family feasts, quick eats, short cuts and tricks - shhhh it's really easy
Thai tonight
This is such an easy family dinner to make. The tom yum is a super quick broth on the hob and cooks alongside your Jasmin rice, and your carrots. The tom yum broth can be made up and then paused by reducing the heat, so you can time popping in the salmon (the final step) for when everything is nearly ready, as it only takes around 10 mins to cook. Your carrots after a little flash boil and mixing with a simple roasting sauce just pop in the oven alongside some shop bought spring rolls! Before you know it you have your family meal masterpiece! Both the tom yum and Thai spiced carrot recipes can be found on my dinner and side pages.
Cooking for your family (and baby)
Tonight we had Japanese Kare and it got me thinking, how intimidating are my dishes? Do people think oh my too complicated? I know quite a few Mums and Dads I speak to are a bit scared to cook for their baby in case their baby is ill from the food they cook due to them not cooking it properly. Also, so many people are intimidated by cooking in general – they take one look at a dish and think there’s no way I will be able to make that. Here is my guide to making cooking safe and simple
First the safety
- Use different chopping boards and knives for 1. raw meat/fish, 2. cooked meat, 3. Washed/clean/cooked veg and fruit, and 4. Unwashed veg. Nowadays you can buy coloured chopping boards so you can use that to distinguish which board is for which food. Only use wooden chopping boards for bread and or presenting ready to eat food. Wooden boards can not be cleaned very well as the wood swells in water closing the small indentations from the knife and enclosing the bacteria which are ready to contaminate your next meal. Replace your chopping boards when they start to have a lot of indentations/grooves.
- Once you raw meat/fish is in the pan cooking clean all utensil/surfaces and your hands thoroughly if possible, if that’s not possible move these to an area in the kitchen away from where you will serve food and wipe down the surfaces where your prepped the fish/meat.
- Always defrost frozen raw meats/fish thoroughly in the fridge overnight before cooking. If not you may find that bits of the meat/fish do not reach high enough temperatures when cooking as they were still frozen.
- You don’t need to wait for food to be completely cold before freezing/refrigerating – obviously piping hot food is best not frozen/refrigerated as it will lower the temperature of the fridge/freezer and therefore may ruin other stored food. But warm is fine and the quicker left overs are refrigerated and frozen the better.
- Use ingredients with a use by date before the use by date has expired. The best before date is more flexible and really under your discretion.
- Follow guidelines on organising your fridge – in general raw meats/fish bottom shelf, veg/fruit in salad section, cooked meats/sauces etc next shelf, cheese/yogurt/ ready to eat food on the top shelf.
- Use pre-made frozen food within 1 month – label your frozen meals/food.
- Use warm, soapy water to clean and if you have one a dish washer. Allowing your utensils to air dry is better than towelling them dry. Replace cleaning sponges every day ideally.
Now the fun bit – cooking is simple
- Before you follow a recipe read it a few times so you are familiar.
- Before you start cooking get everything prepped, cut your veg, measure your ingredients, get your pans out, fill your kettle etc., it’s so much easier if everything is ready.
- Don’t follow recipes to the dot, especially if they call for ingredients you don’t have, won’t use again except for that dish, and especially if they are expensive! If your not familiar with that ingredient then Google what that ingredient is and how it tastes and either just leave it out, unless it’s essential, or sub in something similar.
- Add your own extras, especially veg! None of us eat enough veg, so if you have veg spare bung it in, but personally I like to make sure the veg are meal appropriate, so I wouldn’t just mix in any old veg, tonight we had “Japanese Kare - Chicken raisukaree” (recipe on dinner page), but I added bean sprouts and small sweetcorn, not in the recipe, as I had that left over from cooking “Not actually hot but sophisticated Sichuan chicken” (recipe on dinner page) earlier in the week. I wouldn’t have added squash or sweet potato for example!
- To garnish or not – garnishes come into 4 forms. 1. Adds taste 2. Adds texture 3. Adds colour 4. Adds nutrients. A dish can often work without a garnish and I would never buy something for a garnish that I wouldn’t use up elsewhere. Again, you can sub in and out different garnishes depending on what you have to hand. Tonight’s chicken raisukaree has black sesame seeds, they add colour, texture and nutrients – but you could use standard white sesame seeds and still get the texture and nutrients. I generally will buy a garnish that adds taste but if it’s anything else I don’t go out of my way to include!
