Penne pasta with Smoked Salmon

So I have not tried fish with the ever growing little man who has been off his food for a week or so (not well) so thought I would change things up to give him a new taste to see if it would spark an interest in solids again ( sore throat along with ear infection and blocked nose)

What do you need?

Penne pasta

Passata

Basil

Oregano

Cheese

Smoked salmon

How to:

Boil the pasta, drain and leave back on to the heat adding passata sauce and season with basil and oregano.

Turn off the heat and let it sit while you get the cheese and salmon ready.

I used some grated red cheddar and mozzarella.

I shredded the smoked salmon lights in to small pieces.

Put the pasta in a bowl and sprinkle the cheese and salmon over the top.

Mini baked omelettes

What do you need?

Spray oil for greasing the tin

10 medium eggs or 8 large

1 measure cup of milk - optional : I added it for the little person but would leave it out for anyone with intolerances

Fillings I used?

Chicken 1 breast

3 smoked rashers

10 cherry tomatoes

2 scallions

6-8 button mushrooms

Cheddar cheese - again you can leave the cheeses out to accommodate intolerances

Mascarpone

That's it! 

How?

I fried off the diced up chicken, bacon and mushroom.

Sprayed a bun case tin and turned on the oven to 200 degrees.

Then I chopped the tomatoes and scallions (spring onions) and spread them between the pockets in the tin. 

Chopped up the bacon, chicken and with the quartered mushrooms divided them out also.

Sprinkled all of them with grated cheddar cheese.

I added a small dollop of mascarpone to 4 of them as I know only 2 of us eat the mascarpone.

I whipped the egg whites of the 10 medium eggs lightly before they turned "white", added the yolks and beat adding in the milk.

I then it to the rest of the ingredients in the tin.

Popped it n the well heated oven and left them rise and brown for roughly 20 mins as I have a fan assisted oven. I would leave them in for longer if I didn't. An easy way to test if they are done use one as a guinea pig and put a skewer or knife through it if it's really wet it's not done.

Double bubble boil and no trouble

So not to waste the contents of the carved pumpkin I decided to make soup.

I didn't have the ingredients for recipes I found online so decided to use what I had.

So what did I have?

You guessed it

The flesh from inside a medium to small sizes pumpkin which I scooped out with a spoon.

A large red onion

Clove of garlic

A carrot

A small handful of split green lentils and cannelloni beans, about a dessert spoonful. You could also use other pulses, oat barley etc or soup mix

One stalk of celery

Sea salt (pinch)

Ground rainbow pepper (pinch)

Turmeric (yes you guessed it a pinch)

Mild curry powder (pinch)

Butter (a small knob)

How did I go about it?

Roughly chopped the red onion and put it in the pot with the butter, while this is lightly frying in the pot I chopped the garlic and added it, along with the salt and pepper.

I add the shredded pumpkin (it's fibrous so when I was scooping it out it naturally shredded) and covered in water.

I chopped the carrot and celery and threw in as it boiled along with the lentils and beans.

I let this boil for 15 minutes with the lid on then turned down to simmer for about an hour until the lentils and beans were soft. 

I then added the turmeric and curry powder, stirred and let it simmer for another 5 minutes to infuse before taking it off the heat to blitz with a hand blender.

And there it is boiling and bubbling back on the cooling hob to let it cool down naturally.

Enjoy.....

Chunky Chowder

What do you need?

Salmon (fillet, darn)

Haddock fillet

Cod fillet

Bacon

Leek

Onion (I used red)

Parsley

Salt (pinch)

Pepper

Double cream

Stock (fish or vegetable)

Tomato

Carrot

Broccoli

Cauliflower

Plain flower

How to prepare

Fry off diced onion and diced bacon

Add diced fish with a pinch of salt and pepper

Chop up tomatoe and leek then add to the pot 

Add the stock and stir all the contents

Cover the pot and reduce the heat

In a seperate pot cook your carrot, broccoli and cauliflower

Once the vegetables are nearly cooked add the cream to the fish pot along with the parsley

Use a teaspoon of plain flower with a small amount of water and work into a watery paste  and add to the pot as a thickening agent

Covering with the lid and turning off the heat

Strain the vegetables and add to the fish pot.

And your done!

