Meal Planning Monday

It's that time of the week again. Sunday evening, feet up - crochet ready to have ends darned in and I thought I'd get ahead of myself and pop this up now. We've got a busy week this week, I'm helping out at our church holiday club which I'm really looking forward to, but will take up most of the week. 

Breakfasts, I've just popped some overnight oats/ baked porridge in the fridge for me and Harry. It's a very simple one, just 100g of porridge oats, a grated eating apple and almond milk to cover. I'll add sultanas to Harrys and a chopped banana to mine. 

Lunches, I was going to make some soup tonight, but I'm absolutely shattered today so I'll pop that on tomorrow at some point. It's just going to be my Spiced root veg soup, with carrots and parsnips as the main veggies.

Suppers:

Monday - leftover pulled pork in burritos with rice and veggies

Tuesday - Sausages, potato wedges and veggies (most likely carrots and brocolli)

Wednesday - a veg packed Spaghetti bolognaise

Thursday - Leftovers

Friday - Homemade steak burgers, Slimming world chips, peas and sweetcorn

Saturday - Sweet potato, lentil and chicken bake. It's a dairy free concoction I'm currently trying to refine for the blog as it's a bit hit and miss at the moment. Hopefully this week will be more hit than miss!

Sunday - Tomato, veg and red lentil pasta. We're having a bring and share lunch at Church so that's a nice all rounder that should be OK for the more common food allergies. I hope.

I think that's everything - as always, don't forget to pop on over to At home with Mrs M and see what the other planners are up to.

Weaning update #5 - A development in the world of porridge fingers

It's happened that my post on Porridge fingers is one of the most popular of late. It ticks over daily and is hopefully helping lots of other Mums and Dads with inspiration for breakfast.

Harry doesn't just have porridge for breakfast, but it is one of his favourites. However, he doesn't like to be (read refuses) spoon fed, so I tend to stick to said porridge fingers. I do have a consistency issue with them, I'm not sure if it's just me, but sometimes they set rock hard, others they're still squishy. Harry's not bothered - even when they're solid he happily rubs them on his gums and I try to suppress a flap and go to make some toast! Truth be told, I'm a bit funny about Harry's allergy - I'd rather go without and eat the same as him, so I've been making us both baked porridge for the last week or so as it sets nicely and can be sliced into fingers for him, while I happily eat (probably too much of) it.

Baked porridge

Half mug of porridge oats
1 Mug of almond/ oat milk (this is a recipe suitable for a CMPI and soya free, obviously use hwatever milk you can tolerate)
1 pear grated
Handful of sultanas
1/2 tsp ground ginger

The night before mix up the porridge oats, milk, grated pear, ginger and sultanas in an ovenware or pyrex type dish (basically it needs to go in the oven and not crack)

In the morning check your mix, you want it to be wet, but not lots of extra milk sloshing around in the dish.  Add more if you think it's a bit dry. 

Preheat the oven to about 180 degrees C, and pop the porridge in for 15-20 minutes. You want all the milk to be absorbed and the top to be light golden.

Serve, sliced into fingers for the baby - or in a bowl for a grown up. Non dairy and soya allergic people can add some milk, yoghurt etc...

Variations:

• Apple and cinammon
• Dates/ chopped figs instead of sultanas
• Nuts if you're not feeding a baby
• Spoonful of peanut butter and mashed/ sliced bananas
• If it's not sweet enough you could add sugar/ honey/ maple syrup or golden syrup. I think demerera sugar would be brilliant sprinkled on top before you bake it. Again, not idea if you're using it as a weaning recipe 
• Berries would be fantastic - I'm just waiting for them to come into season (and get cheaper) so I can make this with rasperries and blueberries.