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! 

Greek orange marmalade dessert

If you have ever been to Greece, you will have seen there are thousands of ‘wild’ orange trees lining the streets.

Orange trees in Athens. Pic: Andrew Gustar

I love walking through Athens in spring, when the trees let their delicious floral scent fill the air when it’s blossom time. When the fruit ripens, the trees are replete with juicy-looking oranges. 

But while you can pluck these oranges and take what you want for free, you’d be laughed out of town if you tried to snack on one, as the fruit is so bitter it’s a very unpleasant eating experience.

However, while you cannot eat these the normal way, many Greeks use this bitter fruit to make a sweet called ‘glyko tou koutaliou’. The addition of sugar and honey in a preserving process cuts through the bitterness to create a nice marmalade-type of dessert.

You can use normal oranges (such as navel oranges) but many people prefer the Seville or Asian oranges as otherwise the sweet can be, well, too sweet.

To make roughly 1 kilogram of this (approximately two average-sized mason jars):

You will need:

• Oranges (normal 'Navel' oranges from a shop or, if you have access to them, the free, bitter kind). You will need 8 to 10, depending on the size.
• 1kg of caster sugar (yes, I know it's a lot. Bear with me).
• 4-5 tablespoons of Thyme honey OR 3-4 tablespoons of lemon juice to taste.

How to:

• Wash the oranges well if they’re shop-bought, especially if they are waxy. It’s worth grating the outside layer a little, as it helps to unlock the zest.
• Put the oranges whole and unpeeled into a large pot and cover them completely with lots of water, then bring these to the boil. Let them stay on the boil for 5 to 10 minutes (depending on how hard the oranges were in the first place).
• Drain the water and leave the fruit to cool down, because once cooled, you can slice into thick wedges and, after removing the creamy white pith, throw the wedges into the pot again and cover with the sugar.
• Resist the temptation to add water. The aim is to reduce the sugar and juice of the oranges into a thick marmalade.
• Bring to the boil, keep on the boil for 10 minutes and remove to cool down. Cover and leave for a day.
• The next day, bring the sticky mixture back to the boil, testing to see if the mixture is too sweet or too bitter. If it is too bitter, add the honey; if too sweet, add a few tablespoons of lemon juice.
• Boil for 10 minutes and scoop into your mason jars.

Greeks often eat this as a little treat, for example when they come home from school and want a light treat, or instead of cake for dessert.

George’s family usually give us several jars of this to take back to the UK with us but, as we rarely eat this sort of thing it has been left lying in the fridge. And as we are getting ready to head back to Athens we need to make room for more.

So I cheated with ready-made shortcrust pastry (with a little baby to look after I’m all about saving time) and made it into a tart. I blind-baked the pastry base first for about 20 minutes on 160 (find out how to blind bake here), then added a jar of the glyko to fill it up to the top of the crust, then baked again for 30 minutes on 160 (I have a fan-assisted oven which gets very hot so I usually take the heat down a notch from most recipes).

Oh it ain't pretty but it tastes pretty darn great! 

Basically, with the marmalade being made by our family and the pastry coming out of a shop, the whole thing took hardly any time to prepare or bake, which is great when it comes to fitting in dessert-making around feeding and entertaining a five-month-old baby!

Now although it wasn't elegantly prepared (I'm sure you will make it look much better), it smelled so good that we became rather impatient. I suppose we could have left it to cool down completely but we are greedy and hungry so ate it when it was a decent temperature.

As the ‘marmalade’ that our family gave us was quite sweet, we topped it off with cool Greek yoghurt to cut through the sweetness, but if your pie is more bitter to the taste, some delicious honeycomb or vanilla ice-cream will do just nicely!

Biscuit Baking the Tim Fisher Way!

Tim Fisher is an award-winning and widely respected pastry chef, having won more than 50 competition awards including over 30 medals at the British Open Cookery Championships. He also won the Dessert of The Year title in 2004.

And I, budget baker that I am on occasion, have had the immense privilege not only of meeting Tim on many occasions but also enjoying samples of his work - melt-in-the-mouth chocolate chip cookies, mini pastries, petite gateaux and delectable savouries when he catered for my friends' events.

This is why I am so happy to endorse his Biscuits and Cookies book, which can be snapped up at Amazon for a sweet £14.

