'Enid' you say? Surely not the same Enid who was recently saying on Mumsnet that life is to short to make a porridge pancake? Yup, the same one, my friends. Seems like her little seven-month-old Pixie has read that thread and been won over by my dazzling debating style and sheer force of argument, and is now refusing spoons. <insert your own smug smile here>

Anyway, Enid is nothing if not utterly gracious about Pixie's new finger food-only regime and has sent in this recipe for which we are most grateful.

The thing I hate about making A Proper Spanish Omelette is getting the damned potatoes fried without burning the onions. Yes, you should do it separately but honestly, who has the time?

So I stick the potato in the microwave and bake it. Heresy, obviously. (Should I expect the Spanish Omelette Inquisition?)

Meanwhile, cut your onion into attractive segments and fry it gently in olive oil or, as Moomin would say, 'the grease of your choice'. Mix up a couple of eggs. Chop up your cooked potato (who can be bothered peeling it, by the way? Not I.) Throw it in with the onions and fry for a while until the potatoes take on a bit of colour. Shouldn't take more than a few minutes.

Pour over your egg and staunchly resist the temptation to faff around with it. You might have wanted to add a bit more before putting the egg in, by the way. Drop some frozen peas onto the uncooked egg, as popping something green into the recipe will make you feel like A Better Parent. Cook for a few minutes and then flip it or if you are too much of a coward you could finish it under the grill.

This makes enough for Babybear and myself for lunch, she loves it and it's pretty healthy all told, so long as you aren't avoiding eggs for allergy-style reasons.

Always nice to hear from someone who appreciates our efforts (although by the sounds of things it's really Moomin's efforts). Even nicer when she pays it forward with another recipe. Thanks Fiona.

• crack the egg into the four and mix well
• add milk a little at a time to form smooth batter
• add some filling - I've used: mashed banana and cinammon, green beans and cheese, peas, sweetcorn, leftover sweet potato - you get the idea
• heat a frying pan with butter then when it is smoking slightly pour in fritter sized circles of batter (about a dssp each I reckon).  Cook over medium heat and when wee bubbles of air appear at the top, flip over and cook another couple of mins.

Hub2dee is a chap, although I didn't immediately twig that. He posts on Mumsnet (and he's not even a mum... they are very lax about these sort of things.)

Anyway, there had been some discussion on Mumsnet of the Glaswegian tradition of lining a kitchen drawer with baking parchment and pouring leftover porridge into it to be eaten later when it had set. Much of the discussion had centred, most irritatingly, around the 'grossness' of such a practice, to which I should have replied that if you were devastatingly poor, oppressed by slum landlords and working a hard day in a shipyard you maybe weren't so precious about these sorts of things but I didn't cos I was too chicken.

Anyway, Hub2dee went away and thought about this recipe in the context of Baby Led Weaning, bless him, and came up with this fantastic 'recipe' for porridge pancakes. There aren't any measurements, it's a bit trial and error-tastic but the babies love them. I've posted a photo of Babybear enjoying some in the Photos folder.

Basically, put a thin layer (oh I don't know, 4mm deep) of porridge oats into a round flat bowl (I have a tupperware which fits the bill and has a lid for keeping in the fridge, hurrah.)

Then add enough expressed breast milk or water to cover. If you are formula feeding then you can do as I do and add a scoop of formula powder to the mix before adding the water. Give it a wee stir, smooth over and stick it in the microwave for about a minute, sometimes more, sometimes less. Depends on your bowl, your microwave and your baby's personal taste.

You should be left with a solid pancake that looks a bit dried-out and flap-jacky on the top. DO NOT touch it or fanny about with it, leave it alone, it needs to cool and set.

I tend to make one up at night before I go to bed then stick it in the fridge, so that when we get up I can peel it (well, it really is just the skin of the porridge which I appreciate is un petit peu gross) and cut it into segments and feed it to the baby.

Apparently you can add things to the porridge, cheese, fruit etc, but I think I like the simplicity of the original recipe. We made it with cheese once and the baby ate it but I thought it was a bit stinky and it fell apart more easily. Oh, and if I'm making some to go out I don't bother with the milk.

As you know I don't yet have much of a clue about allergies (phew) but I believe that although oats do contain gluten it's not the freaky-deaky coeliac disease kind so I use these as a bread substitute. You can spread Philly or hummus on them to your heart's desire.

(As a complete aside, you would not BELIEVE what the 'renowned childcare expert Gina Ford' is doing to Mumsnet. She's trying to get them closed down cos some of their members had a pop at her. Have a look at www.mumsnet.com if you don't believe me...)


Post Script
We have recently discovered that the desirability of the porridge pancake is entirely dependant on the quality and nature of the porridge. We had been using some fancy-schmantzy organic oats from Sainsbury's to make them and they turned out brilliantly, all light and porridgey but still held together well. Cut to the horror of the Scott's Porage Oat... a Jock classic and I'm ashamed to admit absolutely keech for making these pancakes. The oats seem to be five times as large as the ones from Sainsbury's and so they fall apart immediately. They don't even seem to absorb the milk that well, and as for the mess... one porridge pancake can wreak absolute devastation and havoc... they're going back in the cupboard for Anzac biscuits and I'm going back to Sainsbury's as soon as I get a minute.

Post Post Script. Where does it say on the recipe that you should cover the dish with clingfilm? Nowehere, that's where. Yet one of the mothers who most complained that she could not get this recipe to work has just sent me this image as evidence. Can you spot the mistake, pancake fans?

Having got over my irrational fear of frozen yoghurt, I decided to try out some home made lollies. Basically I mixed some natural yoghurt and mashed banana and froze it. I used our ice cube tray but ours has quite large sections i.e. about 2 ½ times normal cubes. I created handles by inserting the small spoon end of the spoon you get with Calpol – I know you know the spoon I mean.

