : 

• 65g/2oz butter
• 65g/2oz caster sugar
• 2 medium eggs
• 65g/2oz sieved self raising flour
• 2 drops rose water

Pre heat the oven to 180 degrees or Gas Mark 4. 

Add your butter and sugar to a large mixing bowl and whisk until the mixture forms a pale fluid consistency with no lumps! 

Add your eggs and whisk together. Add the sieved flour a little at a time. Sift your flour in from a height as this will get more air into your cake and make it light and fluffy. (I whisked the whole mix, but some recipes will tell you to fold in the flour.) 

Pour into moulds, I used the flower pot moulds I normally use in Sammy's Bento lunches, as they are nice and tall. 

Tap the moulds on the work top to remove any air bubbles. 

Tidy the tops with a piece of kitchen roll to remove any drips of mixture that could burn in the oven. 

Bake for 20 minutes. I checked on mine a couple of times and at 15 minutes placed a skewer (or rather a fondue fork) into the centre. If the skewer comes out clean they are ready. 

Leave to cool (in the moulds) on a wire rack for 10 minutes. 

When cool gently tease your cakes from the moulds. You can grease your moulds with kitchen paper and butter beforehand, to ease this process. 

Cut the uneven tops off and eat them!

Use a sharp serrated knife to carve out a hollow in the centre. You can get a nifty gadget called a cupcake corer, that does this for you.

The freshly cut top will form the flat base of your cake. 

Fill your hollow with sprinkles or sweets of your choice. 

Using a little of the hollowed out leftover cake replace the top and cover with edible paper or baking paper. This enables the cake to hold it's shape and contents! 

Ice with the following buttercream, as generously and rustic as you like! 

Ingredients: 

• 140g/5oz butter
• 280g/10oz icing sugar
• 25ml white chocolate liqueur (optional but completely delicious)

Whisk the butter in a mixing bowl and start to add the icing sugar slowly. I used an electric whisk and the surface around you does get dusty! Queue lots of ghostly faces in our house! Start on a slow speed and work up. Add the liqueur half a little at a time to suit your taste. 

Use a knife to paddle the creamy icing around the cake, the more rustic the better. Remember piñatas are rough in texture! 

Sprinkle your finished cakes with some left over sprinkles. 

Perfect for parties or for little favours. 

The rose water adds a delicateness to the sponge and the crunchy sprinkles, mixed with some freeze dried raspberries adds texture and crunch.

Slice into your mini cakes and watch your surprise come tumbling out! 

Next time I might change the rose water to orange blossom and fill the inside with fruit! 

You can find this recipe on my Pinterest board so feel free to pin away!  

Hello from sunny Southbourne!

Here is a little something I prepared earlier...

Open bakes are my go to idea when feeding a large number of people, with minimal effort. 

You can make them as large as you want and they always look impressive, when laid in the centre of the table.

My brother was given a candy floss maker for his birthday (he was 28!) and I love the stuff. Since we have been back from America, I have been desperate for a little bag of the fluffy wonder and was thrilled when I spotted it in the local supermarket. 

As we got home and I started unpacking the weekly shop, Sammy, who had brought in the bunch of flowers for the kitchen, held up a fox glove stem and said "Mama, this looks just like candy floss!" And this little idea was born. What could be better than sprinkling it's sugary over a baked delight?

Cherry Floss Open Pie! 

You could easily make this with cooked rhubarb, plums, strawberries, raspberries or blackberries.  Or do a summer mix up of them all!

I find it much quicker and easier to use puff pastry as a flat baked pie rather than make a traditional pie.  Plus I like to see what's inside.

Ingredients: 

• 1 sheet puff pastry
• 2 tins of pitted cherries or 500g fresh cherries, stones removed (I used a mix of both)
• Sprinkle of caster sugar
• Handful of chopped walnuts (optional)
• Drizzle of vanilla syrup
• 1 beaten egg to glaze the pastry edges 
• 1 tub candy floss (Morrisons supermarket sell individual tubs for c£1) 
• Dusting of icing sugar
• Vanilla custard to serve

Pre heat your oven to 180 degrees or Gas Mark 4.

Lay your sheet of puff pastry on a baking tray and gently roll the edges inwards to create an approximately 1cm lip to contain your filling.

Arrange your fruit filling in rows and sprinkle with caster sugar and the chopped walnuts. Drizzle the vanilla syrup over the entire mix. 

Heat in the oven for around 15 minutes until the tops of the cherries are caramelised. Make sure you don't burn the walnuts! 

Gently rip your candy floss into bit size pieces and place them randomly on the top of your flat pie. Watch them sizzle into the hot mixture to create pockets of sticky goodness.

Dust with icing sugar and serve with vanilla custard. Enjoy immediately. 

Sammy loved that as the candy floss sizzles into the cherries it looks like spider's webs. Very cool to small boys. 

Watch out next week for my savoury idea and pick up a roll of puff pastry and stick it in the freezer. 

An easy summer dessert idea, to use up your seasonal fruit.  Plus cherries need no pre cooking as opposed to rhubarb - time saving, I like it!

It's also so easy to change the fruit for a more Autumnal idea as the weather changes.