- When cooking use your senses, does it look, smell, taste, feel right (be careful not to taste anything with raw meat/fish).
- Ingredients make the dish – before you cook some healthy concoction think is this actually going to taste nice.
- Don’t get too hung up on cooking times, everyone’s ovens are different, just make sure to check food is cooked through before you eat it.
- Don’t bother looking at time estimates on recipes – I never include them – it’s totally subjective and pointless. You can read a recipe and know roughly how long it will personally take you to prep and cook, you don’t need someone telling you how long they think you should take!
- Try, try, try different things! The more different things you try to cook the better you will get and the wider your palate will be trained – then you will know straight off that you can sub x for y and it will not compromise on flavour. Do not try and perfect a dish, just cook it, if you like it good, if not then move on to your next challenge…
- Remember that you can’t make an omelette without cracking a few eggs! Likewise no one ever truly cooks perfection, as every dish has its cracked egg and every cook knows what could have gone better!
First the safety
- Use different chopping boards and knives for 1. raw meat/fish, 2. cooked meat, 3. Washed/clean/cooked veg and fruit, and 4. Unwashed veg. Nowadays you can buy coloured chopping boards so you can use that to distinguish which board is for which food. Only use wooden chopping boards for bread and or presenting ready to eat food. Wooden boards can not be cleaned very well as the wood swells in water closing the small indentations from the knife and enclosing the bacteria which are ready to contaminate your next meal. Replace your chopping boards when they start to have a lot of indentations/grooves.
- Once you raw meat/fish is in the pan cooking clean all utensil/surfaces and your hands thoroughly if possible, if that’s not possible move these to an area in the kitchen away from where you will serve food and wipe down the surfaces where your prepped the fish/meat.
- Always defrost frozen raw meats/fish thoroughly in the fridge overnight before cooking. If not you may find that bits of the meat/fish do not reach high enough temperatures when cooking as they were still frozen.
- You don’t need to wait for food to be completely cold before freezing/refrigerating – obviously piping hot food is best not frozen/refrigerated as it will lower the temperature of the fridge/freezer and therefore may ruin other stored food. But warm is fine and the quicker left overs are refrigerated and frozen the better.
- Use ingredients with a use by date before the use by date has expired. The best before date is more flexible and really under your discretion.
- Follow guidelines on organising your fridge – in general raw meats/fish bottom shelf, veg/fruit in salad section, cooked meats/sauces etc next shelf, cheese/yogurt/ ready to eat food on the top shelf.
- Use pre-made frozen food within 1 month – label your frozen meals/food.
- Use warm, soapy water to clean and if you have one a dish washer. Allowing your utensils to air dry is better than towelling them dry. Replace cleaning sponges every day ideally.
Now the fun bit – cooking is simple
- Before you follow a recipe read it a few times so you are familiar.
- Before you start cooking get everything prepped, cut your veg, measure your ingredients, get your pans out, fill your kettle etc., it’s so much easier if everything is ready.
- Don’t follow recipes to the dot, especially if they call for ingredients you don’t have, won’t use again except for that dish, and especially if they are expensive! If your not familiar with that ingredient then Google what that ingredient is and how it tastes and either just leave it out, unless it’s essential, or sub in something similar.
- Add your own extras, especially veg! None of us eat enough veg, so if you have veg spare bung it in, but personally I like to make sure the veg are meal appropriate, so I wouldn’t just mix in any old veg, tonight we had “Japanese Kare - Chicken raisukaree” (recipe on dinner page), but I added bean sprouts and small sweetcorn, not in the recipe, as I had that left over from cooking “Not actually hot but sophisticated Sichuan chicken” (recipe on dinner page) earlier in the week. I wouldn’t have added squash or sweet potato for example!
- To garnish or not – garnishes come into 4 forms. 1. Adds taste 2. Adds texture 3. Adds colour 4. Adds nutrients. A dish can often work without a garnish and I would never buy something for a garnish that I wouldn’t use up elsewhere. Again, you can sub in and out different garnishes depending on what you have to hand. Tonight’s chicken raisukaree has black sesame seeds, they add colour, texture and nutrients – but you could use standard white sesame seeds and still get the texture and nutrients. I generally will buy a garnish that adds taste but if it’s anything else I don’t go out of my way to include!
