Posts Tagged "Annabel Karmel"

Lunch in London with Annabel Karmel

Posted by cafebebemama on May 17, 2010 in Little Miss Adventures, Travelling Adventures | 10 comments

Little Miss approves of Annabel's cooking

How many of us can say we’ve had lunch with Annabel Karmel, doyenne of Children’s Cookbooks?  Well, several parent bloggers got the opportunity to have lunch in London with Annabel Karmel last week, Little Miss and me included!  Not only did we get treated to a lesson in Meatballs in Tagine Sauce and how to make your own Ravioli, but we had hands-on opportunites to make our own Annabel’s Pasta Salad with Marinated Chicken & Roasted Peppers as well as making our own ravioli.  What a perfect way to spend a few hours!  Little Miss was in seventh heaven as she got to play with the gorgeous twins belonging to our friend Young Mummy at Young & Younger, try some lovely chicken & pasta dishes and be doted on by the staff and PR at the event.

We have followed a lot of Annabel Karmel’s recipes in our adventures in eating in the Cafe Bebe household.  We started Little Miss on various purees from the Baby and Toddler Food Diary and have frequently used the Top 100 Finger Foods book to tempt Little Miss into trying a few new dishes.  Fluffy Pancakes is such a popular recipe that I no longer need the book as I know it by heart.  I was really excited about receiving Annabel’s Top 100 Pasta Dishes book in our goody bag as pasta is the one item I know I can always get Little Miss to eat.  We need some new inspiration and I’ve most definitely found it here.

My goal is to try a new recipe each night so here’s what’s on the cards for this week:  Beef Stroganoff with Tagliatelle, Chicken Noodle Salad with peanut dressing and Caesar salad with chicken pasta and crispy bacon.  I’ll report back on how we fare!  I found it really inspiring to get a bit of hands on activity in the brilliant kitchen at La Cucina Caldesi which is really what I needed…I had lost some of my cooking mojo and Annabel Karmel and her recipes may have helped me find it!  The lovely people at Ebury Publishing and WPR London made the afternoon ever so pleasant for mums and children alike and they deserve a big thanks for their extraordinary efforts.

Annabel Karmel meets the Cafe Bebe Mama & Little Miss

You can see that our time having lunch in London with Annabel Karmel was not wasted.  We had an immensely successful journey down to London by train and a brilliant afternoon in our favourite city.  What more could two Little Miss’ ask for?  Tune in later this week for an update on our pasta recipes.  I hope to get Little Miss in the kitchen with me for a bit of cooking…now if we only had an Annabel Karmel CHILDREN’S size apron to go with it all!

Little Miss & the Nokia Booklet 3G on the train ride home!

Mummy & Little Miss Make Bread

Posted by cafebebemama on Feb 11, 2010 in Little Miss Adventures, Motherhood, Vlog Posts | 3 comments

Making Bread with Little Miss

Yesterday I decided to be brave and make bread with Little Miss.  I have a bit of a problem with mess and control and I know that when cooking in the kitchen with a 20 month old, you can’t worry about either of these things.  Inspired by Nick and Archie at My Daddy Cooks, I’ve taken the plunge to try something in the kitchen with Little Miss.  I figured bread would be the least painful…and I was right!  We followed the Annabel Karmel recipe from her book, Top 100 Finger Foods.  I’ll include the recipe after the vlog post.  The bread turned out quite tasty, actually.  We made it into rolls and a flat, olive bread for Little Miss (she’s a big fan of olives).  I will continue to use this recipe and venture into the kitchen more often with Little Miss.  She loves it and besides, we have an apron and everything so why not?  (apologies for the somewhat lengthy video…I need some video editing software and lessons!)

Ingredients for Basic Bread Dough-

• 7g sachet fast-action yeast
• 1tsp sugar
• 150 ml (1/4 pint) hand-hot water
• 225 g. white bread flour (or half-white/half-whole meal)
• 1/4 tsp salt (omit for under 1 year)
• 1 tbsp olive oil

Method:

• Dissolve the yeast and sugar in a small bowl using four tablespoons of the water.  Leave to stand for 5 minutes- it should start to turn frothy.
• Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl then add the yeast liquid, oil and remaining water.  Mix to a soft dough, adding one or two teaspoons of extra water if the dough is too dry.
• Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for around 10 minutes until the dough feels smooth and springy.  Put the dough in a large, lightly oiled bowl and cover with a clean, damp cloth.  Leave to rise in a warm place for 45 minutes to an hour until risen and doubled in size.
• Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and knead for 1 minute.

I doubled the recipe above which resulted in us being able to make 6 rolls and 2 flat breads.  They turned out lovely and Little Miss was quite impressed with our efforts! 

Little Miss' Olive Flat Bread

Bread by Little Miss, Recipe by Annabel Karmel