Travel basics: What to feed your toddler?

I became a mother in 2016, with that came a lot of challenges and a bag full of responsibilities. When my baby started eating, my biggest challenge was, giving healthy food especially while traveling. When it comes to food I’m very particular about homemade food as much as possible. So, sharing with you all my tried and tested recipes completely out my experience, which are easy to carry wherever, you go and easy to prepare and not only can toddlers have but also for your grown-up child. Here are a few recipes like eggless banana sesame cookies, Whole Wheat Pineapple cake, Caramelized Makhana, Crispy Baked Sev, Soft Idlis are a few.

Homemade Whole Wheat Bread

Ingredients

Whole Wheat Flour - 4 cups

Lukewarm water - 1 ¼ cups

Extra Virgin Olive oil - ¼ cup

Brown sugar - ¼ cup (you can also use honey)

Dry Instant yeast - 2 ½ teaspoons,

Milk powder - ¼ cup (you can substitute with a mix of milk and water in a 50-50 ratio)

Coarsely ground flax seeds - 2 tablespoons

Salt - 1 ½ tsp

METHOD

• To ¼ cup lukewarm water, add 1 tsp from the total quantity of brown sugar and the yeast . Mix it well with a fork / spoon, cover it with a lid and set aside to froth.
• Mix all other ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Now add the frothy yeast mix. Mix well with a silicon or plastic scraper, initially you will get a very sticky and loose dough.
• Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover it with wet cloth and set aside for 30 minutes. This is the first proofing.
• After 30 minutes, transfer the sticky dough to a lightly floured work counter. Gently knead the dough for 10 minutes. You can add the little flour if required, but not too much.
• After 10 minutes of gentle kneading, dough will be smooth and flexible. Again, place the dough in a lightly greased bowl. Cover it with a wet cloth and let it rise at warm place until it’s doubled in size. Usually, it will take 45 minutes to 1 hour, depending upon the weather. This is the second proofing.
• After 1 hour, take the dough out on the work table again and deflate it with your hands. Roll it up lightly into a log.
• Place the log in lightly greased loaf pan (I used a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan). Cover the loaf pan with a wet cloth and let the dough rise for another 45 minutes at a warm place. This is the third proofing.
• Just 10 minutes before the completion of the 3rd proofing, preheat the oven to 200 degree C.
• Brush the loaf with milk or butter or egg wash before baking to get a nice golden crust on top.
• Bake in a preheated oven at 200 C for 40 to 45 minutes .
• Remove the bread from the oven and turn it out onto a cooling rack. When the loaf is completely cooled, wrap it in a cling film or butter paper and store at room temperature. Be sure to slice the loaf only after complete cooling.

Eggless Banana Sesame Cookies

Ingredients

Whole Wheat Flour - 1 1/2 cup

Softened Butter – ¼ cup

Powdered Brown Sugar -½ cup (Can be reduced if the Banana is too sweet)

Mashed Banana – ¼ cup

Baking Powder – ¾ to 1 tsp

Vanilla essence – ½ tsp

Dry roasted White Sesame seeds – 1/8 cup

Milk – 1/8 cup

Caster Sugar for garnish

Choco powder – 1 tbsp

• Dry roast the white Sesame seeds – 1/8 cup on a non-stick pan. Also keep the mashed Banana ready.
• Cream the Butter and Sugar until fluffy and ready to mix with the other ingredients. Add mashed Banana and Vanilla essence to the above fluffy mixture
• Add all the Dry ingredients Flour, Baking powder to the sieve and transfer it finely to the mixture in the mixing bowl. Now combine the dry roasted white Sesame seeds to the glass bowl containing the dough base for mixing.
• Mix it well but now overly knead to avoid crumbly cookies and add Milk little by little as required when mixing to make the cookies dough ready bake in the oven. Now make small balls or molds of our favorite on to a greased butter paper tray.
• Gently flatten the dough ball with a fork making a texture to bake well. Now let’s bake the Eggless Choco Sesame cookies for 15 to 20 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius or until the cookie base is a slightly brown.

Raw Banana Chips

Ingredients

Raw Banana Medium Size - 1

Salt to taste

Oil for stir frying - 2 tbsp

• Lengthwise cut out the skin of the banana from all sides using a sharp knife
• Now slice the banana into thin rounds
• Heat oil on a non stick pan and add the slices
• Cover and cook for 2 mins
• Remove cover and stir fry for about 2 mins more, till the slices are cooked crisp.
• Remove from the fire, spread on a plate and sprinkle a few drops of lemon juice and a pinch of salt
• You can store them for 2 days in a container, at a cool place.

Besan ki Burfi

Ingredients

Gram Flour (besan) - 250 gms (2 3/4 cup)

Powdered Sugar - 150 gms (1 1/4 cup)

Pure ghee - 150 gms (3/4 cup)

Seeds of 3 to 4 cardamoms powdered

• In a heavy bottomed kadai, put besan. Dry roast for about 10 mins on low flame, stirring continuously till fragrant or gives out a roast smell
• Add ghee. Cook on very ow heat for about 15 mins or till the besan turns golden. Do not make it brown
• Remove from fire, add sugar and mix well
• Transfer to a greased thali. Press well from the top to make it smooth
• Sprinkle cardamom powder. Leave to set for 5-6 hrs at room temperature in a cool and dry place. You can leave it overnight to set well.
• Cut into 1 inch squares and store it in an air tight container.