- When cooking use your senses, does it look, smell, taste, feel right (be careful not to taste anything with raw meat/fish).
- Ingredients make the dish – before you cook some healthy concoction think is this actually going to taste nice.
- Don’t get too hung up on cooking times, everyone’s ovens are different, just make sure to check food is cooked through before you eat it.
- Don’t bother looking at time estimates on recipes – I never include them – it’s totally subjective and pointless. You can read a recipe and know roughly how long it will personally take you to prep and cook, you don’t need someone telling you how long they think you should take!
- Try, try, try different things! The more different things you try to cook the better you will get and the wider your palate will be trained – then you will know straight off that you can sub x for y and it will not compromise on flavour. Do not try and perfect a dish, just cook it, if you like it good, if not then move on to your next challenge…
- Remember that you can’t make an omelette without cracking a few eggs! Likewise no one ever truly cooks perfection, as every dish has its cracked egg and every cook knows what could have gone better!
Mexican Night
To make the family meal masterpiece look at dinner and sides pages for recipes.
I love Mexican food, although this technically tex mex. If you swipe across you will see I serve Zahara’s fajitas deconstructed, I find she prefers it like this, but during the meal I do make her up little bits of rolled wraps with everything in and she likes that too. I think serving deconstructed is good as she can see it’s the same as ours. This is such an easy family meal masterpiece to cook. The chicken for the fajitas only takes around 8 mins to cook and only needs to marinade for 10-15 mins. The pots, squash etc for the sticks (chips) and mash can all go in the oven at the same time, and while they are cooking it’s pretty easy to shred your lettuce and chop up the tomatoes for your fab fajitas salsa, spoon out some sour cream and grate some cheese. Take your squash and sweet pots out, mash, pop in an oven proof dish and back in oven to keep warm while your fry your chicken. Mexico was mine and little Z’s daddy first long haul trip, shoe string travel, and we packed so much into our 3 and a bit weeks – we swam with whale sharks, trekked through mountains in Oaxaca, visited Aztec and Mayan ruins, and explored Mexico City. I can’t wait to take Zahara to swim with whale sharks when she is a little older, incredible experience, but not for the faint hearted, deep open ocean and beasts the size of a double decker bus! Oh and the sea lice, your covered in them when you get out and it feels like a hundred tiny little needles pricking you, quick rub down with a towel and they are gone!
I love Mexican food, although this technically tex mex. If you swipe across you will see I serve Zahara’s fajitas deconstructed, I find she prefers it like this, but during the meal I do make her up little bits of rolled wraps with everything in and she likes that too. I think serving deconstructed is good as she can see it’s the same as ours. This is such an easy family meal masterpiece to cook. The chicken for the fajitas only takes around 8 mins to cook and only needs to marinade for 10-15 mins. The pots, squash etc for the sticks (chips) and mash can all go in the oven at the same time, and while they are cooking it’s pretty easy to shred your lettuce and chop up the tomatoes for your fab fajitas salsa, spoon out some sour cream and grate some cheese. Take your squash and sweet pots out, mash, pop in an oven proof dish and back in oven to keep warm while your fry your chicken. Mexico was mine and little Z’s daddy first long haul trip, shoe string travel, and we packed so much into our 3 and a bit weeks – we swam with whale sharks, trekked through mountains in Oaxaca, visited Aztec and Mayan ruins, and explored Mexico City. I can’t wait to take Zahara to swim with whale sharks when she is a little older, incredible experience, but not for the faint hearted, deep open ocean and beasts the size of a double decker bus! Oh and the sea lice, your covered in them when you get out and it feels like a hundred tiny little needles pricking you, quick rub down with a towel and they are gone!
All about convenience baby food
I am yet to meet a mum that doesn’t once in a while opt for shop bought ready made convince food and snacks for their baby. The key thing is that ideally this should be once in a while, because at best the foods will more than likely be high in sugar, and at worse be full of preservatives, and other baddies. So here is my quick lo-down on how to do smart convenience. For my historic pasta dish recipe see dinner page.