 

Boomer really enjoyed these – she takes large bites and sooks the lolly. The spoon is great to grab and she plays with it once she has finished the lolly.

 

See, Moomin makes a good point here... are we intent on full vegetable transparency or will we succumb to the Jamie Oliver-patented method of hiding bits of greenery where'er we can? It's hard to say at the moment, while we have babies who are by and large obedient.

I'd say that as a point of principle we should try to encourage children to appreciate veggies for what they are, but what harm can there possibly be in frittering a courgette? Especially if courgettes would otherwise be off the menu...



Grate 350g of courgette and squeeze out as much liquid as possible.
Add a grated onion, 60g of gram flour, 1/4tsp of baking powder and 1 tsp of coriander.
(You might think all my recipes involve gram flour. You'd be wrong. I use rice flour as well.)
Fry a good dollop for 2-3 mins each side.

Now, I don't know whether this is allowed in the world of BLW, but Minky doesn't really eat courgettes. She prefers to dump them over the side of the highchair without a backwards glance. However, she ate three of these for tea. Are we allowed to hide vegetables from them?

I wasn't particularly keen on these myself. Perhaps a liberal coasting of salt is required? Wait a sec...yes, salt helps!

As you may recall Babybear has enjoyed tuna mayonnaise sandwiches in the past, the only downside of which was that she honked rather badly of fish until it came to bath time.

She also likes hummous sandwiches, cheese sandwiches and controversially, hummous and cheese sandwiches. I'd also highly recommend mixing grated carrot with hummous as it holds together nicely. If I'm making these for myself I'd drop some sultanas into it but I haven't done that for Babybear yet as I'm wondering if disguising secret choking hazards in hummous is the way to go. It will probably be fine, really, as Babybear has yet to eat a sandwich without fully dismantling it first, smushing the filling into her face and then addressing the slices of bread. Ham is a trickier option, given her technique as it has a tendency to stick to the bread.

She also enjoys avocado but it's not convenient to take out with us as it goes brown which I personally find aesthetically unappealing. Philadelphia is good, but a little boring I think.

So...anyone else? There must be loads that I'm just not thinking of.

Right, so at nearly eleven months we have finally dived in on the egg eventually (partly in an effort to 'bind' my poor daughter's poo back to some sort of solidity, I admit). We are big fans of French toast in this household, but only, and I mean only, made with Scottish Plain bread. If you think you've tasted white bread before, think again, for they don't some any whiter than a plain loaf, in all its doughy, burnt-crusted gorgeousness. Stupid foofy cotton wool bread tastes weird with egg, I think, so try to get the doughiest loaf you can.
Obviously you know how to make it, just crack a couple of eggs into a dish large enough for your bread, fling in the slices and then prick with a fork so that it better absorbs the egg. Once you are satisfied that the bread is suitably eggy, drop it into some warmed olice oil in a frying pan and fry it until golden-ish. Some people eat this with sugar but they are mostly American. I'm strictly savoury myself.

Appearently this really does take 10 minutes... which makes it rather a handy little recipe to have at our disposal. I bet it would be good cold as well.



This is a really quick pizza, takes literally 10 minutes from entering the kitchen to putting in oven.

Make dough by mixing 4 parts self raising flour with 1 part butter and rubbing until you get breadcrumb type mixture. (it's faster if you grate the butter straight from the fridge) -  4oz flour to 1 oz butter makes 3 small pizzas.

Slowly add about 50 ml milk a splash at a time and stirring with a spoon each time until you get a dough. You might not need it all.

Knead with hands in bowl (or get handy toddler to help...) and split into pieces depending on how many pizzas you want.  Or leave it as one massive one, whatever.

Put dough on oiled baking tray and smoosh with fingers until it is the right size, it doesn't have to be even.

Spread on some red pesto sauce straight from the jar.

Add veg of choice (the Munch likes thin strips of courgette (use a potato peeler) or carrot, peas, beans, bits of broccoli, that sort of thing...)

Daintily dump some grated cheddar cheese on top.

Put in oven, Gas Mark 6, for about 10 minutes for hand sized, longer for bigger.

Cut into pieces and eat yours while waiting for the rest to cool.

Once again, Moomin's struggle to keep her daughter allergy-free bears fruit for all babykind in the form of these easy and delicious bhajis. And parentkind too, by the sound of things.



Grate one medium potato and half an onion.
Add 75g gram flour and a splash of water.
Add spices of your choice - I used a bit of cumin and coriander.
Drop one tablespoon into hot oil and fry for 4 mins each side.
This mix made six bhajis, but I don't imagine we'll be freezing that many as Minky, Mr Moomin and I are polishing them all off!

These were a big hit and will work as another picnic lunch. Hooray!

I've rescued this recipe from the relative obscurity of the comments section of one of Moomin's recipes, it was posted by one of our many Jenns and it really does sound amazing. I'm not completely sure of the temperatures, they sound American to me, but I wouldn't think of doing the pecans at anything over 180degrees in an electric oven (in Scotland. If you're from abroad then you'll have to work things out for yourselves). I'm also wondering if pistachios would substitute for pecans, which are kinda hard to get hold of round my way. However, we've not given Babybear any nuts yet so this might be a strictly adults-only recipe in our house for a while. No bad thing, I should say...



I've got one to share that is a crowd pleaser. I made them for a party and everyone copied the recipe.

