Cooking With Kids – The Power Of Frozen With Iceland

I started cooking with the girls from a pretty young age, Izzy was just under 2 years old the first time she got her hands into a bowl of cake mix and made one heck of a mess all over the kitchen. Since then we have made various cakes and bakes and have now moved onto savoury dishes. I also encourage her to help when making simple lunches such as sandwiches or wraps. She loves to be involved. We make batches of cookies each month together with the help of Chloe as she has a number of allergies and can’t eat a lot of store bought treats.

When Iceland got into touch to ask if I would like to create a recipe with Izzy for their Power Of Frozen campaign I didn’t hesitate, I knew Izzy would be excited by it also. I have been really impressed by the new and improved Iceland. For a long time I thought of it as a party food shop – the kind of place you visited when creating a cheap and easy buffet table at Christmas. It has dramatically changed in the past few years, with items such as Wagyu Beef, Frozen zesty bean quinoa and more.. I have so far been more than happy with the quality of the products and they do sell a pretty good Prosecco also – an essential I am sure you will agree.

Both of my girls have been fascinated by the Rainbow Carrots – a frozen bag of various varieties of carrots. Pretty tasty too! I always find it handy having frozen vegetables ready for quick meals.

We tried various dishes in the kitchen before deciding on this Cheesy Vegetable Bake – the recipe is created using ingredients all purchased from Iceland and aside from the cheese it was all from the frozen food aisle. Just four ingredients and minimal prep. It contains potato, broccoli, rainbow carrots and mature cheddar – this can be substituted for mild cheddar if your child doesn’t enjoy the stronger flavour.

One additional perk is that it doesn’t create too much mess.

Before cooking with your children always ensure they thoroughly clean their hands as they will not be able to resist poking their fingers in and tie long hair back.

Cheesy Vegetable Bake

You will need:

250g frozen mashed potato
200g frozen rainbow carrots
150g frozen broccoli florets
50g grated mature cheddar

Preheat your oven to 180c. Cook the frozen vegetables to packet instructions ( I zapped mine in the microwave for the recommended 5 minutes ), leave to cool slightly then add to one large bowl. Encourage your child to stir and mash the ingredients together – leave some of the veggies whole as it creates a nice texture.

Then place into an ovenproof dish, let your child sprinkle with the grated cheese and pop into your preheated oven ( this step should be just for adults ).

Bake for 20 minutes until the cheese is bubbling and golden.

Izzy was so proud of the resulting dish and managed to eat most of it to herself as Chloe can’t have dairy but it would easily serve 3 children.

If you haven’t been to an Iceland store recently or if you have never tried it I would recommend you go take a look.

• This post was commissioned by Iceland and I was compensated for my time.