1. Ignore the organic/natural labels – it’s a massive fat con. Just because it occurs naturally or is grown organically does not mean it is not harmful! For example, pyrethrin is a naturally occurring plant based substance that acts as an insecticide. As it’s a natural substance it can (and is) used on organic certified farms. Pyrethroid is a man-made chemical that mimics the natural pyrethrin in its construct and affect. Pyrethroids can not be used on organic certified farms. There is no difference in terms of human toxicity between the natural occurring insecticide and man made mimic! Still want to pay double for organic? The only true organic is when you home grow, and trust me try and spray nothing and you will get very very little back.
2. Ignore sugar free. This just means refined sugar free. Look at the carbohydrates, from sugars, nutrition information, ideally you want this to be at worse less than 20% but ideally less than 5%. Of course if there’s fruit in there it’s probably going to be higher.
3. Sugar water. The problem is that a lot of baby snacks, naming no names, use fruit concentrate juice – horrible nasty sugar water basically, just because it’s from a fruit makes utterly no difference. Likewise any other syrup, baby food doesn’t need a ton of sweetener, regardless if it’s natural or not!
4. Dried fruits i.e. Raisins, dates, apricots, apples, bananas generally are the main culprits. Drying fruit dramatically increases the sugar content per gram as you have removed the water from the fruit. Now, just because it’s got fruit on the label it might not be the best fruit to be eating on a regular basis if it’s actually dried fruit!
5. Palm oil – avoid it like the plague. Asides from the horrible direct and indirect land use change it is having on the planet recent studies have shown it to be highly carcinogenic – yup and they are still using it in baby food!
6. Fillet or not. So for your fish fingers and your chicken nuggets etc. buy the ones that say made from fillets or breast – otherwise it’s the grim off cuts mashed together. Nutritionally not much difference but I wouldn’t want to eat off cuts if I had a choice.
7. Obvious but salt! Under 1 years old should have no more than 1g salt per day and ideally not in one hit! As tempting as a crumpet breakfast maybe my personal view is wait 6 month until their kidneys are a bit better and can’t take that salt hit.
8. Look out for honey for under 1s. in the UK manufacturers do not need to include not suitable for under 1s if it contains honey (as I understand in some other EU countries they do).
9. Unpasteurised milk products. The amount of posts I see with people giving their babies shop bought pesto!!! Pesto is made from Parmesan. Parmesan, generally, is made from unpasteurised milk. Small children’s immune system is just not up to taking a hit from eating something with unpasteurised milk that might have a few too many bugs. It’s not worth the risk. Just cause it’s in a vacuum jar didn’t mean it’s safe!
1. Ignore the organic/natural labels – it’s a massive fat con. Just because it occurs naturally or is grown organically does not mean it is not harmful! For example, pyrethrin is a naturally occurring plant based substance that acts as an insecticide. As it’s a natural substance it can (and is) used on organic certified farms. Pyrethroid is a man-made chemical that mimics the natural pyrethrin in its construct and affect. Pyrethroids can not be used on organic certified farms. There is no difference in terms of human toxicity between the natural occurring insecticide and man made mimic! Still want to pay double for organic? The only true organic is when you home grow, and trust me try and spray nothing and you will get very very little back.
2. Ignore sugar free. This just means refined sugar free. Look at the carbohydrates, from sugars, nutrition information, ideally you want this to be at worse less than 20% but ideally less than 5%. Of course if there’s fruit in there it’s probably going to be higher.
3. Sugar water. The problem is that a lot of baby snacks, naming no names, use fruit concentrate juice – horrible nasty sugar water basically, just because it’s from a fruit makes utterly no difference. Likewise any other syrup, baby food doesn’t need a ton of sweetener, regardless if it’s natural or not!
4. Dried fruits i.e. Raisins, dates, apricots, apples, bananas generally are the main culprits. Drying fruit dramatically increases the sugar content per gram as you have removed the water from the fruit. Now, just because it’s got fruit on the label it might not be the best fruit to be eating on a regular basis if it’s actually dried fruit!
5. Palm oil – avoid it like the plague. Asides from the horrible direct and indirect land use change it is having on the planet recent studies have shown it to be highly carcinogenic – yup and they are still using it in baby food!
