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Vnmum's Chicken and Apple Sausages
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.
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Vnmum's Pork and Apple Burgers
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.
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Out and About
While out and about I always pack a lunchbox for Boomer. Common contents are some rice cakes or rye crackers, some fruit (usually nectarines or a banana), dried fruit (apricots, apple slices), and pieces of cheese. All these types of food travel well in a plastic box and can be fed whilst on the move. Although I would watch out for banana our buggy has a few sticky patches.
Boomer and I are going away for a couple of days (travels including airports, trains and buses) so I there may be a few top tips direct from the field watch this space.
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Cottage Cheese
For comedy value alone, I'd have to give cottage cheese a well-deserved A+. It's the single most amusing foodstuff she's ever consumed, and, well, it's certainly answered any questions we might have had about her pincer grip… she hasn't got one.
Oh, and by the way I am about to go through and change the baby's name again… it's going to be Babybear now, as my husband actually pointed out that we call her that more often than Babybird… sorry for any confusion, it is the same child I promise…
Anyway, I wasn't 100% what to do with the cottage cheese but inspired by Corriedale's insistence that her talented child eats it by the fistful I plonked some on the highchair table.
The chubby paw went out to grab it as quick as you like, but of course it had mostly squished out through her fingers by the time she brought her hand to her mouth. This led to her chasing the little gobbets of cheese around her hand, up her arm, into her sleeve, and round and round her wrist. You gotta give her points for persistence…
We later tried it on a spoon, not too much, we really just dipped it into the pot, and the baby grabbed it and smushed it lovingly into her general cranio-facial area, occasionally pausing to chew on the spoon.
So thanks, Corriedale, Babybear loved the cottage cheese and it's now firmly on our regular shopping list. Oh, yeah, and thanks for warning me that she would require a full bath, hair wash and change of clothes afterwards…
Post Script
Since the advent of the pincer grip we are really making some progress with this, as Babybear has suddenly grasped the point of the spoons that I occasionally litter her high chair tray with. Where previously she has been utilising them as chew toys, drum sticks and impromptu eye gougers, she can now hold onto them properly round the handle (I've got some shaped Tommee Tippee ones) and feed herself without too much mess. We operate two spoons at a time, so I'm not shovelling anything into her mouth I promise. Anyway, it's made cottage cheese a much less messy prospect, whihc can only be a good thing.
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Baby Led Weaning FAQ
Hello all, Aitch here. Again.
This is an excellent FAQ on baby led weaning which was submitted and I think compiled by Patricia Exley for the Yahoo message group. I have asked on there how to get in touch with her to ask her permission to reprint it, but no-one answered so I left it alone. Anyway, imagine my surprise when I am idly typing in baby led weaning to Google (to see how high up we are, don'tcha know) and there it is, posted as some sort of file sharing thingie. So I take it that means it's okay for me to post it here as well, which is great, because it is full of wonderful insights.
This FAQ
covers some of the more frequently asked questions on the Baby-Led Weaning
Yahoo group. The group is made up of
(mostly) mothers who are trying this method of feeding with their babies, and
who give each other mutual support. This
FAQ is not intended to be or replace any weaning guidelines or medical
information.
What do you
mean by baby-led weaning?
Within this group
we basically mean letting baby decide when to wean on to solid food (and
ultimately off the breast). This
approach generally involves letting baby self-feed, avoiding spoon-feeding mush
and purees, and presenting baby with as much real family food as
possible. Throughout this process,
breastmilk is offered as often as baby wants, as this continues to be the main
source of nutrition for quite some time.
When is my
baby ready to start solids?
From about 6
months, and certainly not before 4 months (World Health Organization and UK
Department of Health guidelines).
Breastmilk
(second choice formula milk) should be a baby's only food until six months. It
seems that too-early exposure to foods other than breastmilk increases the risk
of developing a whole range of illnesses in childhood and adulthood.
Baby should be
able to sit up, to avoid choking on food.
