Jottage from Lancaster - Brussels sprouts, Apple and Cheddar

We have been geocaching this morning and having made the trip out, it seemed a good opportunity to buy some veggies on the way home. I tend to buy whatever veggies I fancy these days - and lots of them. I use raw fruit and veggies for a big salad that I make for lunch every day, and for anything else I buy, I find some nice recipe from River Cottage Everyday or Veg. 


On the basis that they just looked nice and crunchy and fresh I bought some Brussels sprouts and was pleased to find a lovely salad in River Cottage Veg which would both use them up and be a variation on my usual crispy lunch. 


It wasn't just the sight of the Brussels sprouts that made me think of buying them. We have just got back from a trip to Chicago with my sister and her husband and we went to a restaurant called The Purple Pig (cheese, swine and wine). They had a couple of items with sprouts - one with raw shredded sprouts and one with fried. I had some of the raw sprouts (very finely sliced with parmesan) and loved them. I'm not a great sprout lover - I understand it's genetic - but I adored these. So when I saw them in Booths I was reminded of a happy lunchtime all together on North Mich.

The Purple Pig

Book shopping, Chicago 

So this was my lunch - brussels sprouts, apple and cheddar (actually Red Leicester) with a few walnuts and a slice of my home made wholemeal bread, finished off with a jar of homemade yoghurt. What could be better for me than that???

Jottage from Cambridge - Curried Fish Pie p 176

There were few things I dreaded more when I was growing up than having to eat soggy Weetabix. However there were a couple of other dishes which competed for the accolade. One was semolina (a staple pudding at my primary school), and the other was fish pie. The thing about fish pie which I loathed the most were the hard-boiled eggs which my mother always added to what I think would otherwise have been quite an acceptable meal. But I happen to love fish, and I always seem to have lots of potatoes in the house that need eating up so, when I finally moved in with my husband and had to start cooking proper meals (the pans and cooking pots which were bought for us from our John Lewis Wedding List provided another incentive) a fish pie seemed like an obvious thing to make.

Fish Pie (without boiled eggs)

Before I acquired Hugh’s Everyday book I found a couple of fish pie recipes which, although listing hard-boiled eggs, had that golden word for lazy cooks, ‘optional’, written by the side. I discovered that, without the egg, fish pie was indeed delicious so I was excited to make the recipe on page 176. I used pouted fillet and trout and, instead of curry powder, I put in a couple of teaspoons of cumin. The end result I considered to be something of a triumph – see photo. 

Heather with the Fish Pie

I served it up with mashed potato and peas, and for pudding we had the Apple and Walnut Crumble (p.378) which my mother had made and brought up from Lancaster. (My mother can’t come to Cambridge empty-handed, and I anticipate what she’ll decide to take out of her fridge that needs using up, and the bits of food that she’ll inevitably buy for me when they have a motorway stop. This time – and clearly now in a meaningful relationship with Hugh – she bought a packet of chorizo and a couple of packets of spelt.) I put all the leftover vegetables (which had been used to flavour the milk) in the blender, along with a few pieces of fish, and served up to Tristan the next day. He had no complaints.

Apple and Walnut crumble

Jottage from Cambridge - Soggy Weetabix or How to Start Weaning

The word ‘weaning’ in the context of babies is incredibly annoying. It seems to imply that they’re coming off something, so you could easily assume that, sometime between four and six months, you should stop feeding them milk, and exclusively offer solid food. Nothing could be further from the truth. Milk remains the most important source of

nourishment for babies until they’re at least a year old, and probably even beyond. So, when Tristan was five months old and I decided to start weaning I didn’t confine my feeding bras to the back of the wardrobe, but rather thought more carefully about the best time to
give Tristan milk feeds so that he was hungry enough to eat three meals a day too.
If you haven’t waited until the baby is six months old then you’re bound to start them off on baby rice and pureed carrot or, if you’re feeling really adventurous, both mixed together. There was quite a build-up of excitement to giving Tristan his first meal, and my husband and I both eagerly awaited his reaction as we launched the
Tommy Tippee spoon into his mouth. When I put the first spoonful of carrot in his mouth he gave me a terrified look, certain that this orange coloured mush was going to poison him. However, somehow the second spoonful wasn’t quite as bad as the first, and an ice cube sized portion of carrot was demolished within a few minutes. Of course the same meal took much longer the next day, but that’s just how weaning goes. Some days your baby’s inner Popeye comes out and he can’t get enough spinach, and then you’re worried that he’ll only ever eat mangos which are a particular shade of yellow. 

Overall my experience has been very positive though and Tristan, so long as he’s not too tired (note that overtiredness is the reason why most babies start yelling and arching their backs at the first sight of a spoon) eats pretty much everything, with the exception of lentils which, quite understandably, he absolutely loathes. The ice cube trays so beloved of Karmel and co. have now been replaced with little pots
(note that all the mummys in the know get their Tupperware from Poundland), and generally Tristan eats good sized portions. Within a few days I had moved on from carrots to butternut squash soup (with
extra cumin to give it a nice warm flavour), and really any combination of the following: spinach, potato, sweet corn, courgettes, baked beans, peas, and peppers, mixed up with meat or fish. So, now at
just over seven months, a typical day looks like the following:
7am: milk
8am Breakfast: Bowl of porridge mixed with grated apple or mashed up
banana, or Weetabix with milk. For us breakfast is always the easiest
meal, mainly because Tristan adores porridge. Weetabix, which I used
to dread having to eat as a child, I now consider one of the greatest
inventions of the last century.
10am: milk
11.30 Lunch: I generally do baby-led at lunchtime which is usually
something on toast, such as cheese and apple, (see Baby & Toddler
Cookbook p.175) sardines, cream cheese or baked beans. Unless you
weigh the food before and after your baby has spent time with it
(Hugh’s advice is that meals should last no longer than half an hour
which I think is just about right) it’s impossible to know how much
they’ve eaten, and indeed it’s incredible where you find half-eaten
bits of bread. Therefore I often give Tristan banana mixed with
full-fat natural or Greek yogurt afterwards just to make sure that
he’s eaten enough.
4pm milk
5pm Teatime:  I used to make a special meal for Tristan, but now I try
and give him the leftovers of whatever my husband and I have eaten the
night before. The only real no-no for babies (besides honey which is
the latest fad thing to avoid as it’s been associated with botulism,
and certain types of fish which contain lots of mercury) is salt
(sugar too isn’t allowed). Low-salt stock cubes are the answer (I
apologise Hugh but, however much time I might have to spare, I will
never bring myself to make my own stock), and unsalted butter. So
Tristan happily eats minced beef, risotto and any kind of meat stew
for his dinner. If the latter is a bit watery, which it often is after
a spell in the freezer, I add baby rice or baby pasta to thicken it
up.
7pm milk

Despite eating all this food and, since you’re no doubt wondering, I’ll tell you that Tristan still doesn’t sleep through the night, but demands a couple of night feeds, usually around 11pm and 3am. However,
although I moan all the time about the fact that my baby still isn’t sleeping through, there is something quite nice about touching base with Tristan during the night. We snuggle up together while everyone else is sleeping and think about all the lovely things we’re going to eat in the days ahead.

Jottage from Cambridge/Lancaster

We just thought of it - one Friday night; to write a blog about our experiences cooking using the River Cottage Everyday recipe book and the River Cottage Baby and Toddler Cookbook.


How this came about and our thoughts and experiences along the way will be the subject of this blog and we are just writing it for our own amusement.


Firstly Tristan's lunch of cheese and apple on toast....

and Tristan eating it...

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Cromwell Rd,Cambridge,United Kingdom