Pecan Lentil Burger

3/4 cup uncooked green lentils
3/4 cup pecans
4 cloves garlic
1 1/2 teasppon cumin
1 1/2 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon chili flakes
3 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 cup bread crumbs (may use wheatless bread such as spelt, or any kind of wheatless subsitute)
1 egg (optional-I've made it without and they were fine)

Cook lentils according to package directions until tender...approx 25 minutes. Drain.

Roast pecans at 300 - 325 for 10-15 minutes. (Use your own discretion with temperature and timing because I find the pecans can burn fast) Set aside.

In food processor, mince garlic;add pecans, mince;add lentils, spices, bread crumbs and olive oil. Puree until dough-like. Put mixture into big bowl and work in egg if you choose to. Form into patties and fry on pan with a bit of oil.

Delicious!

There's lots to like about this recipe, not least the taste, which I'm sure is fabulous judging by the photo of Minky enjoying her lamb. However, I'm most drawn to it for the phrase 'grease of your choice', which made me splurt my tea all over my keyboard.

Fry one chopped onion in the grease of your choice (we tolerate sunflower oil).
Coat 450g of diced lamb in flour (rice flour for us), add to the onion and brown.
Add two chopped carrots, 400g of chopped tomatoes, 200g of dried apricots and 50g of sultanas (or raisins - what is the difference?).
Chuck in a bit of water (200ml?) and simmer until the lamb falls apart. I left it for an hour and a half because I fell asleep. Ahem.

Minky had this with buckwheat pasta but feel free to choose your own carbohydrate. Couscous might be nice.

Post them wherever you like, of course, but if you'd rather they didn't get lost in the scrum of comments then it's a good idea to email them to me and I'll stick them up 'officially' for you. With all due credit, of course...
Press on the Aitch above and you'll get my email address, along with a miniscule photo of Babybear and I, you poor creatures.

Babybear really likes these and they are easy to make so I'm happy to oblige.

You can grill the peppers or oven-bake them but I find the easiest thing to do is stick a fork into the bit where the stem is and then lay it onto the gas ring... I mean, I'm not actually recommending that you do that as it's probably some sort of hellish fire risk so I couldn't possibly... but it's certainly what I do. Turn the pepper round when it starts to soften and bubbles of brown/black start appearing. Should smell LOVELY, by the way.

When it's done all over, stick it in a plastic bag and let the skins steam for a while. I tend to wash/rub off the burned bits under a cold running tap which has the advantage of cooling the peppers down. There was some publicity a while back about burned things having a carcinogenic effect so I am always pretty careful to scrape off any bits that are left.

Don't get me wrong, these aren't completely soft peppers, they still have a bit of bounce to them, but the gas ring thing takes about 5 minutes and really takes the edge off the raw taste which I myself amn't that fond of.

Then, you know, slice the three cheeks of the pepper and then you'll probably be left with one longer thinner bit. Oh god, you know how to cut up a pepper. I think I normally cut the bumcheeks in half (ouch!) so I end off with a good few long pieces.

Anyway, spread some Philly or cream cheese on the slices and there you have it. Babybear likes them and you can leave the pepper pieces in the fridge for a couple of days. God knows I've probably totally over-explained this 'recipe' but the point is that at least it's not more bread and cheese...it's peppers and cheese.

We gave Babybear some Heinz baked beans tonight with cheese and toast (what's not to like, you'd think)  but actually she wasn't that fussed for them. I must say it did occur to me as I was eating mine that they did taste very salty.
So I haven't actually made these before but I've had the recipe for ages. What was holding me up, you ask? Why, the molasses... I've searched high and low, from health food shop to supermarket for it to no avail. However, some Christian soul has finally put me out of my misery and told me that treacle (which I have in the damned cupboard) is the same thing. Durrrr.
Anyway, Franny's recipe and her comments are below. Apparently they are very tasty. I'm not 100% sure about the bean soaking bit as I am rarely that organised so I reserve the right to used tinned haricots.

8 oz haricot beans
1 lb toms, skinned and deseeded (I used tinned and it is ok if maybe a little runny)
2 tbsp tomato puree
2 tbsp molasses
2 tsp mustard powder
3/4 pint hot stock (that's three quarters, not 3 or 4 )

Soak beans overnight in large bowl covered with cold water. Drain well, put in sauce pan and cover with cold water by at least 2 ins. Bring to boil, skim surface, cover pan and cook at rolling boil for 30 mins. Drain well. Preheat oven to GM 2. Put beans in large casserole and stir in all remaining ingredients. Mix well. Cover casserole and cook for 2.5 hours. Stir gently and cook for another 35 mins or until tender and sauce thickened. (normally takes up to 4 hours to get really tender and not too runny IME).

Freezes well and is popular with dads as well as children. I normally cook at least double and freeze lots. It has been pointed out to me that with having to cook them for so long, and with baked beans being so cheap, that it is probably cheaper to buy them, but I would far rather have this sort with no salt and no artificial sweeteners. I think baked beans are a truly healthy food but the tinned sort normally have a lot of rubbish added. These are easy to make and also make the house smell lovely.

Moomin is avoiding dairy and wheat, amongst other things, for her daughter Minky, a fact that forces her to be a bit more inventive when it comes to BLW cooking, I am glad to say. Luckily, she is pretty generous with her findings and we all benefit from her investigations.
Seriously, though, my pal was showing me the other day how difficult it is to exclude dairy. You wouldn't believe it, there is milk powder in jars of organic ratatouille...

Recipe for chickpea burgers:
Whizz together 1 tin of chickpeas, 110g gram flour, 1 tsp cumin, 1 tsp coriander, 4 spring onions, 4 garlic cloves and a bit of water. Shape a bit into a patty and fry on each side for five mins. Makes about 8, so I freeze the leftovers (7!) and they're good for taking out with us. I slice them in half lengthways so Minky can get a good grip on them. My husband reckons they're a bit bland but they do have a pleasant texture.

