Pikelets

Already bored of giving TP the same breakfasts and trying to let him enjoy a range of new tastes last week we tried home-made pikelets for the first time. Pikelets, you know, those flat crumpets. I found a recipe for them and thought, I can do those and although they didn't come out looking like shop bought, they tasted rather yummy and TP agreed, he even tried to steal mine!

The recipe for the pikelets is below, the original recipe called for 1/4 cup of sugar which I found made them far too sweet, obviously if you want to add it you can but they taste much better without in my opinion.

Pikelets - makes approx 10 large

Ingredients
1 Egg
3/4 cup of milk
1 cup of standard white flour - I used organic plain, I think white bread flour would work too
1 tsp of baking powder
1/4 tsp lo-salt
25g (1oz) melted butter - I used unsalted. Butter is optional but highly recommended!

Method
Put the flour (recipe calls for sifted - I didn't and it was ok!), salt & baking powder in a bowl
Beat the egg (and sugar if adding) until thick and then add the milk
Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir then add the melted butter
Mix carefully until smooth (I did it all in my food mixer)
Drop tablespoon fulls of mixture into a lightly oiled (think pancakes) pan or griddle and let cook over a medium heat until a few bubbles appear on top and burst, then turn over with a spatula and cook on the other side until golden brown.

Serve with butter, cream cheese, jam or whatever you fancy! There is no reason why you couldn't make double quantities and freeze.

Organised Mummy

This week, I decided to get organised and create a menu for the week as I was fed up of scratching my head every day thinking what to cook for lunch & dinner.

So armed with my reliable recipes from the BLW site and a few other places, I created the weeks menu and this is what we have had so far. (I've posted the recipes at the bottom of the post.)

Mon - Brekfast:Apple & cinnamon hot cross bun with 2 pieces of nectarine
Lunch: Cheese, carrot & spring onion pitta pocket followed by a few raisins
Dinner: Chicken stir fry and 1/2 conference pear for dessert
Tues - Breakfast: 1/2 weetabix and small bit of banana
Lunch: Savoury Muffins followed by 1 bit of nectarine
Dinner: Vegetable chilli and rice and banana yoghurt for dessert
Weds - Breakfast: 1/2 Blueberry bran muffin
Lunch: Jacket potato with cheese and sweetcorn fritter followed by dried apricot & mango
Dinner: Cheese & spinach quesadilla and strawberry yoghurt (with Plum 4 grain porridge in)

So, Monday & Tuesday's menu went down well.

While I was in M&S last week I noticed they had an offer on their hot cross buns and as they are a firm fave in our house I took M&S up on their offer of buy one get one half price and bought 1 pack of regular and 1 pack of apple & cinnamon to give them a try, and oo they were yummy! TP (as always) loves his pitta pockets and I thought I would try something different by adding the spring onion which was a rgaing succes! The noodles, again are something he loves - I'm not sure whether he prefers to eat them or swing them around his arm the most though!

Tueday was another day for trying new things on the menu and I made my 1st attempt at savoury muffins, well I followed the cheese & onion recipe and added a few bits to suit us. So I used half red & half regular onions and added a tiny bit of bacon. Yes, I know bacon has alot of salt BUT TP doesn't really eat that much salt - mostly in bread & cheese and it was a tiny bit to add some flavour, I also threw some carrot in there too because you can never eat too many carrots. :D Disaster struck when I took my silicone muffin tin from the oven and it bent (as they do!) and I dropped the muffins, so had to start again and cook another batch! Anyway, they came out lovely and tasted so nice they were almost like dumplings that are really crispy on the outside and so soft and melting in the middle - I will definately be making these again! The veg chilli was nice but I think next time I will add more chilli powder as it was a bit mild, and I know TP can stand more heat. Oh, I overcooked the rice so it was nice and soft to mix in with the chilli.

