Loved it. Home-made, of course, from canned tuna and shop-bought bread and, urm, organic cucumber from a supermarket. The Husband and I were eating them at the time, so we gave Babybear a bit off the side and she enjoyed peeling it all apart before going on to eat the constituent parts separately. We had to pile and re-pile the tuna up into the middle of her high chair tray a couple of times as Babybear's inclination is always to spread her food as thinly as possible  across whichever surface is available to her. She managed fine, though, and really enjoyed the thinly-sliced cucumber.
As with the smoked salmon, however, she did absolutely honk of fish afterwards. I don't know why I find this so disconcerting... possibly because we don't yet use soap with Babybear so the fishy memory lingers on for quite a while?

Now, I'm posting this in Finger Foods rather than Recipes because it wasn't me who made the green lentils that Babybear so enjoyed. In fact, we were round at her Auntie Jen's house playing with the magnificent Bubby when hunger struck and I, being quite the inadequate parent, had nothing with me.

Luckily, Jen was boiling up an enormous vat of big, flat green lentils and, their cooked volume having taken her somewhat by surprise, she was only too happy to give some to Babybear.

It was messy, yes, so not the best thing to eat at someone else's place but Jen, being the mother of a strapping 8-month-old, was armed with a top-class Dustbuster and so we were able to leave her relatively unscathed.

I believe the recipe was 'rinse lentils, add water, boil until cooked' with no other flim-flam, but really they were delicious. Lentils do taste nice, but I would tend to add things to them so I think I'd forgotten just how nice. Babybear grabbed them by the handful and crammed them into her mouth, clearly really enjoying them, it was a pleasure to watch. (She's recently started to hum appreciatively when she's having a good meal, it's very cute.)

The nappies, as you might expect, were interesting, but Babybear suffered no ill effects whatsoever and they are such a good source of protein that I'm going to make her some more (this time with butter and onion and sage leaves - I can't help myself) later on this week and will knock up a recipe then.

You know, I had a bad feeling about apples...

I just thought that, as adept and talented as my daughter undoubtedly is, the apple might prove her undoing... and it did. The poor wee thing gagged and choked and I was forced to do the old slappy-back thing (at the same time hopelessly aware that she was sitting in a restaurant high chair that we had practically lashed her into and that if we were ultimately required to tip her upside down we would probably have to do so by turning the entire chair over...)

I had cut it into segments, and she was really enjoying the taste and the sensation of it, but a piece broke off that was too tricky for her to handle and there were tears... (mostly mine).

Think we'll give the apples a miss until she has some top teeth and I can just hand her the whole thing to scrape on.



Post Script
Still no sign of the top teeth but at nine months old Babybear now enjoys eating her apples whole. I wouldn't have started her any earlier, thanks to our choking experience, but what I do is bite a good chunk out of and hand it to her so that she can use her bottom teeth to grate away at the open part of the apple. Very, very handy to take out with you as it is a huge time-waster, and it is rather sociable, I find, to share an apple with your child. Especially when I get to eat 90% of it.

Yes, egg. Very bold of me, don't you think? I had been thinking of waiting until Babybear got to a year old, and had been even further convinced by the news that a friend had rushed her 7-month-old to hospital after he has suffered an allergic reaction.

However, (and here's where I have to remind you that nothing I say on this site should ever, ever be interpreted as medical advice), I was then told by someone else that if your baby isn't particularly at risk of allergies that you should introduce them to at least the egg yolk so that they don't get sensitised or something..? Oh balls I can't quite remember. Perhaps the person will come along and clarify for us? Hopefully she'll remember who she is...

So that (in combination with a relatively empty fridge) decided me a couple of days ago, and I hard-boiled a couple of free-range organics for Babybear. I obeyed La Belle Delia for once, and her method (place eggs in cold water, bring to a boil, turn down to simmer and cook for 7 minutes) did not fail us.

Cracked the yolks out of the albumen, because apparently the white is more allergenic, mixed it with butter and spread it on toast. Babybear enjoyed hers enormously, but I was a little disappointed with my boiled egg whites on toast. She did fart a lot that day, I have to tell you, so I kept the rest of her meals very prune-tastic in order to, erm, even things out a bit.

...rather than Conference Pears, which is what Babybear has eaten before in the most nonplussed of manners. She's just scoffed her second Williams pear of the day, so it looks like it's a hit.

Unbelievably messy, somehow. We are talking about a simple, friendly, almost smiley yellow banana after all. Honestly, this is best served to a naked baby, but if not I would seriously recommend a combination of fabric and pelican bibs. Banana turns a particularly revolting and utterly permanent black colour on clothes, so cover up well.



I find the best way to serve a banana to my little monkey is to chop it in half across the middle and then peel it down the sides as if it were two bananas. I try not to expose more than about an inch and a half of the fruit, because otherwise it breaks off, and I snip off the excess skin with scissors. If I don't, the baby eats the skin and much as I buy fancy-schmantzy fair trade organic bananas I still don't think the skin is that desirable for her to eat.

The good thing about doing it this way is that the baby can hold onto the dry skin and eat the flesh without dropping it. She loves banana, and looks unbelievably cute while eating them (see photographic evidence, in particular Miss G).



 I have read that bananas can make babies constipated, but then I have also seen them touted as a cure for constipation so who knows? Ask your health visitor (pfffshaaahaahaw!) or instead use your cunning and well-honed maternal instincts to decide if banana has a detrimental effect on your wee one. The nappies are a big clue.
 
Post Script
About the nappies... someone posted in a complete panic on Mumsnet that their baby appeared to have contracted thread worms and that she had phoned NHS Direct. About fifteen people responded with a calm 'er, did you give her a banana?'
I'd completely forgotten the shock of seeing your first banana nappy, when Babybear got hers I actually rang my mum. Vile, I tell you, vile. And wormy.

Also, just to let you know that Babybear has long since graduated from the 'skin-on' method of banana consumption and now that her grip and dexterity has improved she just takes half of it at a time.

Take a look at the photo - priceless, isn't it? This is the face of a child who is thinking 'Mum, have you checked the ingredient list on the back of the pack?'



I hadn't, I'd just thought 'Ooooh, she might like ham. And it is from Marks and Sparks...' Anyway, her refusal to do anything other than hold it up with a rueful look on her face led me to look at the packaging. Ingredients: Ham, salt. Hmmmm, maybe another time, then.

Well, petis pois actually, because that's what we happened to have in the freezer, but we might buy ordinary-sized peas the next time. Not sure, though. One of my friends (actually the mother of the rather spendid Bubby) pointed out that peas might represent more of a choking hazard. I'll have a think about it, but she is a Canadian and they are born worriers, that lot. If I do buy the normal-sized peas, I was planning to squash them a bit in advance. Your opinions and comments will, of course, be taken into consideration as well.



Oh anyway, she was a hoot with them, though... really the cutest thing. We had microwaved the peas, covered in a bowl with just a splash of water to retain as many vitamins as possible and we served them in the gravy of the rather marvellous beef stew that I've been banging on about. By 'served', I naturally mean 'spooned elegantly onto the highchair tray'.

She grabbed for them then clasped them in her wee fist, flicking them into her mouth like a Pez dispenser. For some reason, prior to picking them up she likes to point at them, move them slowly around the table with her index finger and then make a sudden but deadly  lunge at the pile.