As I mentioned, we have a very allergic-y family (name a food group, I'll find someone that can't have it). I'm avoiding wheat, dairy, citrus, fish, berries, nuts. It does make life a bit more difficult. However, we are doing okay at finding alternatives. Have got some recipes for corn tortillas, buckwheat pancakes, onion bhajis and potato scones. I've only tried potato scones so far and they're good if you want to get away from the normal potato wedges, boiled potatoes etc...

Recipe for potato scones:
255g mashed potato, 1tsp baking powder, 55g rice flour, 1/2 tsp salt (eeek - I guess you could leave this out). Mix together, roll into a ball and roll out into a 5mm thick circle. I cut bits out of it with a pastry cutter and then fried until brown. You can add butter and milk to the mashed potato if you're normal.

I am normal and I love potato scones, so I will go mad and add both. In sunny Scotland, home of the tattie scone, though, what we do is use plain flour (if we aren't avoiding wheat) and rather than using pastry cutters you can just roll out a thin circle of dough on a floured surface to fit the size of a small frying pan. Making sure that there was a good shoogle of flour on the circle I would then dry-fry it, as this makes the trademark dark brown spots appear on the potato scone and they add to the flavour (and they then look spookily like the ones you buy in the shops). Plus, I'm thinking that if you dry-fry them they might keep better. Technically, tattie scones are an excellent way of using up leftover mashed potato but it's academic in our house as such a thing rarely occurs.

And I reckon that some salt sprinkled on mummy and daddy's chickpea burgers will sort out the blandness issue. Gram flour is, of course, just chickpea flour and readily available from Asian stores. Thanks for the recipes, Moomin.

This stew is absolutely delicious, its really easy to make just chuck it in a pot and leave for a hour or so. The only hard part is chopping all the vegetable, you may want to enlist the help of a friend. You do need a fairly healthy spice cupboard but trust me these combine to make such a lovely fragrant flavour.  

 

The stew is made from chunks of vegetables so its perfect for eating with your baby lead weaning wonderstar.

 

I serve this with pitta bread and dollops of yoghurt, and also some chopped parsley if you are feeling real posh.

 

Ingredients

VEG

Chopped onion

2 garlic cloves – chopped

couple of sliced carrots

one sweet potato or butternut squash cut into chunks (or both if you have the biggest pot in the world)

one aubergine cut into chunks

1 green pepper cut into strips

couple of sliced courgette

2 large tomatoes chopped

 

SPICES

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon turmeric

½ teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon cayenne

½ teaspoon paprika

 

add last  - 

1 can of kidney beans or butter beans

½ cup raisins

pinch saffron

 

Fry the onions in a large stew pot , add in all the spices and garlic and fry for a while, always stirring. Add the vegetables in the order above so that the starchier vegetables cook the longest. Sauté each vegetable so that its colour deepens before adding the next vegetable. Stir in the beans , saffron and the raisins. There should be liquid at the bottom of the pot from the vegetables but if the stew is too dry add some water or the liquid from the beans. Cover the pot and let it simmer until all the veg are tender.

I have been know to leave this on a really low heat while going out for the day – it creates an absolutely wonderful smell to return home to on a cold day.

 

It's hard to refine my mushroom risotto recipe for publication, really, as I have made it so often over the years that I just tend to fling in whatever I have in the house. Including frozen peas, which I appreciate would technically make it a pea risotto but let's not be picky.

For the three of us, but with plenty for second helpings and a bit left over for the next day to spread hot onto buttered french bread (o-ho yes...)

One medium onion

A couple of cloves of garlic

Butter and olive oil

Half a pack of Arborio or Carnaroli risotto rice, probably about 225g or so.

Home-made chicken stock, if you've got it. Roughly a litre to a litre and a half. If not, some Marigold reduced salt stuff or half of one of those no-salt Kallo cubes which I personally think taste disgusting. Or if you've got the heel of a piece of Parmesan floating around the fridge you can use that as a stock, that's what I often do, to be honest.

A good slug of white wine or Madeira (optional)

One tbsp porcini mushrooms soaked in warm water (also optional)

As many mushrooms as you can get your mitts on. I usually use at least one supermarket pack (if I haven't bought them elsewhere)  so that's probably about 250g but often I'm using up scabby old ones so loads more go in. Roughly chop into halves or quarters, so they are easier for the babies to pick up.

A good two tbsp of chopped up Parmesan cheese


Gently fry the chopped onion and garlic in a puddle of olive oil and butter. The butter is for flavour, if you leave it out you will notice I reckon. When the onion is clear, throw in the rice and keep it moving around the pan for a few minutes so it can soak up some oil. I use a wide-based pan for risotto. Put in the mushrooms, and fry them. If you think you need more oil or butter, chuck it in. If you have porcini, rinse them, drain them, shop them and fling them in as well at this stage.

Then spoon in some warmed-up chicken stock bit by bit, until it is all absorbed and the rice is sticky-slidy and cooked through and looks like little white pebbles. Well, that's what recipe books tell you to do. I tend to fling in about three-quarters of the stock or some water and a heel of cheese, along with the Parmesan, cook it for a while until the baby's portion is done. Can't really be doing with all the bit by bit business.

Then I take Babybear's out and whack up the heat, adding the rest of the liquid with the dissolved stock cube, wine, Madeira until it disappears. If this whole thing takes much longer than 20 minutes you are in trouble, as risotto should really be fast food, not taking much longer than the onions and rice to cook.