6. Fillet or not. So for your fish fingers and your chicken nuggets etc. buy the ones that say made from fillets or breast – otherwise it’s the grim off cuts mashed together. Nutritionally not much difference but I wouldn’t want to eat off cuts if I had a choice.
7. Obvious but salt! Under 1 years old should have no more than 1g salt per day and ideally not in one hit! As tempting as a crumpet breakfast maybe my personal view is wait 6 month until their kidneys are a bit better and can’t take that salt hit.
8. Look out for honey for under 1s. in the UK manufacturers do not need to include not suitable for under 1s if it contains honey (as I understand in some other EU countries they do).
9. Unpasteurised milk products. The amount of posts I see with people giving their babies shop bought pesto!!! Pesto is made from Parmesan. Parmesan, generally, is made from unpasteurised milk. Small children’s immune system is just not up to taking a hit from eating something with unpasteurised milk that might have a few too many bugs. It’s not worth the risk. Just cause it’s in a vacuum jar didn’t mean it’s safe!
An alternative Sunday dinner Moroccan style
This was our yummylicious dinner tonight and took a smidge of the time a traditional roast. This picture represents why I love blw, it’s the inclusivity and family togetherness sitting around the dinner table eating the same amazing food together. All the recipes for this meal can be found on this website in the dinner and sides pages. I also love that this meal transports me back 8 years ago when me and Zahara’s daddy went to Marrakesh together and ate at the famous Djema el-Fnaa square, with the street artists, food venders, noise, smoke and chargrilled smells.
Getting them to eat
Tonight we had “tourist free tom yum” – see dinner section of my blog. Zahara absolutely loves the salmon cooked this way, so I knew that would go down well, but she has never been keen on rice and lately she has been off her broccoli too. I know that blw philosophy is that you keep offering, and make no fuss either way – if it’s eaten or not, but likewise she is now at an age (17 months) where ideally I would like to ensure she has a mix of carbs, protein, fats, fibre and vitamins across the week, and ideally across the day – so here is how I approach it.
- First, I absolutely hate the concept of hidden veg. It’s ridiculous – first you are tricking your own kid, which in my view is the start of a slippery road of breaking trust, and second you tend to have to cook something specially to hide the veg in. Crucially, you should be teaching your child to love veg for what it is – an essential source of nutrients and fibre.
- Always offer something they like in smaller portions alongside something they don’t like.
- So I opted to give her half her carbs from rice and half from sweet potato fries (shop bought, simple oven cook for ease) – I know she likes sweet potato fries and so at least she will get some carbs from them, so if she refuses the rice it won’t matter too much. Plus sweet potatoes double up as a veg portion so if she refused broccoli, no harm done.
- Lead by example. Setting an example is a key to blw – and in my view good parenting all round. I dramatically ate my broccoli and rice in front of her, strategically showing her big spoonfuls of rice and taking slow bites out of the broccoli and even using my hands.
- In the end, she devoured the salmon and sweet potato. Nibbled on one bit of broccoli and ate her rice! This is progress, it could be serendipity, but I have tried my always offer something they like in a small portion alongside something they don’t and leading by example a few times now and it works for us, so thought it would be useful to share.
- First, I absolutely hate the concept of hidden veg. It’s ridiculous – first you are tricking your own kid, which in my view is the start of a slippery road of breaking trust, and second you tend to have to cook something specially to hide the veg in. Crucially, you should be teaching your child to love veg for what it is – an essential source of nutrients and fibre.
- Always offer something they like in smaller portions alongside something they don’t like.
- So I opted to give her half her carbs from rice and half from sweet potato fries (shop bought, simple oven cook for ease) – I know she likes sweet potato fries and so at least she will get some carbs from them, so if she refuses the rice it won’t matter too much. Plus sweet potatoes double up as a veg portion so if she refused broccoli, no harm done.
- Lead by example. Setting an example is a key to blw – and in my view good parenting all round. I dramatically ate my broccoli and rice in front of her, strategically showing her big spoonfuls of rice and taking slow bites out of the broccoli and even using my hands.
- In the end, she devoured the salmon and sweet potato. Nibbled on one bit of broccoli and ate her rice! This is progress, it could be serendipity, but I have tried my always offer something they like in a small portion alongside something they don’t and leading by example a few times now and it works for us, so thought it would be useful to share.