I've enjoyed trying out his recipe for peanut butter cookies (you may recall I am obsessed with PB, and have a couple of years ago posted my own budget PB cookie bake). I won't say whose is better but I'll give you a clue - it's Tim's. Don't tell him! I'm also going to try out his custard cream and jammy dodger recipes - the sort of biscuits one never thinks to make at home but Tim makes it look easy...

What I really like is that Tim has made this book exceptionally accessible to the normal person who likes to bake every now and then. Too often recipes call for random and expensive items, like Belgian woodland truffle flakes, or Fijian salamander scales dipped in 100% Cambodian carob. This is not baking on a budget, but cooking on credit.

But Tim's book is designed to help even casual bakers like myself produce great-tasting treats for friends and family without having to shell out on unusual ingredients. Of course, if you want that little bit extra, there are some fancy biscuits in there too for those extra special occasions!

For those of you who happen to live in Surrey, England you might be interested in joining his Facebook: Tim's Pastry Club, or following him on Twitter: @timspastryclub Instagram: Tim's Pastry Club www.timspastryclub.com

Bake Off's pastry perfection: what is Blind Baking and how can I do it?

I s-pie. Pic: Samantha Beddoes (2012)

The Great British Bake Off (#GBBO) has filled us with a host of new terminology. Cream cakes are no longer cream cakes: they’re crème patisserie. In fact, it's actually Crème Pat. 

Those spaces under the oven where we all store our spare cake tins is actually a proving drawer, which should be kept clean and clear and tidy for when we need to prove our home-baked dough.

We're now alert to the dangers of soggy bottoms and dense sponges.

And, what is more, we all have to blind bake whenever we make pies.

But what is Blind Baking when it comes to pastry? Well, it's basically a way to get a perfect pie crust.

If you cook the pastry without its filling, the pastry could rise and become bumpy and uneven. But if you cook it with the filling from its raw form, the moisture from the filling could make the bottom of the pastry crust flabby and soggy. 

So blind baking involves weighing your empty pastry case down and cooking for a certain length of time to help get that perfect crustiness.

The easiest steps to follow when it comes to blind-baking shortcrust pastry (whether sweet or savoury) are as follows:

1. Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas mark 6.
2. Fill the pastry case with a round of greaseproof paper and add baking beans (these are basically ceramic peas and can be bought quite cheaply from Lakeland or Amazon) to weigh it down.
3. I usually prick the bottom of the pastry a couple of times. I’m not sure why. My mum always did it so I do it.
4. Bake for 15 minutes (check on it though as some ovens are slow and fan-assisted ovens are fast) then carefully remove the paper and beans and cook the pastry for five more minutes.

This can then be cooled ready for whatever filling you need to put into the pie, flan or tart. 

PRO TIP: don’t touch the ceramic beans when they are hot. Please learn from my fail.

Christmas crunch munch burger

We've all had to get through the Christmas Turkey leftover stage and there's only so much turkey stew, turkey sandwiches and turkey ice-cream you can make before you start hating the smell and taste of the meat.

However this year we had a little twist on the turkey sandwich that was utterly delicious and definitely worth a try.

Among the Christmas leftovers we also had some cranberry cheddar and plenty of cranberry sauce with port.

This latter - the cranberry sauce with port - was exceptionally lovely as it had been bought as a gift for ourselves during the sale at Harrods in January 2017 for £1.20 (down from £6) and so was in itself a budget buy. A top-notch budget buy.

But of course any cranberry sauce will do, and if it is homemade - all the better! Nothing can beat home-made!

As I'd spent five days in a row (or so it seemed) peeling seasonal vegetables, the last thing I had the energy to do was make a loaf of bread just to make some sandwiches.

However, we did have four brioche buns from Waitrose which sported that famous yellow 'discount' sticker.

From Waitrose: excellent brioche burger buns

Honestly, if you've never been to Waitrose, definitely check it out after lunchtime - there are always excellent deals and these brioche rolls were less than half price and still within the use-by date.

I sliced some of the turkey breast and, warming it up in some stock so it was moist and full of flavour, set this aside while I put the top halves of each bun into the oven, covered with sliced cranberry cheese until this melted.

