Weaning breakfasts for a CMPI baby - pancakes, porridge fingers and frittatas

That's a bit of a mouthful for a post title, but to coin a phrase, it does what it says on the tin. I've been asked a few times lately what I give Harry for breakfasts given his allergies (dairy and soya). These are our go-to baby led weaning breakfasts at the moment, so I thought I'd do a summary post as a kind of touch point for anyone looking for inspiration generally or for CMPI babies specifically.

Harry is still breastfed, but following an appointment with the paediatrician where he commented on how run down and exhausted I looked, it was suggested that I give myself a break and instead of expressing every day, supplement with nutramigen. Anyone who knows me will know that I railed against mixed feeding in hospital - I really wanted to exclusively breastfeed, but after 6 months something had to give and supplementing with one bottle a night, and using formula for Harry's food hasn't been the end of the world. I'm still a bit sad and wish things were different, but he's doing really well and that's what's important. Not what I want, what's best for him.

I am now completely dairy and soya free, and the formula we're using is Nutramigen which we get on prescription. Harry is still sick on the formula, but nothing like he was before I was dairy free and he's rarely sick on breastmilk now.

Anyway, onto meals. Breakfasts are my favourite meal to do for Harry. I tend to stick with porridge and fruit for my breakfast so it's nice to be a bit creative with his. We rotate his options as I try to keep things interesting for him. Yes, I know I'm probably overthinking this.

Easy breakfasts: 

• Toast (read the ingredients) with Pure spread
• Fruit bread (read the ingredients) with Pure spread
• Ready brek made up with Nutramigen and half a small banana mashed in

 Cooked breakfasts:

• Porridge fingers - I've already posted the recipe I use for these. Harry loves them. Loves feeding himself with them and seems to really enjoy the variations. I've done sultanas, blueberries, just banana, and spiced them with cinammon, sweet mixed spice, or a little nutmeg. Again, we're using Nutramigen for these.
• Pancakes - I've posted the recipe I use for these on Instagram but see below for the details
• Frittatas - these are completely dairy free, and I pop in whatever we have in the fridge, so little bits of chopped ham (obviously watch salt intake if you're using ham), or cooked mushrooms are Harry's favourites. If I had some peppers I'd lightly fry those too. Recipe to follow in the next post. I'll add the link here.

 Fruity additions:

•  Half a banana - I think that Harry's not always keen on the taste of banana, but likes holding it and chomping on it.
• Pear slices - with pear I make sure it's nice and ripe, and I leave the skin on so he can hold it as Harry doesn't eat the skin, just sort of sucks the pear away from it
• Apple slices - I tend to eat Granny Smiths, or if I can find them at this time of year, Russets - Harry likes both of these, but likes to suck and chomp on Granny Smiths when his teeth are hurting him.
• Lightly stewed mixes of any of the above, but left lumpy so he can feed himself if I pre-load the spoon.  If I'm stewing the fruit I tend to do so in a little water and add some chopped prunes as apples especially can be quite tart and as I know that Harry has a sensitive tummy I don't want to aggravate it. He loves anything with prunes in!

Baby breakfast pancakes

I make a batch of these (around 11 from this much mix) at a time and freeze them, separated by squares of greaseproof paper so that I can grab one in the morning and pop it in the microwave to defrost while I drink my coffee and Harry and I have a little play.

For this recipe you will need: 

1 mug - any mug will do, but you need to use the same one
Frying pan - I use a non-stick one
Spatula
Whisk/ beaters/ stick blender

1 mug self raising flour
1 mug oat/ almond milk or your babies formula/ breastmilk
1 apple or pear grated
1 egg

In a big bowl, add the flour, milk, grated fruit and egg
Whisk together until bubbly
Put your non stick pan on the heat (I spray with fry light to get it started) and when warm add 2 tablespoons or so of mixture. I can fit three pancakes of this size in my pan
Cook until the top is bubbly, then use your spatula to flip them over, and again cook until bubbly.
I often cook each side again for a minute or so to make sure they're cooked through

Variations - we've added blueberries, slices of banana, and sultanas all with success.

Plumfoolery - with cake

 

I've not done much baking of late - moving house has taken up most of my time and meant that I've just so little energy for anything else much at all. The weather this weekend has meant that I've been forced to come to a bit of a standstill and you know what? I've really enjoyed the slower pace. That said, I've achieved next to nothing save for some washing so normal service will need to be resumed this week. Well, it was nice while it lasted.

Plumfoolery indeed. Given the fact that I have 2 trees worth of apples secreted about the house at the moment it is ridiculous to have spent yesterday afternoon baking a plum cake. But I did. So there. M's mum inspired this - she looked after me this week while I was working away and fed me with a similar cake to this that she had made for a meeting. She showed me the receip which did not lodge itself anywhere useful in my mind (unlike lipstick names and shoes) so instead I had a bash at recreating it.

I started off with a sponge cake - and added the plums with a hope that they'd cook down into some semblance of jammy-ness. I added the cinammon sugar (stolen from the topping on M's favourite blondies) to spice it up and give the finished article a whisper of autumn.