I put so much Parmesan into the rice that I don't need any more on top, just a grind or two of pepper finishes this off for me. We serve it with salad, or just by itself if we are feeling lazy. Babybear's, having cooled down, can be eaten from a spoon if I can be arsed loading it up, but I generally just give it to her on her tray and she grabs it with her hands, chewing the mushrooms for a while before spitting most of them out. (Honestly, though, try the bread thing the next day. Truly, Babybear thinks this is the best bit.)

...requires a breadmaker. Which would be fine chez nous, were it not for the fact we recently gave ours away because we just weren't using it enough. Typical.

I think the spinach and cheese topping sounds particulalry delish and may yet find myself experimenting using my old student standby - the tortilla wrap as pizza base.  That and 10p noodles kept me going through the lean years, let me tell you.

"Here's the recipe.  This makes two 11 inch pizzas, which Daniel (9 months),  me and DH all enjoyed.  And there's nearly half left still, so quantities could be reduced.

 

Dough

225 ml warm water

1 and a half tbsp oil

325g bread flour (I used white, but could do a 50/50 white/wholemeal mix) 2 tbsp sugar 1 tsp dried yeast

 

Topping (pizza 1)

Half a tube of tomato puree

Lots of grated cheese (I used cheddar)

Selection of your choice vegetables (I used 2 shallots - chopped and fried, 2 cherry tomatoes - skinned and sliced, broccoli - finely chopped, sweetcorn)

 

Topping (pizza 2)

A tub of cream cheese

6 cubes of frozen spinach (defrosted)

1 tsp fried shallot (taken from that prepared for pizza 1)

A pinch of mixed spice

Small amount of grated cheese

 

Put water and oil in breadmaker.  Cover with the flour.  Put sugar in one corner.  Make indentation in flour for yeast and make on dough setting. (Adapt this stage to do by hand, if you haven't got a breadmaker). Grease two 11inch circular pizza tins and preheat oven (220 deg for fan oven). Once dough is ready, divide in half between the 2 tins. Press to a flat round shape to fill tin (best to cover your hands in flour to avoid dough sticking to your fingers). Cover with oiled clingfilm for 15 mins.

Then do the toppings.

Pizza 1 - cover base with tomato puree nearly to edge.  Then distribute the veggies over.  Finally, top with loads of grated cheese.

Pizza 2 - cover base with cream cheese nearly to edge. Mix the spinach, shallot and spice together.  Spread the mixture over the cream cheese. Sprinkle a little grated cheese over the top.

Put the pizzas in the oven for about 15 minutes until golden and sizzling (probably a little longer if not a fan oven). Serve immediately for adults, but let it cool a bit for babies.  And cut babies' portions into pieces about 1-2 inches.  (I didn't give Daniel any of the crust, but it would be nice and chewy for teething)."

 

Personally, the only way I enjoy polenta is with as much parmesan cheese as it can support without falling apart. It will take years of trial and error on my part to find out exactly how much that is. Be careful as it starts to boil, to give you an idea of how dangerous polenta is just imagine you are cooking with lava straight off the slopes of Mt Etna and you won't go far wrong.


Polenta with Herbs

75g (3oz) polenta
Either 1 tsp of dried herbs, say, oregano or thyme, or a fistful of chopped fresh herbs, perhaps parsley or coriander? If using fresh rosemary or thyme, probably best to stick to the teaspoonful.
1 tbsp olive oil or butter.
A whacking amount of parmesan cheese, freshly grated, say about a fistful again. Or however much you like.
Cook the polenta according to packet instructions, and stir in the butter or olive oil and then the parmesan and herbs as it starts to thicken. Pour into an oiled baking tray and leave to cool, befor cutting into wedges and grilling or frying until golden on both sides. 
Post Script
We made some polenta the other night but I didn't have any parmesan in and the kind that I bought claimed to have vegetables in it already and therefore didn't need anything extra. Wrong. It really needed cheese.

Anyway, I made it, and in it's plain boiled form it was distinctly unimpressive. Likewise when I spread it out onto an oiled tray and grilled it. However, I left it overnight and cut it up and grilled the pieces and we had some more success. It had started, by this time, to look and taste oddly and not unpleasantly like French Toast. Babybear ate a really big piece of it, as did I, but mine was smothered under a layer of salt. Next time, cheese.

The reason I love these is that they are easy to make with very little faff, and the flavour of the harissa is warming without being too hot, so the baby can eat them too. I don't really know where the recipe came from, we just magicked it up out of our own heads one day, so those of you who have your own tried-and-tested burger recipes just keep doing what you're doing. I don't add breadcrumbs because I can't be bothered making them, likewise egg (actually the combination of raw egg and raw meat makes me feel a bit gruey) so I leave it out and just stick with the beef.

Here goes.


A pack of good-quality lean minced beef, you know, the normal size, whatever that is. Say 500g or so? That should give you four or five good-sized burgers.

One medium onion, finely, finely, finely chopped.

One clove of garlic, but not essential.

A good hunk of cheese, roughly grated. The amount depends how cheesy you want your burgers, how strong the cheese and how much you happen to have in the fridge. I have used half a normal-sized pack in my time.

A teaspoon or so of harissa. I prefer rose harissa, as it isn't so much of a paste, so that's what I use. You can get it in delis and in the Sainsbury's fancy-pants section. It's about £3 but it lasts for ages and a spoonful of it in a bowl of yoghurt or creme fraiche is lovely as a dip for tortilla chips or whatever if people swing by unexpectedly. With regards to the burger, the kind of harissa you buy in the tube would be fine too.

A spritz of olive oil for frying.



Gently, always gently, fry the onion and garlic in oil or butter in a frying pan. When it is transparent, remove from heat and leave to cool briefly while you mix the minced meat and the cheese and harissa, before adding the onions to the mixture. Really get your hands in about it and give it a good squidge.