Recipes:

Savoury Muffins - makes 6

Ingredients
5 oz plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 large egg
4fl oz milk
2oz cheese - grated
1/2 small red onion
1/2 small regular onion
1/2 strip bacon
1 carrot - grated

Method
Preheat the oven to gas mark 6 and line a muffin tun with 6 muffin cases
Fry the onion (until soft) and bacon - I used a griddle
Sift the flour and baking powder together and put into a bowl
Beat the egg in a jug and add the milk, whisk together
Fold into the flour (don't over-fold as we want to keep the air in)
Add cheese, onion, bacon and carrot (again, with minimum folding!)
Pour the mixture into the muffin cases and bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.
Leave to cool (if you can wait that long!).


Vegetable Chilli - makes enough for 1 baby & 1 Mummy

Ingredients
1/2 onion
1/2 pepper
1/2 courgette
couple of mushrooms
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp smoked paprika (optional)
1 small tin of kidney beans
1 small tin of tomatoes
water (the amount depends on how thick you like your chilli)

Method
Dice the two halves of onion and fry in olive oil on medium heat until soft and add the chilli powder & smoked paprika if using and continue frying for a minute or 2
Slice or chop the vegetables and add to the pan and cook for a coule of minutes
Add the kidney beans, tomatoes and stir together the add the water to desired thickness
Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 -30 minutes

If you make it too spicy for the baby, you can stir some sour cream or mashed avocado into the chilli to cool it a bit.

Serve with over-cooked long grain rice or put into wraps for burritos!

A day of new dishes

As TP is off his food still, I thought I would see if he would eat something new. So, armed with a couple of recipes, noodles with ketchup from babyledweaning.com and blueberry bran muffins from a book called Healthy Cooking For Your Kids (ISBN 1-40546-993-5), although I adapted them slightly. We had noodles for lunch and muffins for afternoon tea.

TP tucked into his noodles and especially enjoyed the mushrooms (another new thing!), although the noodles were a bit sticky - I think I maybe needed to add a bit of water or maybe I cooked them for too long. TP's pincer grip is really coming along now he picked up his peas, which were quite small without too many problems. Putting ketchup in noodles sounded really gross to me but a friend of mine tried them and said they were really nice, so I thought I would give it a go - Im not a great cook so anything thats easy is good by me! So, with an open mind I dug into my share of the noodles and was pleasantly suprised at how yummy they were.

The muffins came out perfectly, I've never made them before and had to substitute and leave out a few of the ingredients so I was slightly nervous! I was quite suprised how much he seemed to enjoy them.

The recipes are below, for the noodles I would just use however much of everything that you want to, it all depends on how strong in flavour and what you want to put in there!


Noodles - makes enough for Mummy & Baby

Ingredients
1/2 bag of ready made chow mein noodles
Olive oil
Squirt of garlic paste / fresh garlic
Sprinkling of five spice
A couple of dribbles of soy sauce
A few squirts of tomato ketchup
A few prawns (I used defrosted ready cooked prawns)
1/4 of red oinion
1 mushroom
Handful of frozen garden peas

Method
Heat the olive oil in a wok
Add the garlic and five spice and the onion, stir-fry until the onion softens a little
Add the prawns and mushroom and cook until they are cooked and then add the peas
Stir in the noodles and add the soy sauce and ketchup and keep stir-frying until the noodles are heated through

You can add any vegetables that you want, I just used what was in the house but next time I will probably add some mange tout and baby sweetcorn too and maybe use sprig onions instead of red oinions.


Blueberry Bran Muffins - makes 10 small muffins

Ingredients
150g/5 1/2 oz white plain flour
100g/3 1/2 oz wholemeal self-raising flour
1 tbsp oat bran - I used ground up All Bran (its all I had in the cupboard that was remotely bran-like!)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
50g/1 3/4oz light brown soft sugar
1 large egg
250ml / 7fl oz buttermilk - I made a substitute with 230ml milk & 1 tbsp lemon juice
180g fresh blueberries

Method
Preheat the oven to 180c/350f/Gas Mark 4 and line 10 holes of a muffin tin with muffin paper cases
Mix the flours, bran, baking powder, bicarb of soda together in a bowl and stir in the sugar
Whisk the egg and buttermilk together together in a jug
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir briefly to combine. Don't overmix - the mixture
should still be a little lumpy. Fold in the blueberries
Spoon the mixture into the muffin cases and bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes until risen and lightly browned
Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin (Or foof on one and burn your mouth when you taste it like I did!!)
Serve warm or cold, with greek yoghurt or cream (for Mum!)