4oz unsalted butter
4oz caster sugar
4oz self raising flour (remove 2 tablespoons)
2 tablespoons of custard powder
1 tsp vanilla paste
2 eggs
10 plums, halved and stoned
2 tablespoons caster sugar, mixed with
1 tsp cinammon

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees
Cream your butter and sugar together until light and fluffy
Add each egg and beat again with a spoonful of the flour/ custard powder mix
Add the vanilla paste and beat again
Fold in the flour/ custard powder mix
Pour and scrape into a buttered 20 inch(ish) loose bottomed cake tin
Halve the plums and place in the cake batter (I tried to do concentric circles) push down gently so that the plum is neatly lined up with the  cake mix
Sprinkle the cinammon sugar over and bake for 40 minutes

Enjoy warm as a pudding with cream or custard, or cold with a cup of tea.

Picking your own... and some accidental jam making

It's well documented on the blog that I love preserving - however,  M and his family were all astounded to hear that I'd never been to a PYO. It seems a necessary rite of passage for most people but one I've missed out on. Or had. Until last week. Still slightly dopey from a general anasthetic, and on a lot of painkillers (don't let anyone tell you getting your wisdom teeth out doesn't hurt like a hurty thing) we trundled happily around Parkside Pick Your Own for a couple of hours, investigating strawberries, raspberries and green beans.

M was thrilled that the strawberries were being grown at waist height - his memories of PYO were not happy ones - we easily filled our punnets and moved on to the raspberries. A cunning move seemed to be to go to the end of the canes/ plant rows and work backwards as most people started on those closest to you. If that makes sense.

The only thing I was sad about was the lack of tomatoes, but I suspect the early cold weather this summer has put them back a bit, as there were plenty of other fruit and veg around. Lots of people were there in family groups, everyone joining in.

I suppose my only negative about the day would be that PYO is no longer the cheap day out: we had a minimum spend of £3 per person which we easily surpassed, and our fruit was more expensive than the supermarket. That said, as far as food miles go - each strawberry travelled a grand total of 5 miles and many were sampled within 3 hours, which combined with the fun of the activity itself and the time spent together more than compensated for the lack of a BOGOF.

However, what is one to do with a glut of strawberries from some overenthusiastic PYOing? Well, it'd be rude not to make jam. Even if you are banned from preserving (space and moving). I mean it's the thrifty way to use them up. Honest.

Quick and easy strawberry jam - honest. I mean, even if - hypothetically of course - your laptop died halfway through making this jam and you decided to go to PC world to see the offerings then you could get this done before your partner got back and could meet him outside with only a little bit of jam on your top. And only slightly sticky fingers. Ahem. Hypothetically of course

If you've never made jam before - here is not your starting point. Use the recipe by all means, but go back to my first Strawberry jam post as that covers everything in detail

2lb strawberries, hulled and quartered
Juice of 1 large lemon
2lb granulated sugar

Put the strawberries and lemon juice in a large pan or maslin and bring to a gentle simmer for about 10 minutes
Mush the strawberries up with your potato masher
Add the sugar and bring to a rolling boil - mine reached setting point after about 15 minutes, but as always, that's gong to vary depending on how wet your fruit is etc
Once you've tested on your freezered saucer and you're happy that the jam is duly wrinkly, pour into sterilised jam jars, label* and seal
There you have it - accidental jam

I found this made 5 225ml jars with a bit over for testing purposes

*Note: Always label your jam shortly after making so that 12 months on you aren't looking at a pretty jar in your cupboard with no flipping clue as to what's in it. I think it's plum. Or gooseberry.

Knife skills with the Brownies

When you're cooking with children and restricted time-wise, there's undoubtedly the tendency to concentrate on bakes or icing. Those low effort high excitement activities. However, one of the things I'm quite keen on is instilling the fact that cooking isn't just baking and involves other things. This week we tried new fruit and practiced our knife skills.

Brownies is an excellent opportunity to do just this - our meetings last for an hour and a half and we go away at least once a year on a Brownie holiday. This week we were doing an Island hopping night - playing games and doing activities from different places around the world. The gorgeous weather leant itself to our planned food activity brilliantly. 

Fruit kebabs is an oft repeated activity with Brownies, but one they love (and chose themselves). We try to vary the fruit on offer to encourage them to try new flavours and textures. The only rule is that if you haven't tried it before you give it a little taste, and you do your own chopping and assembling. As you can see from the photo above we use table knives for the chopping and cocktail sticks for the kebabs (of course you could use kebab sticks, but we find that 4 mini kebabs are more attractive than one huge one)

We assign one adult to each table, and demonstrate the bridging technique to each girl. 

Making sure they're holding their knife correctly and using two fingers of the other hand to hold the fruit stable (to make a bridge), 

If it's a round fruit, often we or an older girl will make a flat end to make it more stable. 

Holding the knife below their 'bridge' they chop each thing into bite sized pieces before threading it on the sticks. 

For kiwi fruit, they make a little incision into the skin first to help make the cut

Fruits we tried this week were: mango, pineapple, kiwi, and oranges. Everyone tried everything and we had 2 coverts to kiwi fruit - apparently they had refused to try it previously because it was green! 

Practicing knife skills may seem like a small thing, but when we go away on Brownie holiday we get the girls to help chop carrots, potatoes, and even fruit for their elevenses so being able to do so safely is indispensable. 

You can see on the tables we use plastic mats for hygiene (these are dishwashed afterwards), and table mats. