Friday, July 23, 2010

Chow for the Chubster: using up infant cereal


Although I have not had any infant cereal in the house for quite a while, I thought I would look into recipes that use it up, as it tends to get wasted and well, babies don't really like it.  There are many ways to get iron into your baby, but infant cereal is an easy way, so why not have some fun with it if you have it.

 Always supervise children when eating any finger foods

BABY OATMEAL CEREAL COOKIES
2 c. flour
1 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder
2 1/2-3 c. baby oatmeal cereal
2 eggs
1 c. white sugar
1 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. oil
1 tsp. vanilla
Mix eggs, sugars, oil and vanilla. Add dry ingredients and mix well. Bake at 350 degrees about 15 minutes.


 You can use the infant cereal to thicken your smoothies, for you or the baby.  Added vitamins never hurt a smoothie.


The plainer varieties can be used in meatloaf and meatballs instead of bread crumbs.  It's best to buy plain anyways, because a few spoons of baby food or applesauce tastes much better for baby anyways, and adds real fruit in the mix, instead of fake powdered fruit.  On the same note, you could use it to top macaroni and cheese casseroles, and you could use the fruity ones with a bit of butter and brown sugar to top your muffin recipes.


Dip chicken strips in plain yogurt and then roll or shake in plain cereal and bake them.  Makes a good chicken finger for toddlers.


Teething Biscuit Recipes - Egg-less Baby Cereal Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1 cup dry infant rice cereal with bananas (or other flavored or
unflavored infant cereal)
3 tablespoons cooking oil
ice water

Directions:
Preheat oven 425F
Mix flour and cereal.
Gradually stir in oil. Mix a little ice water at a time (start with 1/4 cup) until dough begins to form a ball and pull away from the bowl.
Roll out to the thickness of a cracker on a floured surface and cut into desired shapes.
Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet 10-12 min. or until lightly brown. Cool completely.

Store in an airtight container. (you may want to try 1/2 plain and 1/2 flavored baby cereal as the taste when using full flavored baby cereal is very strong.)



Orange and date muffins

250 ml pure orange juice
1/2 cup of finely chopped dates
1 egg(you can us 2 egg yolk only if there are egg allergies in family)
3tbs canola oil
3tbs honey(you can use sugar instead)
1 cup flour
2 cups fortified baby cereal(I found rice made the dough tougher, so I prefered oatmeal)
2tsp baking powder
2ml of salt

-mix wet ingredients together
-mix all dry in a seperate bowl, then pour wet mixture with dry until just blended.
-in greased muffin tins, add then bake at 200C(400F) for about 15 mins.
should make about 24 muffins. They can be kept for 4 days in the fridge or up to 3months in the freezer.

If you find the mixture to dry, you can add a bit more liquid.


Cereal Pancakes

1 egg
1 cup milk
2 Tbsp oil
3/4 cup dry infant cereal
1/4 cup flour
1 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda.

In a med bowl, beat egg; add rest of ingredients and mix. Pour 1/2 cup batter onto hot, greased skillet for each pancake. Turn pancakes as soon as they are puffed and full of bubbles. Cook other side until golden brown. Makes 6-9 pancakes.


Baby Cereal Cookies

1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup butter
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 cups infant cereal
3 TBsp whole milk.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a cookie sheet or spray with nonstick spray. Lightly cream molasses and butter. Mix in egg and vanilla. In a seperate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and cereal. Add to the butter mixture. Blend. Add milk. Drop on the cookie sheet 2 inches apart. Bake 10-12 minutes.


 There.  No more waste.  The recipes I found mostly on the internet in various forums, and there are plenty more if you 'Google' or 'Swagbucks' them.

No comments:

Post a Comment