***please remember when serving fish to children that you have thoroughly checked for bones***

Another Pasta and Prawn dinner with Spinach

What do you need?

2 knobs of butter

Sprinkle of oregano

Spaghetti

Cold water prawns

Spinach

Milk

Cheese (I used mozzarella and cheddar, grated)

What to do

Put a knob of butter in a pot and let it melt 

Add the oregano to the melting butter

Add the prawns and let them fry off

Remember butter burns so keep stirring and reduce the heat if needs be

Add water to the pot and your spaghetti

Once the spaghetti is nearly done add the pinch as this only takes seconds

Take it off the heat, strain and add some milk and stir so it doesn't curdle

Add the cheese and stir again

Cheesey snack

So it's cheese on toast, so handy for a snack or lunch 

What do you need?

Bread - whatever you want/have I used a plain white sliced pan

Mozzarella

Cheddar

Gouda

Spring onion - or as I refer to it "scallion"

Cracked black pepper

What to do?

Simple chop up your spring onion, put your bread on the grill and toast the first side lightly and turn over adding all 3 cheeses, sprinkle the spring onion and top with a pinch of pepper

Whack it under the grill and wait for the cheese to melt, bubble and then brown slightly.

Watch it doesn't burn, especially the edges

Et voila 

This can be eaten by all the family! 

Other toasted sandwiches I could recommend are the traditional ham cheese and onion or tuna in Mayo with spring onion, tomatoe and cheese!

Turkey Sizzler - an introduction to chilli's

What do you need?

300g turkey mince

1 clove of garlic

5-6 button mushrooms

1 red onion

1/2 red, yellow and green chilli's

Chicken stock

Salt n pepper

All purpose savoury seasoning if you so wish (I use Aromat by knorr)

Country relish

Olive oil

How to make it?

Finely chop half of each chilli type

Chop up onion and garlic 

Quarter the button mushrooms and add to the pan

Add to pan with a splash of olive oil and start to fry

Add in the turkey mince and season with a pinch of salt and pepper and seasoning

As it browns I add some chicken stock, not too much, depending on the thickness, I used one boots baby stock in a 1/4 cup of water to make it more like a paste.

Then add this once the turkey is cooked and let it simmer until the turkey is sticky

As it cooled I added a few dashes of the country relish

To finish instead of serving with rice I served with carrot, cauliflower and broccoli 

Steak & Kidney Pie

My favourite dinner is my own mams s&k pie so I thought I would introduce it to Sam.

What you need?

Round steak

Lamb kidney (2)

Onion

Carrot

Gravy or stock your choice

Flour

Butter

Salt and pepper

Water

What to do

Chop up onion, steak and kidney in to small pieces and put in to a pan/pot to fry off.

Once lightly browned add water and let it bubble for for ten minutes the reduce heat to simmer for another 30 minutes to ensure meat is tender add gravy/stock.

While this is simmering simply crumble butter using cold hands in to the flour with a pinch of salt and pepper for seasoning, once crumbed add small amounts of water until mixture holds, remember if you get it too moist it gets sticky so add a little more flour.

Roll out the pastry

Butter your dish and line wih the pastry, pierce the bottom gently a few times.

Pop in the oven 180 for 10 mins

Take it out again and add the filling

Add the remaining pastry to the top

Pop back n the oven and bake until the top is a nice golden brown

And that's it!

In a Rush? Pasta Mush...Room

This one is so quick and simple and was lapped up

What do you need?
Pasta (I used fresh this evening)
Button Mushrooms
Semi dried apricots
Cherry Tomatoes
Basil
Cheese

That's it!

Throw all (except cheese) in to water and let it cook!
Simple!

Dust in cheese when in the bowl!

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

So this dinner was made from whatever was in the press and was devoured!

What do you need?

Chicken

Red onion

Semi dried apricots

Tomatoes 

Sprinkle of chilli powder

Sprinkle of seasoning I used arromat

Button mushrooms

Basmati rice

 Cauliflower

Milk

What to do

Chop up onion, apricot and chicken and get into the pan

Put on the basmati with the cauliflower

Once chicken is nearly done squish some tomatoes and just chuck them in, give a light sprinkle of chilli powder and seasoning

I added the mushrooms to the rice but you could add to the pan with chicken

Turn heat off on chicken and add some milk as it cooled and stir! 