Then roll into balls and flatten, to whatever size of burger you fancy, and then fry them to as cooked as you wish, roughly five minutes each side (but I like 'em a bit rarer, to be honest.) The cheese keeps them together and it goes crispy and oozes out of the burger as it cooks. We tend to have them in toasted pitta breads, so we make them roughly to fit, with sweet potato chips.

Smaller ones are lovely in mini pittas, and little children love making them and eating them in my experience. I often make double the amounts so I can freeze these between layers of greaseproof paper and then just defrost what I need.

Babybear feasted on a good lump of burger this evening, hence the recipe. I gave her a couple of well-cooked fist-sized bits and she was gorgeous with them. Bit some off and then sucked and slurped at it in a most ignoble manner. When it started to break up she jammed as much as she could into her mouth, so really very little was wasted. Especially when her father scooped up any leftovers and ate them himself, the good boy.

Not kidding. It's spot-on, if you think about it. A stew of baby-fist-sized meat and chunky veggies bound together by the unifying theme of gravy but each piece utterly recognisable and distinct from the other... it's absolutely ideal. Oh, and apparently the beer is fine so long as you boil the alcohol off. Huzzah, I love winter... bring on the cold weather food I say.



500g lean stewing beef, cubed
Butter
Olive oil
Large onion
Plain flour, not much more than a heaped tablespoon is necessary
Two carrots
6 or so new potatoes
Three-quarters of a pint of beer. If the beer is dark make it half a pint.
Water for adding extra liquid
Two bayleaves or a bouquet garni
Salt and pepper

It's really the Husband who is in charge of beef casseroles in our house (I make beautiful ones myself but he showed an aptitude when we first got together and I saw no reason to discourage him). He somewhat pompously insists that the secret to a good casserole comes from drying the meat with kitchen towel before dipping it in seasoned flower. He reckons, and I am inclined to believe him, that if the meat is wet it poaches briefly on contact with the oil and isn't as nice. You might want to leave out the seasoning as it's for the baby, but I know that he puts in only a couple of turns of the salt grinder and most of it gets left behind anyway.

So he takes 500g or so of meat (we get ours from the farmer's market, it's actually from Highland cows, the hairy ones with the horns. I was horrified when I realised but they taste soooo nice). He dries it, as mentioned, dips it in a wee bowl of salt and peppered flour and then drops it into some hot oil and butter in the pan. Say four or five cubes at a time, dependant on the size of your frying pan/casserole dish. Sometimes we cook a kilo of meat up and freeze half.

Once you've finished with that, leave your browned meat in a dish to the side and crack on with your onions and whatever else you fancy. There will probably be some flour stuck to the bottom of the pan but don't worry, it will come off during the course of the cooking and 'it's all flavour', as my Grandma used to say. Chop your large-ish onion, add some more oil (and a spot of butter for flavour) keep the heat down and slowly cook your onion. We find this takes about eight to ten minutes - it's a source of some confusion to me that recipes seem to suggest that onions cook in a flash. They do if you're burning them, I suppose.

We normally just have this with mushrooms in it but in deference to Babybear's new-found ability to eat solids we put in a couple of sliced carrots and a good handful of quartered new potatoes. Fry them off gently, then slowly pour over a  bottle of  beer, something like an 80 shilling, not too dark not too light and let cook for five minutes to take off the alcohol. Add a couple of bay leaves or a bouquet garni, then return the meat to the pan cover with  lid and cook at 325F/170C/Gas Mark 3 for 1 and a half hours, checking it every so often for sticking or extra liquid. Because of the potatoes we served this just with some petits pois, which are a story in themselves. We left her bits and pieces to cool and put them on Babybear's highchair tray while we ate our meal, and she really absolutely adored it. There were some leftovers which, of course, tasted even better the following day.

JennT says:

Cut a thick slice of bread into fingers and brush the bread with honey or marmite diluted 50:50 with water before baking at gas 4/180C/350F for about 20 minutes.  I'm not sure I would use the marmite ones myself, but I'm assuming that the honey is okay cos it's cooked.

Now, I don't actually know Mawbroon in person as I met her on Mumsnet, but my spider senses suggest to me that she might be Scottish...

Here is her recipe, but I intend to quiz her further on the nature of the oatmeal. Pinhead? Porridge Oats? Not sure at this stage, will report back.
Anyway, here goes.



8oz oatmeal
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 dessertspoonful of melted fat, (the recipe suggests butter or lard but Mawbroon's natural inclination is to rebelliousness so she uses olive oil)
hot water
a good pinch of salt would be nice but unfortunately it is frowned upon because of the babies' kidneys and all that blah blah blah.

Mix all the dry ingredients together with a well in the middle and pour in the fat. Blend in enough hot water to make a stiff paste then knead and roll out as thinly as possible. Cut into triangles and bake on a floured tin at 200 degrees until the ends curl up and the cakes are crisp. Alternatively, bake them on a hot girdle or frying pan.

Now, that's what the recipe says, but what Mawbroon does is take little blobs of the mix and flattens them into fat little oatcakes. So, they are rustic looking and not thin enough to curl up when cooked. Apparently little helpers can help because the mix cools very quickly even though you use hot water.

Update. Mawbroon says:

"I just use "normal" oatmeal but pinhead would do as well. Porridge oats could probably be used at a push after a blitz in the food processor, but I've never tried it, so don't blame me if you try it and the oatcakes are vile.

I don't know about the availability of oatmeal in England for anyone reading who lives there. My sister lives in London and stocks up every time she comes home (to Scotland) for a visit because she claims not to be able to buy it down south. I would have thought that with the fad for whole foods at the moment that it would be readily available, but I'll take her word for it. I do know that Lakeland sell the Alfords stuff.