Burrito Joe!

TP made his Daddy a proud man tonight by eating a burrito. They are somewhat of a tradition in our house, we have them every Tuesday and I make a huge batch for TP's Daddy to take to work with him the next day, aptly named "Burrito Club" by the guys who he works with - they're famous you know!! :D

Anyway, tonight I made a little bit for TP. I took the mince and refried beans out of the pan before the chilli sauce went in and it was wrapped along with sour cream and Monterey Jack cheese, although TP isn't eating alot of food at the moment he did give the burrito a go.

Sleep is for the weak...

I haven't updated for a few days, simply because I'm knackered! I have a bad cold coming and TP has decided that he doesn't need to sleep and I feel like I'm spending every hour of the day in his nursery trying to get him to sleep! Even now as I type this, he was asleep but as soon as he went in the cot the wake up switch went on and now he's playing after a 10 minute nap. I don't know how he does it. :/ I've also started a diary to note milk feeds/ food feeds / nap and sleep times.

Anyway, food has been a bit hit and miss over the past few days, I'm not sure if he has some more teeth coming or he's having a growth spurt. TP has been feeding almost 2 hourly, night time included so something is definitely afoot!

On a brighter note, I tried him with some scrambled eggs again on Thursday (he didn't like them the first time he tried them) and he really enjoyed them this time, so hooray! Although, I did cheat a little and put cheese in too - he seems to eat anything that has cheese on it. :D

Risotto

Well today I thought I would try and make risotto, which was probably a disaster waiting to happen because of two things... I've never had risotto and I followed a recipe on the rice packet which didn't have any measurements, plus I added a couple of my own ingredients!

Its lamb chops for Mummy & Daddy tonight, so I chopped off a bit of lamb to put in, diced some courgette, onion, aubergine and peppers and some tinned tomatoes. Made it how it told me to on the packet and URGH it was horrid! TP took one handful, put it in his mouth and pulled a face as if to say, "Oh my God Mother, WHAT IS THIS?!", so I quickly whizzed up some quesadilla instead with mozzarella and baby leaf spinach. Dinner, rescued!

For afters rather than the usual fruit or yoghurt I normally give him, we had some plum loaf made my Soreen and he munched it down so quickly!

Gnocchi with Cheese & Creme Fraiche Sauce

Friday's are always hectic in this house. We have swimming at 1.30pm, right in the middle of the day which means I have to leave the house at 12.15pm ish to get there on time, so needless to say lunch usually goes out of the window, unless I am already in town and at a cafe. The problem with that is, is that TP is far too nosey to have a milk feed anywhere other than in the privacy of his bedroom, curtains closed and lights out... no really! So, rather than miss a milk feed, I miss out lunch - for the time being anyway, until I really need to give him lunch everyday.

For dinner tonight, I had a go at making a cheese sauce for TP's gnocchi rather than the usual pesto. I haven't made it before, normally I can't stand cheese sauce but oo, this one was quite tasty! TP wolfed his down, I think he had about 7 bits of gnocchi! We finished it off by sharing a lovely Empire apple, which he prefers to eat whole. It was funny actually because I think he has now discovered what his teeth are for, each time he grated the apple with his bottom teeth and got something deposited into his mouth he did a little shout and a big smile, it was very cute!

Cheese & Creme Fraiche Sauce

Ingredients
1/2 cup Creme Fraiche
1/4 tsp garlic - Im very lazy and used "Very Lazy Garlic"
1/2 cup vegetable stock - I use 1 tsp of sundried tomato paste and half a cup of boiled water.
Cornflour to thicken
1/2 - 1 cup of grated cheese (I use anything that is in the fridge, tonight it was Monterey Jack and Parmesan)
Couple of twists of black pepper

Method
Put the Creme Fraiche and stock in a pan and stir together and then stir in the garlic.
Add the cornflour, keep stirring or it will go lumpy!
Bring to the boil then add the cheese and pepper.
Stir until you reach your preferred thickness, if it too runny for you add a bit more cornflour.