Fish wasnt a big runner at the start

Trying to introduce as much of a varied diet early on proved challenging when it came to fish at the beginning with our little man and we never discovered if it was his Reflux or just his little tummy saying NO THANK YOU.

It would be eaten, no problem. Then it would all come back to visit us in a minute or so.
Straight back up and he would just look at us as it came rushing back out all at once.
We tried cod, salmon and even hake.
No go.

I gave him 2 months of a break from it and decided to try again.

I was at the butcher counter of SuperValu and was going to try a darn of salmon when I got chatting with the young butcher behind the counter.
He simply said, if he is eating finger food now, why not try a good quality fish finger and see how it goes rather than buying expensive fish that will just go to waste if it doesn't settle in his tummy.

We haven't looked back since!


Irish Reflux Community for parents on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/groups/RefluxIreland/?fref=ts
Closed group so you have to ask to join.

BIG Recommendation for anyone in Limerick area; Ireland.

Cupcakes to die for.
Cakes that melt in your mouth
Designs that hit exactly what you want.

Yvonne owns 'Cupcakes and Candy Carts', a start up business that is just going to go places, wait till you see!
Facebook Page

Sam's Christening Cake and Cupcakes

The flavours were unreal, we chose a Vanilla sponge for the cake.

For the cupcakes there was a selection of Carrot Cake, Lemon and Chocolate.

The mini cupcakes were chocolate and vanilla.

There was nothing left by the end of the day!

Sam's 1st Birthday Cake was designed to replicate two characters from Sam's favourite BabyTV programme: "Charlie and the Numbers"
It also was stunning, covered in the same butter icing as the top of her cupcakes. Divine!

UPDATE: Sam's 2nd Birthday was yesterday and we went with a Sully (Sulley) Monster Theme from Monsters Inc/Monsters University

Mini Cupcakes for Crèche Party

 And.... A Sully Head for his cake... There was actually NO leftovers after the party!

Go Check out her facebook page.

Treat yourself on a Sunday for a box of 6 cupcakes for only €12 from Larkin's pub, Corbally.
Just make sure and send a message to say "keep me a box" because they sell out fast!
Yvonne usually posts Saturday or Sunday morning what is on offer that day from 12:30 in the pub!

Fork 'n' Spoon

There is nothing more satisfying (ok there are)
     than a smallie successfully mastering a spoon
Ok yes they will make a mess
Ok yes they will take forever
OK yes Enjoy it!

Yoghurt LoL's

Sausages! Nyommers

Best way to introduce sausages in my opinion is by using skinless sausages.

Denny skinless sausages seem to be Sam's favourite.

Keeping this "lunch" speedy and simple is so handy for last minute meals

What do you need?
Mixed frozen veggies (carrots, peas and sweetcorn)
Skinless Sausages
Spiral Pasta.

Cook pasta and frozen veg in together in a pot

Fry or grill your sausages and then slice them up.

Country Relish or Brown sauce go lovely with this! Sam's favourite is red pesto!

Popeye Dinner

Pasta, Cold Water Prawns & Spinach

Spinach a great source of iron shouldn't be recalled as that horrible stuff that came out of a tin all stringy and watery and well to be honest Yuck.

What do you need?
Pasta Spirals
Cold Water Precooked Prawns
Spinach (baby or regular- fresh or frozen)

Boil up the pasta, throw in the prawns and spinach in the last few minutes of pasta's cooking time.

Drain when done and that's it!

If you want to add a sauce then work away but this is totally suited to self feeding (hands) little people as a lunch or late tea idea.

Tomato based Sauce

For any pasta dish, for Bolognese, Chicken dinners or just on its own with some veg and pasta.

Passata - Tesco do a small carton for under a euro!
Chopped Onion
Garlic Clove Chopped
Basil
Oregano

How simple is this

Sauté the onioin and garlic
Pour in the passata and add basil and oregano
Simmer until slightly reduced
Taste for flavouring

For a creamier pasta sauce why not add a scoop of mascarpone?

Portion these off into freezer bags and they are there to add to whatever you want.