Savory & Caramelized Makhana

Ingredients

Makhana – 50 grams

Chilli Powder – ¼ tsp

Chat masala – ¼ tsp

Turmeric – ¼ tsp

Salt – As needed

Ghee – 2 tsp

Caramalised Makhana with Jaggery

Makhana – 50 grams

Organic Jaggery – 2 tsp

Butter – 20 grams

Dates syrup – 2 tsp
 

Savory Makhana

• To start the preparation for Savory Makhana we need to add 2 tsp Ghee and roast the Makhana – 50 grams till it gets moisture free and crispy.
• Add Turmeric, Chilli powder, Chat masala each of ¼ tsp each, Salt as required and mix it well to form a even spread of added ingredients.
• The Savory Makhana is ready to eat and relish its taste for the entire family.

Caramalised Makhana with Jaggery

• Now let’s prepare the Caramelized Makhana for which we need to dry roast the Makhana or Ghee roast as per the taste to make the Makhana crisp.
• Now add Butter - 20 grams to the non-stick heated pan and once is semi melted add the Organic Powder and mix it well.
• Time to add Dates syrup – 2 tsp and mix the ingredients till its thickens to the caramelized consistency, once its mixed add the roasted Makhana to it and give a quick uniform mix in the pan.
• Now spread the Caramelized Makhana onto a butter paper tray immediately else the Makhana will stick to each other to form a lump. (We can microvave this for 2 minutes for crispier taster else we can serve once cooled on the butter paper tray)
• Caramelized Makhana ready to serve once it’s cool.

Crisp and Healthy Baked Sev

Ingredients

Sathumavu -1 cup

Chickpea Flour – ½ cup

Turmeric powder – ½ tsp

Lemon Juice – ½

Oil – 2 tsp

Hing – pinch

Ajwain – pinch

Sugar – 1 tsp

Salt – To taste

Red chilli powder – 1 tsp (Or as required)

Water – As required

• The above ingredients are made ready to use. Transfer all the dry ingredients one by one to a clean glass bowl for mixing and give a quick hand mix.
• Now add Water as required and mix the dry ingredients and knead the dough air free. Make two portions of the dough and now we are good to go and ready to use for the next step
• Grease the sev press/ sev mould with Ghee and transfer one portion of the mixed dough to it.
• Now spread it evenly on a butter papered baking tray without overlapping the pressed dough.
• This will result in uniform baking of the dough. Now transfer the baking tray on to the oven for 15 minutes at 200 degree Celsius and we have the Baked Sathumavu Sev ready to serve.
• Crispy, healthy nutritious oil free travel friendly Baked Sev is ready

Dry Fruits Ladoo

Ingredients

Dates – 1 cup

Cashew Nuts – ¼ cup

Pista – ¼ cup

Badam/ Almonds – ¼ cup

Khus/ Khus – 1 tsp (Optional)

Poppy Seeds – 1 tsp (Optional)

Sesame seeds – 1 tsp (Optional)

Cardamom Powder – ½ tsp (Optional)

Raisins – 20 numbers

Ghee - 2 tbsp (or as required)

• Almonds, Pista and Cashew Nuts each of 1 cup is added to a heated non-stick tava and roasted one by one. Roast the Dry Fruits till the color changes and darkens.Transfer to a plate to cool a little bit.
• Add Sesame Seeds and Poppy seeds. Roast for a minute and transfer to a clean bowl.
• Grind the roasted Dry Fruits in the Mixer for a fine powder, mixer is run in short turns.
• Add chopped Dates 1 cup and Raisins 20 numbers as mentioned above to heated non-stick tava.
• To this add the Dry Fruits mixture powdered.
• Mix well to combine the Dry Fruits powder with Dates and Raisins pieces well for 2 minutes. Dates releases its oil helping in combining.
• Once the mixture is combined well, add Ghee 2 tsp just before cutting off the flames.
• Mix very well, and transfer the Laddoo mixture to a plate.
• Make small Laddoo out of the Dry Fruits Mixture before it gets cooled completely. Else it loses the binding capacity resulting in not molding to Laddoos.

Whole Wheat Upside down Pineapple Cake

Ingredients

Whole wheat flour – 1 bowl

Milk Powder – 1 bowl

Malai – 1 bowl (fresh cream or you can even store cream of 2 days together in the fridge)

Powdered sugar / brown sugar/ powdered jaggery – 1 bowl

Baking powder – 1 teaspoon

Baking soda – ½ teaspoon

Tin pineapple – 5-6 slices

Pineapple syrup – ¾th bowl (I used the same syrup from the tin)

Almonds – ½ bowl (ground coarsely with the skin)

• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Sieve the whole wheat flour with baking powder and baking soda 3-4 times.
• Mix cream, powdered sugar or jaggery and milk powder together and then add the ground almonds on it. Follow with the dry ingredients by adding them slowly. Add the pineapple syrup and mix well.
• Grease the baking dish and then place pineapples in it. Fill in the empty places with pineapple pieces. You can fill in the centers with cherries too.
• Pour the cake batter carefully on top of the pineapples.
• Bake the cake for 20-25 minutes at 180 degree. Poke a tooth pick to check if the cake is ready and then remove it from the oven.
• Let the cake cool down completely before turning it out on a plate bottom side up.
• Cut into slices and serve.
• You can store it for 2 days at room tempurature.

Oats Banana Cinnamon Muffin Mug Cake

Ingredients

1 Bananna

Oats flour 1/4 cup

Baking powder 1/2 tsp

Honey 2 tbsp

1egg white

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

• Mix together egg white, honey, and vanilla extract in a greased coffee mug.
• Add oat flour and baking powder and mix until combined.
• Add banana
• Microwave on high for 90 seconds (times may vary).

** you can also change the flavour by adding blueberry or strawberry or raspberry

Hope the above recipes solve the tension of food while travelling with your child. You just need to plan a little in advance so that you can get all the right ingredients and prepare food.

You must try these recipes in advance and feed your child to check on some allergies. 

Enjoy your travel with your child tension free!!!!

Do you have some more interesting recipes that you would like to share with us?  Please do share it in the comments section below.