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.