"I have to say this was far nicer than any turkey sandwich I'd eaten"

On the bottom of the roll, which I had lightly toasted, I liberally spread the cranberry sauce, laid two stock-soaked turkey slices on each one, put some thinly sliced tomatoes and cucumber and then pressed the hot cheesy top down on each roll.

Four rolls served three people: my husband had two, my friend and I ate one each (because we were pretending to be healthy).

I have to say this was far nicer than any turkey sandwich I'd eaten, not least because the brioche kept its consistency better - too often with flat bread the juices soak into the bread and makes it soggy.

Of course, I've still got 2 jars of stock and 1 box of the bird left to eat... but that's a story for a different time.

To find out how to make the most of the turkey bones to make stock, see my earlier post. Enjoy!

Krispie cakes - the no-bake party cake

How to use leftovers to make no-bake party cakes

Krispie Cakes. Credit: SimoneySunday

Cakes. Who doesn't love them? Likewise, marshmallows, Rice Krispies and sprinkles. What's not to like?

Now combine all these winners together and you get: Krispie Cakes!

Breakfast cereal always creeps past its use-by date in our house. We rarely eat breakfast (our morning food is a late porridge or a coffee at work).

Therefore, we have boxes of cereal which need to be used up as I love food but hate waste. And Krispie cakes are a wonderful way of using up spare or leftover Kellogg's Rice Krispies (or their no-name or store equivalent).

You will need:
1 bag of marshmallows
Rice Krispies
A saucepan
A few sprinkles for dressing (optional).

I used this massive bag of marshmallows from Lidl, which gave a nice colourful sheen to the cakes - yellowy pink. It cost just 69p.

To make:
Place marshmallows in a saucepan on a low heat and stir gently for a few minutes until all the marshmallows have melted.

Turn off heat immediately.

Slowly pour in the Rice Krispies and stir until all the Krispies are covered with the melted marshmallows.

Spoon out scoops of the mixture into paper cupcake holders and leave to cool. Sprinkle with Hundreds and Thousands or any cake sprinkles. I used some multi-coloured sugar balls from Tesco which looked pretty and added extra crunch.

Serve and enjoy!

Nutella cheesecake - the no-bake treat!

Nutella Cheesecake - pic from my guest Maribel (who declared the cake 'delicioso')

This post could have been called: 'How to make a Nutella Cheesecake in 20 minutes (and eat it in three)'.

I love this Nutella dish. It is easy, quick to make, always looks amazing and takes little to no time to make. It is also not as rich as you might think, which means it is perfect for a naughty treat.

We tend to use low-fat Philadelphia cream cheese and low-fat Flora Light spread, as my way of making it a little healthier - although if you're going to use an entire tub of Nutella as I do, perhaps that negates the healthy effort!

You will need:

For the base:

200g butter or Flora Light

100g brown or muscovado sugar

1 pack of digestive biscuits

For the topping:

1 400g jar of Nutella

1 300g tub of Philadelphia cream cheese

1 small bag of blanched whole hazelnuts to decorate (optional)

How to make:

Melt the sugar and butter together in a saucepan on a low heat. Stir until smooth, then turn off the heat.

Crush the biscuits and grind them until all the large chunks have gone. I have a kitchen gadget now that does this for me - basically a little hand-held, hand-powered grater thingy, but before that I just used to wrap the pack of biscuits in a clean tea-towel and beat the living daylights out of them with a rolling pin. Good therapy.

Anyway, I digress. Add the ground biscuits to the sugar/butter mix, and stir. The mix should be firm - like cookie dough - so that you can press it into a greased flan dish (or in my case, the lid of a large casserole dish).

Leave to cool slightly. In a clean bowl, empty the entire jar of Nutella and blend it with the cream cheese until there is no white cheese visible and the mixture is smooth. Spread it evenly over the top of the biscuit base and leave to set.

For decoration, sprinkle with cocoa and place the blanched whole hazelnuts on top. 

Serve and enjoy! 

*In the meantime, since making this for my friends Dave, Maribel and William, Dave has tried this recipe at home and he has added a layer of peanut butter between the biscuit base and the Nutella topping. My own husband thinks this is a step too far, and quite a few more calories too far, but according to Dave and Maribel, it tastes of Reece's peanut butter cups. Which sounds delicious.