Family Food - Frittata Taverymuch

Imagine this scenario.

• You can't be bothered to make a meal.
• You have hee haw Magraw in the cupboards.
• You have lost track of time, and the Wee Yin is starving. There's only so much emergency breadstick this Bairn can take!

Here follows an easy and nutritious meal! If you're unfamiliar with it, frittata is basically an omelette with veggies in. Is it? I think so - well this one is! Please don't tell me if I'm wrong. I was really excited about sounding pure knowledgable in the foodie department. Theoretically minimal mess, as it's really finger food, although The Bairn can pebble-dash my dining room walls with pretty much any edible substance. And the inedible too.

All you needs eggs, and stuff! what I find TRULY BRILLIANT is frozen veg - those packets of peas, sweetcorn, tinily chopped carrots and peppers etc.

Ingredients

Small non-stick frying pan and olive oil

2 eggs for a baby/toddler

Full fat milk

Cheese

Small veg - think peas, finely chopped and cooked anything really

Maybe a potato or sweet potato.

1. Cook your veg. I like to steam it - retains more vitamins that way.
2. If using potatoes - leftovers are great, just dice them and fry them in the pan you're using for the frittata, until golden coloured. Otherwise, boil until tender in thin slices or finely diced, dry off (by leaving without water in a hot pan for a bit) and then fry up.
3. So your potatoes and veg are fried up a little in olive oil - now sprinkle on grated cheese.
4. Beat eggs and a splash of full fat milk in a jug.
5. Pour over veggies in frying pan.
6. Fry until bottom looks golden, top just cooked.
7. If required, brown top off under the grill.

Sweet potatoes, peas and cheddar in ours...

Omnomnomnomnom.

For an adult version (too salty for the sprogs) fry some chorizo, red peppers and chilli in with your potatoes - maybe a bit of spinach or rocket in there too. The possibilities are practically endless!

Disclaimer - Some possibilities may be absolutely rank.

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Family food - Gnocchi

There are 3 indisputable facts about Gnocchi:

1. No living person knows how to pronounce the word "gnocchi".*
2. Historically, we KNOW there must (surely?) have been at least three more vowels in there.*
3. It can be made at home. You don't even have to have Italian ancestry.

* Not necessarily actual facts, as such.

I've found quite a few gnocchi recipes online and in books at home - even in the 9-12 months section of a baby cookery book. For my 10 month chunk of a Bairn, I halved the final lumps when they were cooked, I'm always paranoid about choking! But I've since found a more baby friendly shape - and will describe that method instead. The final pictures do not correspond with the method! You'll have to use you beautiful imaginations until I make it again and take more photos.

Ingredients

• 6oz diced white potatoes (7oz if baking them)
• 4oz diced sweet potatoes or butternut squash (5oz if baking)
• 6 tablespoon of plain flour
• Egg yolk
• Seasonings optional - pinches of nutmeg, black pepper, cinnamon (salt if not for a child under a year old)

Method

1. Cook your veg first. Either steam them for 15 minutes (until tender); OR bake them whole in an oven at 180 degrees C, for an hour or so. If you have the time to bake, your gnocchi will be much lighter and easier to handle as a dough.
2. Mash potatoes etc together in a flat bottomed bowl.
3. Stir in flour, egg yolk and seasonings. Add more flour or water as required until you have an easy to handle, light dough.
4. Make into teaspoon sized dumplings, press with fork so they're flattened and grooved (ie not what's in my photos!), easier for a wee one to handle.
5. Bring a large pan to the boil.
6. Pop about 8 dumplings in at a time, once they're done they'll rise to the top. Takes a couple of minutes.
7. Serve with chopped tomato, peas, spinach, cheese, pesto - whatever you fancy.

mashing it up....

Aaaaaargh! I've created a monster!!

Not how yours should look! More disc-like with ridges, for babies. 

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Baby Cuisine - Custard From Scratch

You heard me! You can actually make real custard by yourself - WITHOUT BUYING A TUB OF POWDER. That was my pre-conception of home-made custard - surely the non home-made version comes out of an Ambrosia tin, right? WRONG.

Anyway, one day The Bairn was perusing one of the many second hand weaning type recipe books that my lovely friend VM passed down to me. She is a Domestic Goddess. Nigella can flip off, my mate VM is an old school, proper family cooking genius. 3 kids - the youngest is 2 1/2 - and WITHOUT THE AID OF FOOTMEN, BUTLERS, MAIDS OR HELPFUL ELVES, her home is a pristine, but fun and friendly place to be. I may move in someday.

As his chubby little chipolata handles carefully searched through the pages of

(well, it's now more a collection of individual pages right enough) he articulated to me that he wished to purchase some vanilla essence from the local supermarket in order to concoct some Creamy Egg Custard.

"Oh, The Bairn!" says I. "There's really no need to add vanilla essence. As a baby, you wouldn't understand, but it'll likely be delicious with this expensive item omitted."

"Ah Mummy. You are so clever, beautiful and simply divine. I trust in your every uttering" says The Bairn.

Creamy Egg Custard

Ingredients

1/4 pint of full fat milk

2 tsp castor sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 150 degrees Celsius.
2. Heat milk - I used the microwave, full power 40 seconds.
3. Beat together sugar and eggs til sugar dissolves.
4. Whisk in hot milk and vanilla.
5. Pour into ovenproof dish and bake for 30-40 minutes until set.

I may add that it looks brilliant - BUT DO NOT OMIT VANILLA! If you leave it out, it tastes of sweet scrambled egg. Now, The Bairn loved it anyway with a bit of banana, but it proved to be inedible to adults! And smelled boak-tastic after a day in the fridge.

So there you go. In the book, it's in the 6-7 months section.

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BoJo and PE

Well maybe old Tim O'Tei (aka BoJo (BawJaws? (aka Boris Johnson))) himself enjoyed partaking in 2 HOURS OF PE A DAY - but then he was probably skiing, fencing and 3 day eventing. Us normal ex-school kids were desperately trying to avoid the following:

1. Being picked last for rounders.

2. Having bras pinged, or general attention drawn to the chesticle area.

3. Getting knee-capped by fellow unskilled hockey stick wielders.

Cross country running was a different game entirely. It provided ample opporchancity to slyly share a sneaky cigarette with my fellow athletes under the bridge. And I always wondered why I was so puffed after that route that I felt like vomiting over my dour-faced PE teacher's Nikes.... Why, though, was cross country always scheduled for February? It was so cold I remember shivering in my oversized East 17 hoody, Man Utd beanie (I was a very early Beckham appreciator) and Air Max boots. We had to traverse an enormous expanse of cowpats interspersed with molehills. Would a school even obtain insurance for allowing pupils to face such dangers these days?

Seriously though, I want my son to have a much "healthier" attitude to sport. I'd like him to be first picked for rounders, please. Because he's good at it, and, more importantly, loves all the running about (is it called fielding? I think so). I hope he's confident enough not to be quaking in his little sand shoes every time it's his turn to bat the ball, as I was. And perhaps his teacher's enthusiasm for physical activity will be infectious - all the kids will have an awesome time, regardless of their ability.

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