The Blog - Baby Led Weaning

Sultanas

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have a pincer grip. (Applause, applause…)

Don't know where it came from, but as of yesterday all Babybear does is stick her index finger into things (including her water glass, where any Stinkerbell-inspired progress is now going backwards) and catch things with her thumb. Oooh so very cute.

I've been looking for some time for an addition to our 'always in the buggy bag' staples of rice cakes and water, and now we have 'em. I had thought it best to avoid sultanas because of the choking hazard thing but now I can adopt the 'if she can pick it up, she can eat it' approach with a fearless heart. What I do is squash the sultanas as I give them to her so that as least I know that the skin is broken. It's heart-meltingly sweet to see her laboriously picking them up from her highchair tray, and heart-soaringly joyful to be able to hand her a sultana and head off a gurning episode in Sainsbury's. Hu-zzah.

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Posted on August 25th, 2006 in Getting Started - Finger Food Basics/Finger Food Basics - Month 2 with 2 Comments

Grapes

I think might have cracked the grapes/choking thing…

I've been trying to choose bigger ones, obviously, then washing and cutting them in half before giving them tho Babybear. But they still seemed like solid little suckers just waiting to get trapped in a tiny trachea…

However, and forgive me if this seems terribly obvious, if you kind of pop the grape flesh outwards with your thumb before handing it over it is much easier for them to suck and chew.

Also, I have been making sure that there is a tear at the top of the skin of the grape half (I rip it with my fingers) so that it comes apart more easily for her and hopefully diminishes the risk of it getting caught in her throat. It seems to have worked, yesterday she ate about 15 grapes. Made for a very interesting nappy this morning.

Having said all that, if your baby is brand-new to Baby Led Weaning I would wait until they had got the hang of things before giving them halved grapes to hold themselves. I used to hold onto them between my thumb and forefinger when we first started. You can't be too careful and all that…

Post Script.
Yeah, you can go to the trouble of making a tear in the top of your grape half if you wish… but why not do the more obvious thing and cut it when you cut the damn thing in half? So, you know, make a cross in the top of your grape and half down it. Clearly I am an idiot, it has taken me two months to work this out….

Posted on August 25th, 2006 in Getting Started - Finger Food Basics/Finger Food Basics - Month 2 with 5 Comments

Chips. Yeah, Chips. What of it?

Okay, perhaps the bravado is misplaced, it's really just potato wedgie things that my delightful husband cooks but they really are delicious.

He gets some King
Edwards or some other good chip potato and cuts them into wedges then
gets a bowl with a small amount of olive oil (say, 1 dessertspoon) and a splash of soy sauce (1 teaspoon)
and tips the potatoes in and rubs them with the mixture.

Then onto a wire rack in your roasting dish for about, say 40 mins (start prodding after half an hour). If you don't have a wire rack then
you'll need to turn them halfway, although really it's best with the rack as the air circulates all around and they go crispy. Delia says to use a baking tray but she is wrong.

Obviously, the soy sauce is salty so it should technically be left
off, but I always have to run them under the tap to cool them down for Babybear anyway so I guess it's washed off. Anyway, you'll see when/if you make them that the vast majority of the oil and soy get left in the bowl. By the way, we think organic potatoes taste better so that's what we use. (Get us…)

And sometimes, dammit, if we are out in a restaurant and I know that their food is of good quality and that their chips will arrive unsalted… then I give Babybear a chip. And she loves it.

Posted on August 25th, 2006 in Getting Started - Finger Food Basics/Finger Food Basics - Month 2 with No Comments

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Posted on August 25th, 2006 in Photos - Very first tastes of solids at 6 months with No Comments

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Posted on August 25th, 2006 in Photos - Very first tastes of solids at 6 months with No Comments

Organix Moon Biscuits

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.

Posted on August 25th, 2006 in Recipes with 5 Comments

Morv’s Crazy-Assed Picnic Salad

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.