First Pasta's

Cheesy Pasta & Broccoli
Baby sized Pasta Shells (UK & Ireland - available in Boots)
Cheddar Cheese
Milk
Unsalted Butter
Broccoli

Simply boil the pasta in water - for first time pasta experience have it as soft as possible
I threw in the broccoli at the same time.
Drain the pasta and drop a nob of the unsalted butter in with the cheese to the pot.
Add a small bit of milk and stir.
Remember to have this off the heat as you do it; the heat from the pasta and broccoli will be warm enough to melt the butter and cheese otherwise the milk and cheese can curdle.

Three Cheese Pasta

As per above but without milk, add mascarpone, gouda and cheddar cheese and a small bit if black pepper.

 

 

Baby pasta from Boots



Badabing Meatballs

Teeny Tiny Meatballs!
Great for finger food

What do you need?
Round steak mince,
breadcrumbs,
egg,
basil and
oregano
flour
olive oil or unsalted butter

How?
Mix: mince, breadcrumbs, egg, basil and oregano
then roll into little balls and dipped in flour,
Fry off in a little olive oil or unsalted butter

simple finger food or add to passata to have with pasta or with a bowl of vegetables.

Baby Chicken Curry

So I decided to expand the young man's taste buds.

Curry, would it be too spicy/hot for him?
Lets google some recipes.
I must admit I found some that were very similar so I adapted to what I had in the press.

What you need?
Ok for sauce;
clove of garlic chopped,
one red onion chopped,
a cube of ginger chopped,
4 semi dried apricots chopped,
spoonful of curry powder (heaped teaspoon),
mango chutney (tablespoon),
half a tin of organic Thai coconut milk
baby chicken stock
sprinkle of paprika
chicken
basmati rice

Add Garlic, Onion, Ginger and Apricots to a pan,
as they cook sprinkle the curry powder over them and stir.
Add in the mango chutney and stir again.
Once everything is softened add the coconut milk and chicken stock.
Sprinkle the paprika and let it simmer.
Taste of course and add more flavour if you feel it needs more.

Once it has thickened; blitz with a blender.

I separately cook off the chicken - fried or poached whichever suits you.
Cook basmati rice. (I don't add salt to season for little people)

Can't beat it; Lamb Stew

Hands down, a little man's favourite meal which can be shared with the whole family.

What do you need?
Diced Lamb
Carrots
Onion (white or red)
Sweet Potato or Potato
Baby Vegetable Stock
Unsalted Butter
Pearl Barley and/or Split Red Lentils (optional)
Water

How do I prepare?
Melt a nob of unsalted butter in a pot.
Add Diced Lamb cubes and brown off.
Chop Onion and Carrot in whatever fashion you like as long as even in size.
Add to the pot. *
Stir
(if adding pearl barley or lentils do so now)

Dissolve the baby vegetable stock in some water and add to the pot.
Bring to the boil.
Turn down the heat.
Cover the pot with a lid and leave to cook.


*Chop up sweet potato and either add to the pot if cooking for baby only at this time.
If cooking for the whole family prepare separately.

I leave this whole meal simmer until the meat is completely cooked and then some. In other words until the meat is so tender you can pull apart with two forks.

This is the stew before going through the blender - in other words the meals he has today because he is old enough to eat it as is.

Storage: Best Buy?

For initial portions:
An ice cube tray is brilliant!
Pour in the foods after cooking, let them cool, then freeze.
Pop them out to defrost individually, perfect.

When portions get bigger?
Rather than buying expensive storage pots (yes I did that too)

Freezer bags! Sealable bpa free Freezerbags!
You can flatten them out or roll up, whichever suits your freezer space and can easily write on them with a Sharpie or permanent marker:
What it contains: Chicken Stew
When it was cooked: DD/MM/YY
etc...

That way you keep on top of what is in the freezer and how long you have it for!

First Meat's

I had an awfully stupid first experience introducing meat to Sam.
I used a hand blender and health and safety, shall we say was abandoned due to stupidity and well I nearly lost a finger.

So when I did get back to it, it was all very carefully planned out.
What to make?
Chicken. Of course chicken its the most bland tasting meat right?
So I did my veg as normal and well just boiled up a bit of chicken and lobbed it in to the pot and blitzed it all together.
So it was
Chicken
Cauliflower
Sweet Potato
Brocolli

It was a bit thicker than just the veg and smelled just like the tinned/jarred stuff you would get.
He demolished it. I added nothing bar water to this food. Basic, no added salt, no stock etc.
It looked horrible but it was fresh, wholesome, no added Anything.