Polenta....

Well I thought we would try polenta, its good for you and something different. I was told to make it then grill it with either cheese or a pasta type sauce so I made it according to the packet and left it to cool and then grilled it on each side until it was golden. It wasn't really grabbing my attention much, it made me think of gruel (not that I actually know what gruel is!) and it was actually quite horrid! Ahwell, TP might like it.

So I whizzed up some tomato, courgette & aubergine sauce and poured it over the polenta and popped it on the tray. He took one taste and pulled the biggest EWW face ever! At least, my boy has some taste!

All was not lost, a quick blend of raspberries added to the yoghurt saved dinner! :D

Tomato, Courgette & Aubergine Sauce

Ingredients
1 large tomato - skinned
1/4 courgette - peeled & sliced
1/4 aubergine - peeled & sliced
1/4 Red Onion - chopped
Garlic
Olive Oil

Method
Put the oil in the pan and heat
Add garlic, onion & tomato stir frequently until tomato is slightly soft
Add courgette & aubergine and keep stirring
If sauce is very thick you can add a little bit of water.
Once the vegetables are blended together, take off the heat and serve.

I blended the sauce so it was nice and smooth to go over the polenta but it would be really nice left chunky over pasta or gnocchi.

First proper lunch date.

Today was our first proper organised lunch date. We met a couple of TP's friends at the local childrens play centre (www.jansmadhouse.co.uk), its a really great place! Its a massive industrial unit and there is a HUGE play area, ball pit, slides, climbing nets that sort of thing and around the outside it has nice sofa's, two seperate soft play areas - one for toddlers and one for babies and then right at the end there is a cafe area, where they make all home-cooked food, and it tastes great! I wouldn't recommend going during the school holidays - we made that mistake once and stood around for 10 minutes before calling it a day and heading off to a nearby cafe but during school hours its really nice for the babies - theres cake for the Mum's too!

Anyway, I took a pack up for TP which consisted of Organix apple rice cakes (he really likes them!), a mini babybel, an apricot, an Organix gingerbread man and a couple of pieces of dried mango for him to suck on. If truth be known, I wasn't really expecting him to eat anything but he scoffed the lot!


So the day out was a resounding success. :D

Blueberry Pancakes

Joe's dinner yesterday was blueberry pancakes. I made a batch so I can freeze some for later, although they are so nice there are never many left over!


So here is the recipe:
Ingredients
Olive Oil
2 eggs, separated
75 ml milk (I use full fat)
100g wholemeal self-raising flour - you could also use regular self-raising
100g blueberries

Method
Whisk the egg whites into soft peaks.
In a seperate bowl mix the egg yolks, milk and flour.
Fold in the egg whites, then the blueberries.

Lightly coat a frying pan with oil and heat the oil until it starts to smoke.
Add a few spoonfuls of batter - so that you have small round pancakes.
Cook for a minute or two, flip (or turn with a spatula, if like me your flipping skills aren't great!) and cook on the other side for a further minute.

Make sure that the blueberries are cooled before giving to your little one! I usually slice a pancake in half and test the heat of the blueberries before handing over.

I've also doubled the quantities and froze the pancakes, seperated with baking paper for a nice quick snack!

TP's 1st Christmas

I was looking forward to Christmas this year. TP was really into his Christmas pressies, I was expecting him to prefer the wrapping paper rather than the toys but he actually enjoyed playing with the toys as each one was unwrapped!

Daddy cooked dinner and we were more excited about eating the dinner than anything else lol! We were home alone this year, so we had rib of beef rather than traditional turkey, as neither of us really like it. Suffice to say, TP takes after his Mummy & Daddy for his love of food and even tasted the sprouts!

To date

Right, Im going to start a fresh today so here a brief update on everything that Joe has had since we started.