Don't put food
into the baby's mouth let him/her do this for themselves. Most babies are ready to do this at about 6
months.
Solids at this
stage are for exploring taste and texture.
Offer some water
with solids.
Should I worry
about weight gain?
Breastmilk
provides most of the calories and nutrition until about one year old. Solid food (e.g. Baby rice and vegetables) is
not as nutrient-dense as breastmilk.
Many babies seem incapable of digesting food until much later than 6
months, as evidenced by chunks of food passing out undigested into their
nappies.
The weight curves
used by health professionals are drawn up for bottle-fed babies. Breast-fed babies tend to gain weight more
slowly once they get to about 6 months.
My baby
doesn't seem to be eating much.
Many of the
babies in this group only took to eating solids with any real seriousness when
they were around 12 months old.
Should I be
concerned about choking?
Many of the
babies have had slight 'gagging' reactions in the early days, but this seems to
have been a normal part of the learning process and is quite distinct from
choking. Gagging seems to show that the
baby has the ability to move food back to the front of his mouth when he
doesn't want to swallow it. It's
important that baby is sitting upright when he's eating. This way anything that baby cannot swallow
will fall forwards (out of the mouth) rather than backwards (into the throat).
Should I be
worried about iron?
Babies are also
born with a store of iron that begins to diminish at 6 months and this could
start to affect them at around 9m so iron is the one thing they do actually
need to have extra to breastmilk after 8-9 months old.
Iron can be found
in lots of food, such as red meat, green vegetables, lentils, etc. And they will still be getting iron from
breastmilk – which is far more readily absorbed than any iron in solid food.
Ideas for first foods:
The best things
seem to be things that are easiest to keep hold of while the baby is exploring
it, for example broccoli with a decent stem on to act as a handle.
Fruit and
vegetables
- Cut up into chip-shaped pieces (a
crinkle chip cutter may be useful). - Cook (e.g. boil or steam) vegetables
until soft. - Ripe, soft fruit such as pear,
banana, mango, melon and avocado seem ideal to try, but may be too
slippery for babies to manage until they are a bit older. Other fruit such as apples may break
into sharp pieces if uncooked, but turn to mush when cooked. When cooking vegetables such as carrots
or broccoli, they need to be soft enough to eat, but not so soft that they
crumble in the baby's grasp. - Roasted vegetables (whatever is in
season – e.g. potato wedges, sweet potato, carrot, parsnip, beetroot).
Meat and Fish
Make sure lumps
of meat are big enough for baby to grasp and chew – baby will spit out the
membranes, but swallow the juice.
Finger food
snacks
- Pear, Apple, Banana
- Cucumber, Carrot sticks
- Breadsticks, Rice Cakes, Oatcakes,
Toast fingers. - Cheddar cheese, pear, cucumber, bread
- Breakfast cereals
- Dried fruit (e.g. apricots)
- Peas, raisins – once the pincer grip
is perfected!
The important
thing to do is double your quantity, half to mush up and throw on floor, half
to eat!
Foods to avoid
initially:
- Wheat – if allergies in the family.
- Dairy – if allergies in the family.
- Eggs – if allergies in the family.
- Citrus – if allergies in the family.
- Strawberries and Kiwi – if allergies
in the family. - Nuts – until 1 year, and then no
whole nuts until the danger of choking is past. - Honey – until 1 year.
- Added salt and sugar.
- Apples and grapes – may be a choking
hazard until baby is proficient at eating.
Breakfast
ideas:
Dry cereals.
Strips of toast
Porridge (if you
can stand the mess!)
Lunch/tea
ideas:
Cheese omlette,
cut into strips.
Cheese on toast
fingers.
Cucumber, celery,
avocado and tomatoes.
Dinner ideas:
Pasta with grated
cheese or sauce.
Gnocchi.
Risotto.
Fish cakes or
fish fingers.
Links
(American)
Sequence of adding solid foods for the allergic infant)
http://www.hallpublications.com/title2_sample2.html