I went on to change meats daily and had a rotation going.
I would blend in steak or lamb. So we were now on a 3 day rotation of meat.

Lamb was his favourite by far.
Lamb recipe to follow in the next blog.

Introducing Fruit

I decided to vary the little man's diet and finally introduce some fruit.

I boiled the usual: Pear or apples. Grand.

Then I wanted to mix it up a little.

What about Apple and Plum? They go nice together don't they? Plum would be great for upkeep of healthy bowel movements rather than giving prune juice (same thing but fresh right?).

I bought a punnet of plums and let them ripen until they started to get soft, a bag of apples and went for it.

Pitted the plums and cored the apples.
In to the pot of water.

 

 

Bring it to the boil, let it simmer until it has reduced and the fruit will almost go to mush itself, the smell is so fresh and inviting around the kitchen!

 

For the Christmas season I added a pinch of Cinnamon and even family members used it as a compot for dessert's!

These get demolished every time!

 

Another option was green apples with green grapes!

I added to this some readymade custard and fresh strawberry purée:

The strawberry purée was literally done as follows;

Chopped up and into a frying pan and over heat until bubbling and simmer.







Attack of the Veggie Monster

There was nothing for it.
I had to buy every kind of a vegetable I could think of that might "blend well" and be bland enough on a tummy so as not to cause discomfort, telling myself; Veggies are great, he will be having proper bowel movements in no time (All of the reflux formula's and medication had exacerbated his on-going issues with bowel movements since he was born) .

I bought;
Pumpkin
Butternut Squash
Carrots (Carrots can be hit and miss with Refluxers - took Sam a few weeks before he could tolerate them and now they are his favourite)

I saw a trend - they were all orange.

So what do first time mothers need to do?

Chop up your vegetables and boil. Simple.
Chop up your pumpkin flesh and boil, drain and then (not like me with a sieve and spoon) blitz it in a blender, instant soup for an adult to season if you will and the remainder put into an ice cube tray and straight in to the freezer!
Jobs a good'un!

I did this with the previously mentioned vegetables as well as cauliflower and broccoli

Check out this great Community on Facebook for Irish Reflux Parents
https://www.facebook.com/groups/RefluxIreland/?fref=ts

Its a closed group so you have to request to join.

Introducing Food's

Where do I start?

That's the question I asked myself when other mothers talked about introducing solids to their babies.

A first time, older mother, I recalled memories of semolina and my gag reflex kicked in.
I am (to me) a desperately fussy eater; I loathe: Mushrooms, Turnip, Parsnip, Courgettes, Aubergines, Custard, to name a few; including Semolina.

I Googled foods and found links to many pages and as I recall them I will share.

The public health nurse issued a booklet on what you could introduce when, a very minimalistic guideline but I always remembered him saying introduce fruit flavoured foods last; why?; he said "once babies taste sweet things, they refuse all other food". Ok so no fruit for my little Sam.

I noticed when he was three months old he was smacking his lips and drooling watching me eat. He stared at me with a look of want. Its the best way I can describe it. Two weeks later I gave in, yes 3.5 month old baby, 14 weeks, he got his first taste of food.
What did I give him?
A very watered down taste of an off the shelf brand of baby cereal, no wait for it; not baby rice but orange flavoured baby cereal! Rule no. 1 broken! I felt so guilty, I hadn't even told my husband I had given our first born a taste of food, fruit flavoured at that.
I did buy the plain baby rice flavoured cereal after that, (I had waited until he was 16 weeks before properly introducing the right measurements - not so watered down) and he refused it; I thought I was in trouble.

Sam was/is a Reflux baby. Even his formula was pre-thickened Enfamil A.R. and he was on Losec Mups 10mg a day and for really bad days ontop of these he had infant Gaviscon. I didn't realise these baby cereals were made with milk because all I added was cooled boiled water.

I needed to do more research. I found a Facebook page dedicated to parents of Reflux babies and it was here where they discussed what foods helped with Reflux and what triggered it. Some varied.
So it was time for Trial and Error.
My poor baby.