PPN Baby pasta and adult stew

Finally Sylvia is willing to try more food, though some of it still falls from her mouth to the ground in dislike (and others land her in the emergency dept of the Royal Children's Hospital - nothing a bit of play and sleep couldn't fix - but that is another story). I tried buckwheat pasta a while back and she wasn’t keen. But last weekend she tasted her first wheat pasta and loved it. Her food inspired me in making a stew for our own dinner.

I still expect Sylvia to spit out any new food. I had decided to serve the pasta with pumpkin, which she likes, rather than tomato sauce, which she has never tried. I am trying to introduce her to dairy so decided some ricotta would help her get used to creamy food but I also added a sweetener (literally) in the guise of apple puree. To my surprise she lapped it up, though on the first night I had a good laugh when she would only eat it from E if he fed her by hand rather than using a spoon.

When putting away her baby pasta, I found some macaroni noodles at the back of the pantry. I had a bunch of unused celery that I had bought on special in a whimsical moment. I sometimes want to buy celery but don’t know how to use it as I generally use it frequently but not in large proportions. It is rarely the star of any dishes I make. I decided to use it up in a minestrone-style stew. The results were as pleasing as Sylvia eating her dinner. The celery didn’t overwhelm the stew but it added to the flavour.

I wasn’t going to blog this recipe as it is one of my lazy sorts of meals that I just throw in what is about. Hence my lack of photos. However, I often feel stuck for ideas about using up celery and this was such a good way to use it up that I thought I should have it here to remind me next time I see it on special.

Above is a gratuituous photo of Sylvia at play in the garden. She seems to like food off the floor best of all and I suspect if I told her to just eat the dirt out of the pots she would! I am sending the stew to Ruth of Once Upon a Feast who is hosting this week’s Presto Pasta Night (No. 149).

Sylvia’s first pasta
serves 3 meals to an 11 month old

• 1 handful of soup pasta or baby pasta (about ¼ - ½ cup)
• 100g pumpkin, diced small
• 2 dessertspoons of ricotta
• 1-2 dessertspoons of apple puree
• 3 basil leaves, finely chopped

Cook pumpkin and pasta in boiling water for 10-15 minutes until soft. Drain but reserve water in case you need to thin sauce. Stir in ricotta, apple puree and basil. Add a little water to get a sauce consistency.

Vegetable, lentil and pasta stew
serves 6

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 bunch of celery, chopped
  
• 4 medium carrots, chopped
  
• 2 medium potatoes, chopped
  
• 700ml jar of passata or chopped tomatoes (keep jar to measure water)
• 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
• 2 tsp stock powder
• ¼ tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp bush herb mixture or dried mixed herbs
• 300g pumpkin, diced
• ½ cup red lentils
• 2 medium zucchini chopped
• 250g macaroni noodles
• 2 dessertspoons of ricotta
• handful basil chopped
  

Heat olive oil in a stockpot. Add onion, celery, carrot and potatoes and cook over a medium low heat for 15-20 minutes until they start to soften. Add the passata, garlic, stock powder, cayenne and herbs. Once you have emptied passata into the pot, fill the jar with water and add to pot. Simmer for about 30 minutes or until the carrot and celery is soft. Add the pumpkin, red lentils, zucchini, and macaroni. Again, fill your passata jar with water and add to pot. Simmer for about 15-20 minutes or until pasta and lentils are cooked and pumpkin is soft. Stir in ricotta. Sprinkle with basil to serve.

On the stereo:
Wonderland soundtrack: Michael Nyman

A week of firsts

Life here is full of change. This past week has seemed particularly so. Within a few days I learnt of one friend becoming pregnant and the partner of a friend suddenly dying. Sylvia has a new tooth that came through yesterday. She has had a week of many firsts. It is quite a list.

I saw a quote from Henri Cartier-Bresson on my friend Jo’s blog. It summed up the relentless progress of life which we try to capture with diaries and blogs and photos.

“Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.”

Cartier-Bresson might have been referring to babies or food when he wrote this. In particular, Sylvia has been making a lot of progress with eating. I am glad she is now eating bread. It opens up many possibilities. At Hellenic Republic a couple of weeks ago she had her first taste of restaurant food – some pita bread. But her favourite food is still fruit. Her little face lights up whenever I pick up a nectarine.

It is busy days here. I return to work in a week so I expect my blogging to be less frequent but I hope to still post regularly. I am already struggling to read all the blogs in my blogreader so apologies if my commenting is also less frequent. (It is also an appropriate time to apologise that my formatting is not great lately as I am having some hiccups with posting.) I have a few nice recipes to post but it all seems slow going. Here is her list of firsts from the last week. Having firsts isn’t limited to babies so I have given E and me a list each at the end of this.