Let's talk about fish
Lunch today is corn wrap squares (younger babies serve as strips or pinwheels) with my home-made guacamole (see breakfast section of blog – desyauno eggado recipe) and a sprinkle of canned tuna. If you have never eaten guacamole with tuna, give it a go, it’s really really good! I love fish, I think it’s the Spanish in me, but as you probably know from pregnancy some fish should be avoided by little ones due to the mercury and other pollutants, likewise fish is an amazing source of protein and other really essential nutrients so it’s a bit of a catcher-fish-22! Here’s the low down on fish:
- A healthy diet should include at least (so, phew, you can have more!) two portions of fish per week, including one portion of oily fish. However, children should only eat two portions of oily fish per week due other pollutants.
- Salmon, mackerel, sardines, trout, fresh tuna and herring are all types of oily fish (check out my Siam Sardine spheres recipe in the lunch section of my blog!).
- Salmon is a good oily fish option as it is reasonably low in mercury compared to other fish. I have quite a few salmon recipes on my blog as we always eat salmon once a week.
- Children should not eat shark, marlin or swordfish due to pollutants.
- Children can eat canned tuna but limit this to some extent due to mercury levels, and don’t choose fresh tuna as your oily fish to eat that week.
- Canned tuna although a great source of protein is not considered as a portion of your required oily fish as the canning process lowers levels of omega-3 fatty acids.
- Avoid giving raw shellfish to babies and children to reduce their risk of getting food poisoning. However, cooked shellfish is great option to introduce to your baby – check out my powerful pil pil prawns recipe in my lunch section of my blog.
And that’s the end of my fish tail.
Grazers - tiny tummies, big adventures
Lunch today was a small egg omelette, strawberries, cherry tomatoes and a few squares of seeded bread toast with butter. She only ate the strawberries (first), one slice of omelette and one square of toast – but that’s typical for a toddler – toddlers like to graze all day long! Plus most babies are fruit addicts! Here are a few thoughts on all of this for you to consider.
• Grazing all day long. Toddlers have tiny tummies but a lot of work to do. A toddler should be active for at least 3 hours a day spread evenly across the day. With all that activity they burn calories quick and so need constant refuelling. So don’t worry if they pick at their lunch, invest in a small cool pack, some ice packs, and small containers, for when your out and about, and pack anything they don’t eat away to offer again in around 60-90 minutes time. Do not cook something else, give them a favourite food etc. This, in my view, only serves to create bad eating habits whereby slowly but surely a toddler becomes a child that only eats a few things. Also, if they are under 1 then don’t worry, just offer food at meal times and snack times and if they eat, that’s ok, and if they don’t, then that’s also ok – food before 1 is just for fun. Ps she ate the remainder of the omelette and tomatoes around an hour later.
• There are advise Pinterest posts and websites that state/give baby/toddler portion sizes – this advice is for traditional wearers whereby a baby/toddler has never understood what full means as they have had food shovelled in their mouths from the start, with blw your baby leads on how much food they eat, therefore offer balanced meals and top up until little one looses interest. So, yes, the plate I have shown is full of strawberries, but she loves them and I just don’t ever limit anything, especially fruit and veg – putting that amount on her plate at once saves me a trip to the kitchen to get more!
• Just a plain omelette? Only butter on the toast!!? As you can see I don’t try and stuff as many nutrients into her as possible, so she doesn’t have a veggie loaded omelette, as she has got tomatoes on the side, and the toast doesn’t have a nut butter or humus on it etc., on it, as I wouldn’t combine omelette with those flavours, so I am not going to give her that either! If you wouldn’t eat it as a meal then why would you make your child eat it?
Wonderful yogurt - loaded spoons, learning how to use spoons and cups
Lunch time and little Miss Z is having a wafer roast ham and cheese spread in a white British bap, cucumber, raspberries and plain natural full fat yogurt. I absolutely love natural yogurt, not for the calcium/fat co tent but for the amazing probiotics – friendly gut bacteria. Recent research is starting to demonstrate that regular consumption of probiotics lowers the risk of developing a plethora of conditions. Also it’s one of the only dietary sources of vitamin D.