Brekkie:
Weetabix - Small amount of milk dribbled on the biscuit to make it slightly soft but not too soft that it falls apart.
Raisin Wheats - Again, with a small amout of milk to soften them.
Porridge - Ok, he seems to HATE porridge but I keep trying!
Hot Cross Buns - I cant explain in words just how much TP loves these, which is great because I do too!
Raisin & Cinnamon Bagels - Another firm favourite, we've not tried them with crea mcheese yet but that may be a lunch to try!
Toast - with banana's mainly.

Lunch:
Veggies - Roasted, steamed, mashed or boiled.
Ravioli - Done tinned, am yet to try out that new pasta maker we got for Christmas!
Sandwich - mostly with cheese, not tried cooked meats in a sandwich yet.
Pitta pockets - cheese and carrot / cheese on its own / tomatoes & cheese - does anyone see a pattern here? :P
Yoghurt - Home made (oh yes!) witha fruit puree (home blended, none of this jarred stuff!)
Rice cakes
Blueberry Pancakes

Dinner:
Roast dinner - He's had chicken, beef and lamb so far, all a hit!
Curry - Yes, he tried some meat from my bhuna, some bombay potato and onion bhaji!
Quesadilla - mainly with cheese and veggies
Gnocchi
Pasta twirls
Pesto - making my own. :D
Jacket potato
Potato wedges
Fishcakes - homemade again.

There must be more but my mind has blank for now!

First foods

TP's first foods were fruit and veg! The very first thing he had was banana, he loved it although it was very slippery so I improvised and chopped the end off a peeled banana and cut the skin down so that he had his very own mini 'nana! Since then we've given him all kinds of fruit and veg, a few of his favourites are...

Apricots - he ADORES apricots, they are his absolute favourite fruit.
Raspberries - Not so sure about them on their own but loves them blended into yoghurt.
Banana - Another firm favourite although I've found its easier if I use the crinkle cutter to chip bits off for him - he can get a much better grip.
Mango - Again, the crinkle cutter comes in VERY handy with mango!
Apple - You cant eat an apple without TP begging for a bit, at first I was worried about the choking thing and would stick it in the microwave for 30 seconds or so but I feel confident that he can manage a small bit with supervision.
Pears - ANother favourite, I've just started to give him a whole pear to hold himself, I just peel half of the pear so that he can hold onto the skin side.
Blueberries - He cant quite manage these without me splitting them, he's not mastered his pincer grip yet but loves them blended into yoghurt.
Butternut Squash - Cut into crinkle chips and roasted with garlic.
Parsnips - Cut into chips and roasted (sometimes with ginger!).
Sweet Potato - Again, cut into chips and roasted, sometimes with garlic.
Cabbage - Oddly, he really liked cabbage!
Swede - I mash the swede and he grabs handfuls and shoves them into his mouth lol!

Where it all began

At 5 and a half months, we started Tigerpiddler (to be known as TP!) weaning. I had done lots of reading (yay for the interweb!) and found this different way of weaning where you bypassed puree and went straight to finger food, known as Baby Led Weaning.

Although the guidelines say wait until 6 months, Joe had started to show interest in food and could sit up unaided, although not for a long time and I decided to introduce him slowly with the odd bit of fruit and veg here and there, afterall it's baby led weaning!

Like every new Mum, I was a little worried that he wouldn't be eating as much as puree-fed babies and also I was afraid he would choke (not realising the difference between choking and gagging). Luckily, I had stumbled upon an excellent BLW blog & forum ran by Aitch. BLW Blog and BLW Forum , which is full of excellent tips and people who can help you with almost any question!

So, for anyone wondering how to begin at the BLW lark, here are a few things you need to know...

Babies can survive on breastmilk alone for up to 1 year - in some countries they milk feed for up to 2 years!

Food should be seen as a new toy until your little one is around 1 year.

Your baby WILL gag, pull "eww" faces and sometimes throw more away than he will eat - its normal! The gagging thing is all part of the learning process and after a couple of weeks the gagging will subside a little as your baby will have learned to cough up bits that are too big to swallow.

If you dont like mess, go buy a mat to sit underneath your high chair. :P