Sylvia’s firsts:

• First swim in a pool – if you can call standing in a corner poking gum leaves in the air vents swimming. I have booked her into swimming lessons this year, which should be fun.
• First missing button on her top – don’t know where or when it disappeared – just hope we might find it before she does.
• First piece of cake – she asked for it and surprisingly ate a few small chunks. Her dad was pleased it was a little neofolk – a vegan plum and walnut cake with a little buckwheat (recipe to come soon).
• First time eating peas whole – she is fascinated by the little green orbs – no doubt she loves green like her mum – she loves to pick them up, study them and put them in her mouth but about half fall out.
• First tomato – hard to know if she has swallowed – so many fall out but I think a few have landed in her roly poly tummy.
• First piece of pineapple – a new love – she gobbles up pieces of fresh pineapple – we have never eaten so much of it before in our house.
• First discovery of how to open the bin - so much fascinating stuff in there for a baby!
  
• First taste of sourdough bread – not a success – she spat it out. She is still not keen on sour tastes but we will keep trying.
• First time standing up without immediately falling on the nearest wall or piece of furniture for support.
• First taste of lime juice – see below
• First instance of eating from my plate – I have usually stopped the little hands that are eager to dig into my dinner but when she was really upset I did it to keep her calm (oh dear she is already emotionally eating) and because it was a rice and vegetable dish with a squeeze of lime juice so nothing that she couldn’t eat. Much of what she took ended up on the floor. But she felt like a grown up.
• First tofu scramble – I was so happy that she was eating the sort of food we eat. I served it with less seasoning than ours and some of the above rice and vegetables. She wouldn’t eat it from a spoon but picked bits and ate it when I used my fingers. Much of this landed on the floor too but she seemed to like tofu with a bit of tamari. Ours was delicious and great on toast the next morning.
• First taste of tamari – didn’t make a fuss but I suspect a bit of pineapple made it more palatable in the tofu scramble.
• First taste of cow’s milk in her cereal – a complete disaster. She has now given up eating cereal. Some subterfuge might be required. Maybe she just wants to be a vegan. She is not keen on cheese either.
• First play with her new squirters in the bath - who doesn't want an alien squirter in their bath!
  
• First attempt to climb out of the bath – I put a halt to that as it is not the place for such shenanigans.
• First butter on toast - went down quite well. Of course you can guess which sides ends up on the floor when it gets thrown over the side of the high chair.
  
• First promite on toast - it was only the tiniest scrape but was not quite as welcome as the butter.
  
• First time in her new playpen - to save our sanity - especially when she is chasing Zinc.
  
• First pikelets – she was starving as I cooked the baby pancakes and her little teeth kept biting at my jeans. Once the pikelets were cooked she ate a few mouthfuls greedily. Then suddenly she wouldn’t eat a bit of them. Why it is desirable one moment and not in the next is a mystery but probably has some relation to how desperately hungry she is.
  

My firsts:

• First macaron – having read about them often on blogs, I finally brought a macaron at Browns. Now I understand the excitement. I might even try baking them some time if I feel really brave.
• First visit to the local outdoor swimming pool – I went with Sylvia and some of her little friends. Reminded me of my childhood swimming in an unheated pool. Reminded me of why I usually go to the indoor pool.
• First experience of taking back an unopened packet of brown rice infested with weevils to get my money back from the supermarket - now I have some suspicions of why I occasionally discover weevils in my pantry - most displeased!
  
• First attempt at making eggless pikelets/pancakes – not bad – see below.
• First glimpse of digital tv at home – our first viewing was Torchwood. Love the program but have missed many episodes since it filmed on analogue.
• First trip to the Australian Open to watch tennis – more about this in another post.
  

E’s firsts:

• First week in a secondment at work
• First opportunity to play with the new set top box for digital tv – he loves having yet another remote control – so does Sylvia!
• First time preparing Sylvia’s breakfast – he has fed her breakfast before but not prepared. However when I am back at work he will have a day at home with her and will need to take more responsibility.
• First time peeling a banana – I can’t verify this but he had to have some guidance when he prepared Sylvia’s breakfast this morning. He looked at the banana in bemusement. I asked when was the last time he had one. He guessed that it might have been 1973. So I guess his mother might have peeled it for him. He has learnt an important life skill.
  

So many shiny new experiences in our house. So much change. I can guarantee there will be more. I want to try tweaking the pikelet recipe and want to try making pizza for Sylvia (Aodhan liked it so she might too).

Meanwhile here is what I did with the pikelets. I have called them eggless because I used cow’s milk but I am sure they would be easily veganised with non-dairy milk. They are still a bit of work in progress. I added some baking powder because I like my pancakes fluffy rather than flat. These were a bit gooey inside but I still enjoyed them with promite on the plain ones and cream cheese and jam on the banana ricotta variation. Well someone had to eat them!

Eggless Pikelets
Adapted from Somthing about Penguins

1 cup wholemeal plain flour
1½ tsp baking powder
1¼ cup milk
¼ cup apple puree

Banana and Ricotta variation
1 banana, mashed
2 dessertspoons of ricotta

Mix flour, baking powder, milk and apple puree (and banana and ricotta if you choose to add these). Drop dessertspoonfuls on a buttered or oiled frypan over medium high heat. Cook til bubbling and then turn over and cook for another minute or two or until golden brown spots appear on the underside. Eat warm or cold on the day you make them.