Also I forgot to say that the cooking time is somewhere between 20 - 30 mins."

Hurrah, I was right, she is a Jock. And good to have a cooking time on a recipe, I always find...

Post Script.

I made them. They are flipping deeee-licious and really easy. I used medium oatmeal, as my pinhead oatmeal actually seemed to be less finely ground than the medium when I pulled it from the cupboard. Mistakenly, I had thought it would be small, not unlike the head of a pin, but no. Go figure. Also, for the record it's a straight no on the porridge oats, apparently if you try this recipe with them you will be sadly disappointed.

Anyway, they work great with olive oil I reckon, you can really taste it which is very pleasant, but thinking about it I probably put in a bit more than the recipe called for as my hand has a tendency to wobble when holding any bottle... The no-salt thing isn't a problem if you are an adult as you are invariably jamming a big wodge of salty cheese on them anyway.

Like Mawbroon, I rolled the mixture into little balls about three-quarters of an inch in diameter, then squashed the little blighters in the palms of my hands to make discs of about one-and-a-half to two inches across. I kept them in for about half-an-hour because I like oatcakes a little golden.

Babybear has had them with hummus and butter, and her strategy has so far been to take a nibble off the edge, which she chews a bit but finds a little dry to be honest. Her next move is to lick the topping off the oatcake at which point it becomes a bit soggier, before returning to it every so often as it becomes more wet. She mustn't leave it too long, though, as it turns into porridge if it sits on her soggy highchair tray (we're still getting to grips with drinking from a glass). Obviously it depends how well your baby is doing with gagging and everything, but I definitely don't think that Babybear would have been able to manage these until quite recently (she's eight-and-a-half-months). Anyway, thanks again Mawbroon, I think these will be a real favourite in our house for many years to come. Well, they will if my husband has anything to do with it, as he's eaten nothing else all day.

VNmum's campaign to get us all eating our apple a day continues... they sound great. I've made kind of sausagey things before but they weren't damp enough for my liking, so maybe the apple will help...


Chicken and Apple Sausages

1 chicken breast, diced
1/2 eating apple grated
1 small onion, finely chopped
1-2 tbsp fresh breadcrumbs
1 clove of garlic, crushed
Seasoning of your choice eg Italian herbs, paprika, chinese 5 spice
plain flour


Whizz the chicken for a few seconds in a food processor then add the rest of ingredients, except flour, and whizz together for few seconds. If the mixture seems quite sloppy just add more breadcrumb until it sticks together better.

Take a handful and shape into whatever size sausage shape you want, this again will make however many sausages you want depending on size.

Roll all the sausages in the flour to seal and fry in vegetable oil.

Can be frozen.

I found that if the mix was slightly wet, they held together for cooking and then fell apart nicely as DS was chewing. as he gets more teeth I will probably make them drier as it will be easier for him to chew.

Both this and the pork buger recipe can be tweaked to your liking with consistency and seasoning, they went down a treat with ds, served with homemade oven chips and salad.

These sound rather delicious, I must say, and I am very interested in the substitution of olive oil for egg. Does that mean that you use an 'egg-sized' amount of oil or is it just a slug, vnmum?

My poor friend's wee boy who is, I think, about 7 months or so was just rushed to hospital after discovering he had an egg allergy, so I'm sure she'd be interested in any egg allergic substitutions. I am too, by the way, as I have decided to hold off on giving Babybear some French toast (ooooh, I've been dreaming of French toast...) for a good while now after hearing my chum's horror story.

Pork and Apple burgers

250g pork mince
1/2 eating apple, finely chopped or grated
1 small onion, finely chopped
5 - 6 tbsp fresh breadcrumbs
1 - 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
italian herbs to season
One egg ( I use olive oil instead as DS is egg allergic)

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl, until mixture is sticking together nicely.

Make however many burgers you want depending on the size you want them.

Grill or fry

I dont see any reason why these cant be frozen either raw (as long as mince was fresh not frozen) or cooked.

Och, I've just realised that I've thrown the box out. Anyway, they are nice, blah blah organic, blah sweetened with grape juice, no hydrogenated fats etc etc. And what's more, they are shaped like little moons which makes them super-easy to hold onto. Which has got me thinking, my baby led weaning chums, that what we need is a biscuit/rusk recipe that we can bake ourselves (therefore we won't be paying through the nose for them) and shape into crescents. I'm hitting the internet now, expect radio silence until I have come up with something sensational.

Oh, and I know that Organix makes lots of little vegetable puff crisps which are useful if you are trying to hang fire on gluten but here's the thing... if you don't need to eat them, I wouldn't. Because it strikes me that they look just like Wotsits, and I'm quite keen that Babybear does not pick up her father's former crisp habit (he was a ten bag-a-day man, or so he tells me) so I'd rather not teach her that some crisps are okay but some aren't.
That's it. Expect radio silence NOW.

This was something I made up for a picnic as an accompanying dish to the Breaded Chicken.

 

Ingredients

 

Star pumpkin – halved and cored to make bowls

Flageolet Beans – a handful cooked (either from dry or from a tin)

Asparagus – steamed and cut into baby led weaning lengths

Green Beans - steamed and cut into baby led weaning lengths

Pumpkin – chunks from the pumpkin (bowls) boiled/steamed

Chunks of Feta (not sure about allergies and feta, so could be substituted)

Sweet Red Pepper – cut into baby led weaning size chunks

 

Directions

 

Mix all the ingredients and dress with a ‘Greek salad’ style dressing i.e. lashings of olive oil and loads of good quality dried oregano. Fill the pumpkin bowls with the salad , wrap in foil and take to the park. Boomer got bits from the bowls and she played with the pumpkin bowl later.

