Baby food fun!

Baby Weaning: fun recipes to try

So the past few weeks we've been weaning the little one. We had some food pouches and finger food donated to us by a neighbour whose daughter has moved onto to bigger food, which has proved very useful when travelling especially. Moreover, the jars have come in very handy - a simple wash and sterilisation and they're perfect for my own creations. It's so much cheaper to re-use glass pots and small jam jars rather than buying those 'baby-specific' pots and tubs that shops flog.

I've been having a lot of fun making baby food recipes up. To be honest I started to read some stuff on baby weaning but, like the only baby book I got, I read about half then realised I've been able to keep baby alive without the book so there's not much point reading it. Just a few simple guidelines on what is appropriate food at various months is really all that's needed. 

Basically, it's common sense. Keep food simple, clean, well-blended and then move onto more complex flavours, proteins and textures later on in the weaning journey. 

We started with very basic food:

Blended avocado

Blended carrots (with a little water)

Steamed courgettes (blended)

Pureed prunes

Pureed apples

Mashed bananas

Butternut squash

Sweet potato.

Moving onto:

Spinach and apple

Avocado and apple

Apples and pears

Apples and strawberries

Banana and blueberry

Sweet potato and red pepper

Carrots and courgettes.

More complex:

Broccoli, carrots and potato

Mango, strawberry and a (healthy) rusk

Mango and plain natural yoghurt

Pears and cinnamon

Butternut squash, sweetcorn, carrot and turmeric

Pea, cabbage and mint

Sweetcorn, orange pepper and sweet potato.

Stage 2 (c. 8 months or, if you're like mine, you may well be feeding more complex proteins etc early)

Pureed lentils and red pepper

Grilled chicken and blended vegetables (no salt added)

Red pepper, tomatoes, white cod and parsley

Beef, carrot and parsnips.

Finger food/messy snacks

Soft steamed carrot

Roughly mashed banana

This is it so far - apart as I mentioned before for the various jars of 4m+ that our neighbour gave to us. 

Kiddilicious do some very good biscotti and flavoured wafers, which have no additives or preservatives in. Farley's rusks are also great - if you are very careful to make this an occasional treat as these do have sugar. 

Have fun! 

Delicious dumplings

Winter Warmer. Vegetable Stew with Dumplings. Source: SimoneySunday

Tonight I decided to use up all the vegetables that we had leftover in the fridge, ahead of our monthly food shop. I also had to use up some vegetable suet that was leftover from Christmas. So what better on the coldest night so far in 2016 than to make a delicious stew with herby dumplings?

I had planned for this of course, and had already soaked 1 cup each of lentils, barley, chickpeas, green beans and butter beans on the stove overnight and boiled them up for half an hour before getting down to the stewy business.

I chopped up an onion, and the rest of my broccoli and carrots, added some sweetcorn and a tin of chopped tomatoes, some herbs and seasoning, together with some vegetable stock, and put into the oven with the remaining pulses for nearly 2 hours.

Approximately 30 minutes before serving, I made some dumplings with 60oz vegetable suet, 1 cup of plain flour, 1 tsp of baking soda, 1 tsp of paprika, 1/2 tsp of dried rosemary and some salt and pepper, together with enough water to make a thick dough. Rolling the dough into floury balls - with floury hands - I layered these on top of the stew and put back into the oven for 20 minutes.

Verdict from my meat-eating husband was 'delicious'. And now the fridge is empty, waiting for some more fresh vegetables to be delivered tomorrow night!

As my mother used to say, waste not, want not. Had I thrown out those two sorry-looking carrots or the broccoli, I would not have had such a flavoursome dish. Best of all? It serves four - so more for hubby and myself another time!

Tropical fruit cake

One of the (admittedly many) things in life that winds me up is the amount of fresh fruit and vegetables jettisoned routinely in this country.

According to campaign group LoveFoodHateWaste, ordinary households throw away almost 50 per cent of the total amount of food thrown away in the UK.

This approximates to a staggering 7m tonnes of food and drink a year, more than half of which is food and drink we could have eaten.

The group claims that wasting this food costs the average household £470 a year, rising to £700 for a family with children, the equivalent of around £60 a month.

As long ago as 2008, the Institute of Food Research highlighted the appalling waste of fresh fruit and vegetables.

Here are some statistics: 

• 359,000 tonnes of potato goes uneaten every year, including 177,400 tonnes of potatoes thrown away whole and untouched (49%). 
• There are 190,000 tonnes of apples thrown out each year, including 178,800 tonnes thrown away whole and untouched.
• The food that is bought and then thrown away uneaten in the greatest proportion is salad; in the UK 45% by weight of all purchased salad is thrown away (60% by cost). 
• 26% of fresh fruit is thrown away untouched. 

Source: IFR report 2008

With this in mind, I have sought to minimise any waste in my house, going to great lengths to, for example, blanch and freeze vegetables, pulp apples into jams, sauces and puree (which can be frozen) and use up any leftovers to create tasty dishes.

Wasting food costs the average household around £60 a month

Last night, I decided I had seen enough of my remaining top quarter of a pineapple, some sad grapes and sorry-looking figs loitering in my fridge. But instead of throwing them out, I turned them into a delicious Tropical Fruit Cake. A note: I always wash fruit before eating/cooking with it.

Tropical Fruit Cake. Photo credit: SimoneySunday

Ingredients
1/4 slightly less fresh pineapple, finely diced
2 slightly less fresh figs, peeled and then finely chopped
1/2 cup of Raisins (fresh and leftover from the Christmas pudding and Christmas Cake)
Grapes, chopped in half
2 tablespoons of spiced rum
3 cups self-raising flour
250g of Flora Light (slightly salted)
2 cups of Demerara sugar
3 medium eggs
1tbsp of ground ginger

How to
Pre-heat the oven to 180.
Whisk the butter and sugar together until it creates a smooth fluffy paste
Add the eggs and stir well
Add the fruit, rum and ginger and stir thoroughly
Slowly fold in the flour until the batter is mixed well
Put into a pre-greased baking tin (I used a 30cm loaf tin)
Bake on 160-180 (depending on your oven) for 30-40 mins or until a knife inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean*
Leave to cool for 15 minutes, then wrap in silver foil to keep it moist.
Tuck in with a nice cup of tea.

*bear in mind if your knife enters a chunk of pineapple, it will streak, so try stabbing it twice. Go on, it can be quite cathartic. I promise.

The result was a lovely, fruity, spicy cake, soft and moist and crumbly. You can also pretend it is healthy because of the fruit. Ahem. I might also try adding glace cherries next time for some additional lift.

If someone could also please recommend a good camera for food pics, I'd be grateful. I don't currently have a working camera and my Samsung 3S is not great at capturing photos of food or anything remotely close-up. Thanks!