Finger Food
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Breast/Formula
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Allergies
This is a sub page, so must have the “Sub Page” Template set on the right (drop-down menu).
It doesn’t matter what text you put here, because the Sub Page template only pulls in links of child pages under this page.
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How long in the highchair?
A poster called Chilledy has just asked how long it takes to feed the babies in the BLW stylee, which rather got me thinking. I'm pretty sure that I remember my mother complaining in the early days that it was dragging on, and that if I would just shovel some food into Babybear's mouth then it wouldn't take so damned long. Yeah, thanks Mum.
I reckon that it usually took about half an hour before she signalled that a meal was finished in the traditional manner, ie by casually dropping any remainders off the highchair tray, tipping up her cup and splashing her hands in the water and making a soup out of whatever crapola is left there. I now look out for the first signal and remove her immediately. If she was enjoying herself and if I wasn't in a hurry then I'd leave her in for longer if she wanted to fanny around. Remember, it's for fun more than satisfying any major nutritional craving.
One big change that has taken place with increasing age, however, is that Babybear has discovered how to extricate herself Houdini-style from her and every other highchair we've encountered. Even a five-point harness is no match for her super-collapsible little body. It's very annoying, not to mention terrifying, to turn your back for fifteen seconds and find her surfing on the tray.
If she spends as much as ten minutes eating by herself nowadays we are in luck, but if we're all having our meal together then she sticks it out for maybe twenty or so minutes. Her appetite also ranges wildly… she loves a big breakfast and a snacky lunch and when it comes to dinner either wolfs down an incredible amount or nothing at all. It's utterly dependent on her teething, the poor wee soul.
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Nappies and their Contents II: The Story Continues
I've been meaning to say this for ages but have been rather too busy to update. I just wanted you to and the rest of the interworldwideweb to know that my daughter's nappies are now more solid, like human poo, rather than a motley collection of semi-digested and completely identifiable bits and bobs of undead zombie foodstuffs. 'The Peas That Would Not Die, The Raisins That Came Back To Life (As Grapes) ' etcetera etcetera.
It's been a good few weeks now since I've spotted a borlotti bean corpse, since she wasbout eleven months old, I reckon. Just thought I'd let you in on our latest proud parenting news… <Aitch preens uselessly>
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We are keeping our dishes in the freezer, oh yes we are.
I'm still experimenting with this, but over the last few days I've been flinging Babybear's bowl into the freezer for about five or so minutes before I'm due to serve up our dinner. The idea is that it gets cold, so that when the hot food hits it everything cools down nicely so that we can all achieve Baby Led Weaning nirvana and EAT AT THE SAME TIME.
As it happens we use melamine dishes, a rather attractive Babar set that my mother brought back from France and an utterly scuzzy cheapoid set of 'Chinese' food bowls that I am slightly ashamed to own. Anyway it has worked so far, but I don't know about doing it with ceramic or plastic bowls. Feel free to conduct your own crockery tests and report back.
Post Script. My laziness knows no bounds, clearly… I've started leaving the dishes in the freezer all the time as I kept forgetting to put them in. It works brilliantly with the melamine ones (she says modestly).
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Frozen peas, my love affair continues…
You know that you can add them to ANYTHING that you want it to cool down quickly, don't you? Well, anything savoury, I suppose.
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Organic Mini Shreddies
Or something like that. I could go and look at the pack but it's too far away…
Basically they are smaller than normal Shredded Wheat, so they're easy for the babies to hold onto. Obviously they're wheat, but salt-wise there's just a trace measurement so that's fine. I just microwave them for five seconds in a splash of cows' milk (because We Are One, y'know), so they absorb the milk and soften a little. Babybear eats about fifteen of these in a sitting, she loves them with a banana. Good news, as Babybear was becoming – dare I say it? – a little bored with porridge pancakes. More to the point, they are pretty clean breakfast so essential for those morning when a quick getaway is required.
Post Script
Littleducks from Mumsnet has pointed out that it was she who told me about Mini Shreddies, and has therefore demanded due credit. (Diva.)
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Carbonara-ish
The Husband and I went to a restaurant in Rome where we had a carbonara-y thing made with roast boar and peas, so I quite often make carbonara with frozen peas now to go some way to alleviating the guilt that I feel from eating a meal made up of 98% pasta with a squidge of protein and fat. And it's authentic-ish.
Pancetta or smoked bacon, about 150g. Or half a packet of the pancetta I buy.
Couple of eggs.
Some parmesan. About 100g, or as much as you like.
A slug of white wine if there's any in the fridge.
And a slug of cream if you've any knocking about.
Pasta of some description, however much you need for however many you are. These amounts of bacon etc would feed 3-4.
Frozen peas, a handful thereof.
Boil the kettle for your pasta, meanwhile grate your parmesan into a jug, crack in your eggs (and fling in your cream if you have any). Put in the pasta. You now have 8-12 mins to get everything else together. Easy.
Cook off your chopped pancetta or bacon in a deep frying pan until it picks up quite a bit of colour. Once it is nice and caramelly, chuck in your wine if you have it so that the alcohol boils off. The peas do in now as well, they only take a couple of minutes.
Your pasta should be ready, hopefully, so you can drain it quickly and put into the frying pan. I tend to keep back a bit of the pasta water in case the sauce needs a bit of loosening. Then put in the cheese and egg mixture, stirring it well. The heat of the pasta cooks the egg in the sauce, but as it happens I always use very fresh lion-marked eggs so I reckon we're alright. If it gets a bit tight just throw in a couple of spoonfuls of pasta water.
Anyway, we like this a lot and as long as we stick to penne or fusilli rather than the more traditional spaghetti then Babybear can eat it until the cows (or indeed boar) come home.
