Cherisse Moe

School is of­fi­cial­ly out, which means two months of feed­ing chil­dren around the clock. With the cost of gro­ceries es­ca­lat­ing, par­ents are look­ing for ways to keep the house­hold sat­is­fied with­out dig­ging too deeply in­to their pock­ets.

En­ter Safiya Ram­dath, own­er of the home-based cater­ing busi­ness Safi’s Mi­ni Bites, spe­cial­is­ing in fresh­ly made fin­ger foods, desserts, hand­craft­ed breads, baked goods and dec­o­ra­tive buf­fet cater­ing. She cre­ates quick, tasty and cost-ef­fec­tive dish­es for her own chil­dren, and she is shar­ing her se­crets to help oth­ers man­age the kitchen dur­ing the Ju­ly/Au­gust break. Her goal is to serve up nu­tri­tious meals that bring every­one to­geth­er around the ta­ble.

What makes a good JA­VA recipe? Safiya says it needs to be easy to pre­pare, bal­anced and gen­uine­ly en­joy­able. It should in­clude a source of pro­tein for en­er­gy, car­bo­hy­drates to keep their bel­lies full, colour­ful fruits or veg­eta­bles for vi­t­a­mins, and es­sen­tial fats to sup­port growth and de­vel­op­ment.

“Most im­por­tant­ly, you shouldn’t have to spend hours over the stove af­ter a busy day,” she says. “As a moth­er and en­tre­pre­neur (mom­pre­neur) of three, ages 21, 13 and eight months, I can to­tal­ly re­late to the chal­lenges faced these days.”

She al­so ad­vis­es fo­cus­ing on bal­anced por­tions rather than aim­ing for per­fec­tion. A hearty break­fast helps start the morn­ing with en­er­gy and con­cen­tra­tion, while lunch­es and nour­ish­ing snacks should pro­vide steady fu­el with­out re­ly­ing on sug­ary foods. Prepar­ing ahead and keep­ing healthy bites with­in reach make it much eas­i­er to cre­ate sus­tained pos­i­tive dai­ly habits.

It is al­so im­por­tant, Safiya notes, to keep chil­dren well hy­drat­ed by en­cour­ag­ing them to drink plen­ty of wa­ter through­out the day, es­pe­cial­ly when the weath­er out­side is scorch­ing.

Cre­ative ways to sneak in nu­tri­tion

For those picky eaters, try blend­ing veg­eta­bles in­to sauces, soups and stews where they go un­no­ticed.

“Car­rots, pump­kin, broc­coli and cau­li­flower work es­pe­cial­ly well in creamy pas­ta sauces,” she as­sures, adding, “ba­nanas, man­goes and ap­ples can be added to smooth­ies, pan­cakes, muffins and home­made breads.”

To make it fun for the lit­tle ones, adults can al­so in­volve them by giv­ing veg­eta­bles fun names or cut­ting fruits in­to in­ter­est­ing shapes.

“Some­times the pre­sen­ta­tion alone can en­cour­age them to try some­thing new.”

To make fast meals with min­i­mal fuss, she rec­om­mends stock­ing sta­ples such as eggs, pas­ta, rice, oats, canned tu­na, cheese, yo­ghurt, milk, bread and frozen mixed veg­eta­bles, along­side fresh pro­duce such as ba­nanas, ap­ples, car­rots, pump­kin and sweet pota­toes.

“These items are af­ford­able, adapt­able and can be com­bined in many dif­fer­ent ways to cre­ate great dish­es in very lit­tle time.”

She warns against com­mon mis­takes such as re­ly­ing too heav­i­ly on fast food or processed snacks sim­ply be­cause they are con­ve­nient, or skip­ping meal plan­ning, which can lead to poor last-minute choic­es.

In­stead, par­ents can com­mit to prepar­ing larg­er por­tions to en­joy as left­overs through­out the week and reg­u­lar­ly in­volve their sous chefs in menu plan­ning, wash­ing fresh in­gre­di­ents, stir­ring in­gre­di­ents, mea­sur­ing items, sprin­kling cheese or herbs, or help­ing to set the ta­ble.

“They are much more like­ly to con­sume foods they helped pre­pare. Col­lab­o­ra­tion teach­es valu­able life skills such as fol­low­ing in­struc­tions, team­work and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.”

These shared mo­ments pro­vide the per­fect op­por­tu­ni­ty for con­nec­tion. Most im­por­tant­ly, they cre­ate valu­able bond­ing ex­pe­ri­ences that will be missed when Sep­tem­ber rolls around again.

Two of Safiya’s quick, bud­get-friend­ly, whole­some recipes care­givers can pre­pare in 30 min­utes or less:

Creamy Hid­den Veg­gie Pas­ta

In­gre­di­ents:

500g pas­ta

1 car­rot (fine­ly chopped)

1 cup pump­kin (fine­ly chopped)

1 cup cau­li­flower (fine­ly chopped)

2 cloves gar­lic

1 small onion

2 cups milk

1 cup evap­o­rat­ed milk

1½ cups grat­ed ched­dar cheese

Salt, black pep­per and Ital­ian sea­son­ing

Op­tion­al: shred­ded chick­en

Method: Cook the pas­ta ac­cord­ing to the pack­age in­struc­tions. While it cooks, sauté the onion and gar­lic, then add the veg­eta­bles and milk. Sim­mer un­til the veg­eta­bles are ten­der, then blend un­til smooth. Re­turn the sauce to the pot, stir in the cream, cheese and sea­son­ings, then com­bine with the cooked pas­ta. Add shred­ded chick­en if de­sired.

Tip: Make a large batch of the sauce and freeze it in por­tions. It can be re­heat­ed for quick lunch­es or din­ners through­out the week.

Egg­less Ba­nana Oat Pan­cakes

Ready in: 20 min­utes

Blend:

1 cup flour

Ripe ba­nanas, blue­ber­ries or dark choco­late chips

1 cup oats

1½ cups milk

2 tsp bak­ing pow­der

½ tsp cin­na­mon

1 tsp brown sug­ar or hon­ey (op­tion­al)

1 tsp vanil­la

2 tb­sp melt­ed but­ter

A pinch of salt

For cook­ing:

But­ter or oil for greas­ing the pan

Method: Place the ba­nanas, oats, milk, bak­ing pow­der, vanil­la, cin­na­mon, sug­ar (if us­ing), melt­ed but­ter and salt in­to a blender. Blend un­til smooth. Let the bat­ter rest for five min­utes so the oats can ab­sorb some of the liq­uid. Heat a light­ly greased non-stick fry­ing pan or grid­dle over medi­um heat. Pour about ¼ cup of bat­ter for each pan­cake. Cook for two to three min­utes un­til bub­bles ap­pear on the sur­face, then flip and cook for an­oth­er one to two min­utes un­til gold­en brown. Re­peat with the re­main­ing bat­ter.

Serve with:

Fresh ba­nana slices

Straw­ber­ries, blue­ber­ries or man­go

Plain or vanil­la yo­ghurt

A driz­zle of maple syrup or hon­ey (for chil­dren over one year old)

Time-sav­ing tips:

Blend the bat­ter the night be­fore and store it in the re­frig­er­a­tor for up to 24 hours.

Make a dou­ble batch and freeze the pan­cakes. Re­heat them in the toast­er, mi­crowave or air fry­er for a quick break­fast or snack.

Add a hand­ful of spinach to the blender for ex­tra nu­tri­tion; the ba­nana and cin­na­mon help mask the flavour, mak­ing it a great op­tion for picky eaters.