Pasta Con Carne

Pasta is a good source of carbohydrate which is slowly released for energy and contains glucose which is fuel for brain and muscles.  Beef mince is a rich source of iron which is more easily absorbed by the body than vegetable sources and protein which is essential for muscle and organ health but there are health risks associated with eating too much red meat so it's best to stick to having it once or twice a week if you can.  If you're vegetarian or vegan you can substitute the mince for lentils which are also a good source of iron and protein.

Serves 4 Adults & 4 Babies
(Freezes really well so a good one to cook in bulk and then freeze for when you want a healthy meal for you and baby but don't have the time or energy to cook one)

Ingredients:
Olive oil for frying
1 Onion diced
500 grams Beef Steak Mince
1 Parsnip thinly sliced
1 tin tomatoes.
1 Red Capsicum (pepper) cut into strips
Garlic to taste ( I like 3 big cloves)
100 grams frozen sweetcorn or a small tin
75grams fresh spinach or a couple of portions of frozen
300 grams of Conchiglie pasta (this shell like stuff is easy for baby to handle and the sauce fills the shell but you can use any shapes you like).
Handful of grated cheese and black pepper.

Method:
Put olive oil in a wok or large pan over a medium heat.  Add onion and fry until looks clear. Pour in mince and cook til browned.  Next add tin of tomatoes followed by parsnip and capsicum and combine all ingredients.  Crush garlic and add to pan, stirring into mix.  Stir in sweetcorn and then spinach.  If sauce begins to boil, reduce heat and simmer for 20 - 30 minutes.  Meanwhile make pasta according to instructions and drain and set aside.  When sauce is cooked stir in pasta.  Season with black pepper and top with cheese (if you don't have an inconvenience store near you which stocks dog chews but no cheese!)   I usually leave Ethan's dinner to cool by an open window as the weather is pretty cold here now but you could put a bowl in the fridge and then put baby's food in there to cool it down quicker.

I put in what vegetables were to hand but it would work equally well with courgettes(zucchini), aubergine (eggplant), carrots, broccoli, peas etc.  Little one's enjoy picking out the different textures. 

Poorly Little Bear

Ethan has had a cold since Sunday and is just starting to get his appetite back so meal times have been a bit of a non starter this week.  Yesterday evening at my sister's he tucked into a vegetable lasagne and had some fruit loaf and then this morning he ate a whole banana (some squashed on a rice cake and some as it was).  He had his eight month development check yesterday and the health visitor said he is very advanced for his age.  He interacts with his environment a lot more than most eight month olds apparently - he was crawling round the room and pulling himself up to standing and pulling toys out of a box and stuff out the bottom of the push chair.  His pincer grip is good as well which explains how he has been eating lots of peas, sweetcorn and sultanas in recent weeks.  I am finally catching this cold from him which is good in a way as it means my body will produce antiobodies to fight it off and they will be passed on to Ethan in the breastmilk he drinks.

The health visitor spoke about introducing a doidy cup of water with meals now so that by a year he should be getting quite good at handling a cup so I am going to order one from ebay later.  She also said about encouraging self soothing to sleep so he can get himself back to sleep at night.  At the moment he breastfeeds to sleep always unless I am not there or he is in the pushchair.  Once he feels better I will try letting Stevo cuddle him to sleep.  I don't see much of a problem with it at the moment but I guess once I am working two days a week in January I won't want to be waking a few times a night to give Ethan comfort feeds.

Now Ethan's got his appetite back, more recipes and photos will follow!

  

A very funny Sunday Lunch

Ethan Bear and his cousin Shirley Clementine (who is a month younger) were hilarious at Sunday lunch.  Despite having the same food on their highchair trays they took to stealing each other's peas and carrots! We all had a lot of fun watching them

Baby's Day Out

Ethan Bear is doing very well with the weaning and can now feed himself peas and sultanas quite well.  The other day we spent the whole day in Birmingham and he was very good helping himself to fish and chips and spaghetti bolognase from our plates in Wetherspoons.  I had my mobile bag of treats and got him out a corn thin or oatcake too when he wanted a snack mid shop.  The hardest part of the day was getting the train back home to Peterborough.  It was fine at first as he was asleep when we got on but then he woke up and decided he wanted to explore the train.  So I was crawling after him and trying to entertain him on my lap for an hour and a half.  In the end I even got my bridesmaid headband out and put it on to make him laugh, the things we do to entertain our babies!  I was so happy when we pulled into the station and I knew we would be back home soon.  I really want to fly over to Oz in the next few years to see all my family out there (my Dad was Fijan) and it's made me realise the flight could be a major problem!