This was something I made up for a picnic as an accompanying dish to the Breaded Chicken.

 

We were in Edinburgh the other day enjoying some culcha (actually The Jim Henson Muppet Show which I may have enjoyed more than Babybear) and when we went to buy lunch I noticed that the Italian deli place had some breaded chicken pieces ready to put into sandwiches.

I hardly need point out that despite doing this baby led weaning business with a pure heart and therefore knowing that I could just buy something to eat when we got there, I had packed enough provisions to sustain Babybear through a journey to the North Pole.

Nevertheless, I just had a sneaking feeling that besides all her porridge pancakes, bread sticks, peaches, banana and cheese, she might enjoy a spot of fried chicken in breadcrumb. I mean, what's not to like?

So I get home, tell The Husband and his beady wee eyes light up... we're going to get to eat fried chicken? He's liking baby led weaning more and more...

So here is my version, which I made and froze yesterday and ate tonight with great success.


Find some manky old bread and whizz it to make breadcrumbs. We had the ends of an old multigrain, which contains all sorts of seeds and therefore plays fast and loose with potential allergens but it was all I had and I was in the mood for experimentation. Fling in a couple of cloves of garlic and a teaspoon of sweet smoked paprika (fast becoming my flavour enhancer of choice now that salt is off the menu) and whizz some more.

Slice up some chicken breast pieces to a goujon-ish size (or finger/chip-sized if you will) and dip them in the breadcrumbs. I thought that I might need some egg to make it stick but it was fine.

I layered them in a tupperware between greaseproof paper and stuck them in the freezer because I didn't want to eat them immediately and I knew that my chicken pieces were fresh and tonight I heated the oven up to 180 degrees, oiled a baking tray with my trusty oil squisher then put them in for about 25-30 minutes (after another wee squish on top with the oil.)

Serve with loads of lemon juice on top and some peas and sweet potato chips and you are laughing (particularly at the baby, who still doesn't have much of a pincer grip and spent much of the time chasing petits pois round her highchair tray.)

If anything, they were probably a bit overcooked by the time they came out but I was feeling a bit paranoid about that woman sallymonella at the time, so if you are doing this recipe I'd check to see if they are piping hot in the middle by eating one at about 20 minutes in.

So, what did you do with the bones and carcass of your lemony roast chicken from the Finger Foods section? Boiled them up for half an hour with an onion, a stick of celery, a carrot, a couple of bay leaves, some peppercorns and a clove of garlic, did you? Mah-velous, then we are ready to make baby led weaning chicken soup.

Okay then, it's basically just normal chicken soup, so do whatever you usually do (in my case sweat an onion and some leeks if I have them, sling in a couple of sliced carrots and some sliced sticks of celery, add the stock and possibly some low-salt Marigold bouillon to taste and if I feel like it throw in some rice or pasta near the end).

But the smarty-pants thing to remember is to cut some of your veggies in the chip-sized manner (or finger-sized, if we wish to be understood by our New World cousins) and to drop them into the soup while it is cooking.

After a while you are left with the most delicious soft carrot and celery (and whatever else you fancy) which has been poached in chicken soup and can be taken directly from the parental bowl and handed (after a bit of blowing and cooling down) to the baby. Which they love, let's face it. I also find that Babybear likes to eat crusty bread dipped in soup and wrung out like a wee sponge so it isn't too soggy.



Post Script.
We've been putting a good handful of barley into our chicken soup recently and Babybear loves it. She can feed herself a few grains of barley at a time on a spoon (I load it up) and also if you put some crusty bread into the bowl to soak up the soup then press down hard you will simultaneously squeeze the liquid out and pick up lots of barley and veggies. She eats these like an open sandwich, her face wreathed in smiles and carrots.

We’ve all just returned from holiday and needed a quick dinner plus we had some pears looking a pit peaky.

 

Boomer took the pieces of toast and obviously the pear slices fell off but she just picked them up once she had finished with the toast.

 

Ingredients

Slices of wholemeal bread

Pesto (I used red pesto as that’s what we had in the fridge)

Slices of pear

Slices of cheese (whatever type you like we had a selection of whatsleftinthefridgeous variety)

Some fresh basil leaves (admittedly we didn’t have this tonight but I’ve used it before and it’s delicious)

 

Directions

Lightly toast the bread (either on one side under the grill or quickly in the toaster). Slice the toast half to create smaller pieces to create a couple of

Spread the toast with a slather of pesto, place a slice of pear and a leaf of basil on top and finish with a thin slice of cheese. Place under the grill until the cheese is nicely melted.

Boomer ate almost as much as me when we dined on this at grandpa and grannies house. Boomer liked eating the same as us and she grabbed my spoon to get at it (see tattie soup photo)

 

ingredients

·        equal quantities of leeks and potatoes

·        olive oil

·        vegetable bouillon powder  (reduced salt)

 

directions

Clean and chop the leeks into small pieces and sweat in the oil, over a medium heat, for about 3mins. Peel the potatoes and chop into small cubes, then stir in with the leeks for 2mins. Mix the stock to a strength that suits and add sufficient to just cover the leek/potato mixture Bring to the boil then cover and reduce to a simmer for 12/15mins. Liquidise but don’t puree – lumpy bits are interesting. Serve with crusty bread for the baby to dunk and season to taste for the grown-ups.

If you want Cream of Leek & Potato, then before serving stir in some milk, cream, or yoghurt.

 

 

 

 

 

   

ok so not really a recipe as such but she loves this - it is rather messy though , so for days when you are feeling really strong!

Ingredients

2 slices of toast

1 mashed banana

Directions

 

Spread mashed banana over toasted bread , slice into soldiers, hand to baby – stand back ...