On the Stereo:
On the Rocks: Part 1: Various Artists

Baby Food, Cookies and a Day at the Zoo

Recently I was made aware that I have blogging quite some time. I made fudge cookies and they tasted very like chocolate cookies I made a couple of years back. When I checked the post I was thinking of I found that both recipes originated from Alice Medrich in Bittersweet. I felt clever for recognising the taste, if not the ingredients list, and grateful to Sylvia for sharing some of her mashed pumpkin for a worthy cause.

I am still finding it a pain to be making different food for Sylvia to us but it is great to have mashed pumpkin in the fridge. It is really meant for her but it is so versatile in recipes that I find lots of uses. Last week my dad came up for lunch and I remembered we had some falafel in the fridge so I made some pumpkin hummus (a bit like this one) with a bit of Sylvia’s puree and it was delicious.

We took Sylvia’s highchair into the backyard and ate lunch outside. She ate well with a plate of grated carrot, grated cucumber, white beans and some bread (plus a rice cake in her bib). At first try a few weeks back she was just spitting out the bread, so I am pleased she is now enjoying it. I was surprised to find I have to buy more nectarines and cucumber because she loves them so much. She loves lots of fruit but I am still struggling to get her to eat savoury foods.

It is still quite a challenge to feed her. One day she eats terribly, the next she is biting my heels under the kitchen table because she is so hungry. Most days she wants to overturn her plate. Tips on feeding her are very helpful. Putting the just-cooked puree in the freezer to cool it down quickly (thanks Susie) and giving her another spoon when she wants to grab the spoon from me to assert her independence (thanks mum) are very helpful. I have also had good advice from here (Nicki) and Ireland (Chris and Fergal) that the Tommy Tippee sip and seal cup is the best one to take out and about without leaks.

I have started making Sylvia a simple pumpkin mash as an easy way to get vegetables into her diet. You can see that she enjoys this. (One of my most successful early puree combinations was pumpkin, apple and peach.) I find it easy to quickly mash up some pumpkin but I am hoping we will progress to greener vegies soon.

Meanwhile I have many uses for mashed pumpkin in addition to baby food. I love to include it in baking. So I was immediately drawn to a recipe that Sarah at What’s Smells So Good posted recently for Pumpkin Spice Fudge Cookies. I baked a double batch the day after I saw it. I made a few small changes including using a bit of buckwheat flour and some ginger. They were so good, fudgy and intensely chocolatey.

Imagine my surprise to find I had already made a version of these cookies. I was even more surprised because I confess this is one of the few batches of cookies I put in the freezer and had to throw out. Was it the addition of balsamic vinegar? I don’t think so. I suspect it was because I made them in the first trimester of pregnancy when I found chocolate made me queasy. Making them while breastfeeding, which makes me so hungry, is such a different experience. I can’t get enough of them.

But, despite temptation to scoff them down at home while E was at work, I was still able to share them. My family had an outing to the zoo last week so I got up early and miraculously arrived at the zoo before it opened at 9am. Unfortunately the rest of the family were an hour late and I had forgotten my mobile. I was quite impatient by the time everyone arrived. But there are some in my family who believe that having a mobile phone means never having to apologise for being late. Grrrr! ‘Nuff said!

I spent some time at the wonderful new seal exhibition which is calming and cooling. I never visit the zoo without seeing the giraffes. They were not cooperating with me when I got my camera out but one bold little ostrich was quite keen to play a starring role.

The Melbourne Zoo has had a lot of work to improve it since I was a child. My Irish brother-in-law was quite impressed with it despite his misgivings about going to a zoo. The elephants, orangutans and butterfly house were other highlights.

I had to leave early for a dentist appointment. I left Sylvia in the capable hands of my mum and she brought her home when I had finished. My little nephew came along too and it was amusing – and a little nervewracking – to watch Dash and Sylvia chasing after Zinc in unison. I was pleased to hear that in my absence, the chocolate biscuits had been enjoyed by the family over lunch at the zoo.

Pumpkin Fudge Cookies
Makes two and a half dozen
adapted from Alice Medrich via What Smells So Good

¼ cup margarine, at room temperature
¼ cup castor sugar
½ cup brown sugar
⅓ cup mashed pumpkin
1 tsp vanilla extract
¾ cup plain white flour
¼ cup buckwheat flour
7 tbsp cocoa powder
¼ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp mixed spice
¼ tsp ground ginger
⅔ cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F. Line or grease a baking tray.

Melt the butter in a medium bowl in the microwave. Whisk in sugars, pumpkin and vanilla, until smooth. Add dry ingredients and stir until just combined into a slightly stiff dough.

Drop teaspoonfuls onto baking try and flatten slightly with the back of a spoon. NB: I smoothed some with damp hands but preferred the rough look when I kept the moulding to a minimum. Bake 10 minutes, or until set. Cool on tray for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

On the stereo:
Flood: They Might Be Giants