I’m Hungry by Jorge Martin Blog Tour & Pea and Feta Potato Cakes Recipe

As you all know by now, Little Miss and I love a new book, in fact we have a whole monthly segment on the blog dedicated to what we’ve been reading together and I’m sure with her starting school in September her love of books will only increase. Anyway, what I love more thank just simply reviewing a book with Little Miss, it’s getting creative which is why I was so excited to get involved with the I’m Hungry Blog Tour!

But more about that in a bit! First up, our review of I’m Hungry.

I’m Hungry is a brand new children’s book written by illustrator Jorge Martin. It’s his debut novel and if I didn’t have the press release in front of me, I would have never known as it’s so well thought out! As I mention every time we review books, Little Miss is of the age where she needs structure to her bedtime stories and I’m Hungry definitely fit the bill! The story is about a newly hatched little dragon who is arrived into the world starving and goes on a rampage trying to eat everyone and everything on the island she lives on! As a parent I couldn’t help but laugh at the baby dragon on her “hangry” rampage knowing fine well the mood Little Miss gets into when she’s waiting on dinner time, especially when she comes in from pre-school. It was something I could identify with on an adult level as well as the story being enjoyable for Little Miss. It read well, and made us both laugh out loud. The illustrations are bright, colourful and it was clear what was happening on every page so Little Miss could tell me her own version of the story. This is really important as once she starts school this is one of the techniques they use to teach her to read.

Overall it was a fun addition to our bookcase and one I know we’ll read multiple times. I look forward to seeing what Jorge Martin brings out next.

To celebrate the release of I’m Hungry by Jorge Martin I was invited to take part in the I’m Hungry Blog Tour which saw myself and some other bloggers getting creative with food and their little ones. The task at hand was to create a small vegetarian meal or snack with our own “little dragons”. The reason for vegetarian is the fact that the dragon in our story turns out to be a vegetarian! I love the idea of this, as a non-vegetarian family a lot of our meals have some form of meat as the main ingredient so coming up with something that was delicious, healthy and fun for Little Miss to create and eat that was vegetarian friendly was something I was excited to try.

After a bit of research, taking into consideration Little Miss’ likes and dislikes I settled on pea and feta potato cakes. Peas are probably Little Miss’ favourite vegetable, she eats them with everything, she also likes cheese which is where the feta comes into it. I wanted to try something a little different from our usual cheddar, and being someone who enjoys Greek inspired dishes I knew the feta would work well with the pea and potato combination. To make it both appealing to eat and make for Little Miss I decide these potato cakes would be fun shaped and bite sized. A perfect snack or lunch.

To make our feta and pea potato cakes along with a yoghurty dip, you need the following ingredients (this makes 6 fullsized potato cakes or 2 fullsized cakes as well enough small cakes to feed two);

• 4 Small/Medium Potatoes
• 150g Frozen Peas
• 100g Feta Cheese (I went for the reduce fat and salt kind)
• 2 Spring Onions
• Clove of Garlic
• 1 Egg (to use as egg wash)
• Two Tablespoons of Greek Yoghurt
• One Tablespoon of Lemon Juice
• One Teaspoon of Mint
• Salt & Pepper to Season

– Peel and boil the potatoes then mash. At the same time cook the frozen peas, drain and put to one side to cool. Then chop the spring onions and crush the garlic. Make sure all this is done before getting your little one involved. I like to put everything into little bowls ready for her to combine (that’s her favourite bit)
– In a large bowl add the peas, spring onion, garlic and feta, stirring after each ingredient is added to ensure it’s all combined.

– Once everything is combined and has formed a ball, it should remind you of biscuit mix (sticky but a firm consistency) by this point, sprinkle some flour on a clean surface and get ready to roll out. Using a rolling pin roll flat but make sure it’s still at least 2 inches thick or you won’t get much potato in your cake!
– Using cookie cutters cut out some potato cakes and place onto a plate covered in cling film. If you don’t want cute shapes, you can always use a scone cutter or even your hands to get bigger more normal looking potato cake shapes, but lets face it, who wants to be boring like that? hah.

– Once your plate is full cover the top with cling film and pop in the fridge for an hour. This ensures that your cakes won’t fall apart when you’re frying them. It’s not a necessary step but it does give you a chance to clean up a bit before you finish cooking.
– While you’re waiting the hour, and after you’ve tackled the dishes (with or without your little dragon!) you could always put together the dip. In a bowl simply combined 2 spoons of Greek yoghurt, the mint, lemon juice and seasoning then pop that into the fridge until serving.

– Once it’s time to eat, get the cakes out to the fridge and make up an egg wash. Brush the tops and bottoms of each cake (this can get a little messy as Little Miss and I found out today!)
– Oil a frying pan (I used Fry Light as it stops the cakes going soggy) and cook the potato cake on both sides. This will also heat them up and melt the feta slightly.

– Once they’re browned, serve with a generous spoonful of dip. Warning! They will be hot so make sure your little ones blow on them before eating!

I was so impressed that Little Miss completely cleared her plate so she had the equivalent of two fullsized potato cakes but in manageable bite size and fun shaped pieces. She even enjoyed the dip. It didn’t have enough mint or lemon in it for my liking but I knew she’d probably be put off by that and I wanted her to try something new and enjoy it which was the most important thing for me. Because the feta is a salted cheese it meant I didn’t need to further season the potato cakes. I was shocked she even ate them without picking the spring onion out! That’s a success in my books.

I’m Hungry by Jorge Martin is out now in paperback and retails for £6.99!