Cooking breakfast with the kids

Sunday morning cooking breakfast with the children can either be the highlight of the week or the craziest hour ever. However, it is always fun. One piece of advice I have for this situation: don't try cooking too many things at once. It is not ideal having lots of pans smoking and pots bubbling while you are trying not to burn the toast.

This baked eggs dish can be lifted in so many ways once you have the basic tomato sauce, which can be made ahead of time - add chorizo, jamon, mushroom or spinach to give it body. Then finish with labne, grated manchego cheese or Persian fetta. Sprinkle some pistachio dukkah over for some added crunch.

Banana and oat breakfast cake is similar to a muffin but with the ease of baking one cake; you can cut it into squares as the recipe suggests but I prefer to tear it into chunks and serve it with natural yoghurt and a drizzle of Ligurian honey.

BAKED EGGS, SPICED TOMATO AND FETTA

1 tsp coriander seeds

1 tsp cumin seeds

2 tbsp oil

1/2 brown onion, finely diced

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

1 tsp smoked paprika

400g tin chopped tomatoes

Salt and pepper

1 bunch spinach, washed and chopped

8 eggs

350g fetta cheese

1 cup flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped

Lightly toast spice seeds in a dry frying pan over low heat for a minute until aromatic. Using a spice grinder, grind spices to a fine powder. Heat oil in a heavy-based saucepan over low heat and fry onion and garlic until soft and translucent. And ground spices, paprika and tomato and cook gently for one hour or until thick, then season to taste with salt and pepper. Preheat oven to 180C. Blanch spinach in boiling water for 20 seconds and refresh in cold water; squeeze the water from the spinach. In four small cast-iron pans or ovenproof bowls, mix some spinach and tomato sauce. Season with salt and make two hollows in each pan for eggs to sit in. Break eggs into the sauce and place in the oven. Cook until the whites are set and the yolks are runny. Place pan on a plate, crumble fetta over the eggs, then finish with parsley. Serve with toast.

Serves 4

BANANA AND OAT BREAKFAST CAKE

270g plain flour

75g porridge oats

85g castor sugar

85g brown sugar

10g baking powder

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

140ml thickened cream

140ml vegetable oil

3 large eggs

2 large bananas, pureed

Preheat oven to 170C. In a medium bowl, combine flour, oats, sugars, baking powder and cinnamon.

In a separate smaller bowl, beat together the cream, oil, eggs and bananas.

Add combined wet ingredients to combined dry ingredients and stir until just moistened.

Spoon batter into a buttered and floured non-stick 20-centimetre-square baking tin.

Bake in oven for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Allow cake to cool for at least 10 minutes before slicing into squares. Serve with natural yoghurt and strong-flavoured honey.

Serves 8