Unfortunately Ethan is teething a lot at the moment (6 teeth so far and counting) so when I breastfeed he is clamping his teeth shut around me very hard until he makes me squeal in pain.  It's so hard, I want to keep feeding him until a year at least but the pain is making me dread feeding time.

Tonight we had pasta and bolognase (made with a tin of tomatoes, beef mince, carrot, onion and a bit of garlic and orgegano) for tea.  It was simple, nourishing lovely food and Ethan Bear seemed quite happy with it too.  

Soft Play

Went for the first time on Thursday to a free play centre near where we live.  It was great, they have a whole room decked out with crash mats and wedges and soft blocks and wheels for kids to play in.  Ethan loved it straight away and didn't seem worried about the older kids running past him and screaming and yelling.  He took it all in his stride and crawled up and over lots of stuff and had fun cruising along other stuff.  We stayed about half an hour but Ethan could have happily stayed longer I think (had he not undone his nappy and had an accident on the mats!).  We are going to go again next week and messy play the week after.  Feel so lucky we have these free childrens centres to go to and am going to keep using them...don't know how much longer they will get government funding!

   

Banana Muffins

Just got a brand new muffin tray and silicone muffin cases from Lakeland so thought I would try out some healthy muffins that we could eat and Ethan could try too.  These are lovely and moist and went down a storm.  Obviously the more ripe the bananas the sweeter the muffins.  The bananas I used were still quite firm but tasted great anyway.

Makes 12 generous muffins.  Up to you how much you let baby have!  

Ingredients: 5 bananas, 1 egg, 100ml milk, 100ml apple juice, 200g self raising flour, 1 tsp ground cinnamon, 1 tsp baking powder.

Method: Preheat the oven to 200'C/400'F/Gas Mark 6.  Mash the bananas in a bowl til there are no lumps.  Beat the egg and add to bananas. Add milk and juice and mix well.  Fold flour, cinnamon and baking powder into banana and liquid mix.  Spoon mixture into muffin cases in a 12 case muffin tin.  Bake for about 20 minutes until browned and cooked through (if you prick with a fork it should come out clean).  Remove from oven, lift muffins from tin and cool on a wire rack.

These hold together really well so are a good snack to take with you when going out with the buggy or to a friends house.

Vegetarian Tagine

Makes 4 Adult and 2 Baby Portions

Ingredients: 250g cous cous, 1 tbsp olive oil, 2 onions thickly sliced, 1 sweet or ordinary potato peeled and cubed, 1 large aubergine cubed, 2 tomatoes roughly chopped, 1/2 tsp of cumin seeds, 1 litre hot vegetable stock (made with low salt stock cube) , 100g dried or 175g fresh apricots, 400g can of chickpeas drained, 1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes, 1 cinnamon stick, 1 lime, handful of fresh mint leaves roughly chopped.

Method:

Place cous cous in large bowl and just cover with boiling water.  Stir well and set aside.

Heat oil in large casserole dish and fry onions, sweet potato and aubergine for 10 minutes until well browned.  Add tomatoes and cumin seeds and cook for 2 minutes.

Add stock to the pan with apricots, chickpeas, chilli and cinnamon stick.  Simmer gently for 15 minutes until vegetables are tender.  Cut 4 thin slices of lime.  Squeeze juice from rest of lime into tagine and stir in mint.  Season to taste with black pepper.

Divide cous cous into serving dishes or plastic tubs if freezing, spoon over tagine and garnish those serving immediately with lime.  I didn't give Ethan a piece of lime with his!

Ethan enjoyed picking out the various vegetables and found the cous cous very easy to handle.  It clumps together a lot making it a perfect weaning food for little fingers to handle!