• I have used loads of different ways to give her yogurt – when she was 6 months I did pre-loaded spoons, as she has grown older I have given her a spoon to experiment with – it gets messy very quickly! But my recent way of getting yogurt into her with minimal mess is using a babycup, it works so well she tips the cup, gravity moves the yogurt and she licks it out of the cup!
• The babycup is brilliant, we used it from 6 months for every meal – it’s size means you will never give too much water to your baby, they learn how to drink out of a free flow cup from the start and they actually learn to hold and drink it themselves reasonably quickly. All in all it makes a perfect starter before moving on to the doidy cup at 1 years old.
• Cucumber, how to cut? I slice my cucumber down the length in thin slices and tend to only give her the part with the seeds, I also cut off the hard skin. I tried for around 4 weeks giving it to her in chunky sticks, finger size, with skin on and she kept biting a great big lump off and struggling – so really sorry purists, we gave up and I just cut it a way I new she would managed, and hey presto she did. I think you know you child best if they are struggling lots then change tactic – little research has been conducted on blw, so I doubt there is any empirical evidence to support any specific way of cutting/serving vegetables and fruit – obviously it just needs to be prepared in a safe way for your child, all children are different, and in a way that your child can pick it up and put it in their mouths.
• White bread, horrid white bread. At this age (under 2 years old) it’s best to give your baby white bread than anything made from wholemeal flour ie brown bread. Wholemeal flour will fill them up before they are actually full and have eaten sufficient calories. This bap was a treat, I normally opt for a white seeded loaf.
Cause and effect - annoying mess, amazing achievement
Seeing other great blogging mums putting up pics of their actual little ones meal I thought it might be nice for you to see what little miss Z eats – as my pics are nearly all of the grown-ups meal. Plus I can share some tips, tricks and experience at the same time!
So tonight she had Katsu curry – Mama says there’s a Kat among the chickens and super sweet Mexican chips – recipes are on this website.
• For starters I had the sauce already in the freezer, as I batch cook it up (triple quantities), so all there was to do was warm it through, breadcrumb the chicken and fry! The super sweet Mexican chips are super easy, the left overs I will smash with cheese spread and pop in a tortilla for her lunch tomorrow.
• I gave her the Katsu sauce to dip her chicken strips in a small Ikea plastic food storage container – she has recently learnt not to throw food, plates, cups etc – you can’t teach that – it’s a development milestone - learning cause and effect. Be patient, invest in a plastic food mat for under the chair – it will happen, if you try to teach this all that will happen is that you will frustrate you little one and make meal times a battle - seems like an annoying mess but it's an amazing achievement when they suddenly stop.
• I didn’t give her rice (we had egg fried rice with frozen mixed veg) as she is not a huge fan of rice, it still takes her a bit of effort to eat as it involves her chasing it around the plate/tray, grabbing fistfuls and trying to stuff it in her mouth, and I wanted a peaceful meal. So I cooked her some super sweet Mexican chips (I always cut the harder, blackened, slightly over cooked ends off to make it easier for her).
So tonight she had Katsu curry – Mama says there’s a Kat among the chickens and super sweet Mexican chips – recipes are on this website.
• For starters I had the sauce already in the freezer, as I batch cook it up (triple quantities), so all there was to do was warm it through, breadcrumb the chicken and fry! The super sweet Mexican chips are super easy, the left overs I will smash with cheese spread and pop in a tortilla for her lunch tomorrow.
• I gave her the Katsu sauce to dip her chicken strips in a small Ikea plastic food storage container – she has recently learnt not to throw food, plates, cups etc – you can’t teach that – it’s a development milestone - learning cause and effect. Be patient, invest in a plastic food mat for under the chair – it will happen, if you try to teach this all that will happen is that you will frustrate you little one and make meal times a battle - seems like an annoying mess but it's an amazing achievement when they suddenly stop.
• I didn’t give her rice (we had egg fried rice with frozen mixed veg) as she is not a huge fan of rice, it still takes her a bit of effort to eat as it involves her chasing it around the plate/tray, grabbing fistfuls and trying to stuff it in her mouth, and I wanted a peaceful meal. So I cooked her some super sweet Mexican chips (I always cut the harder, blackened, slightly over cooked ends off to make it easier for her).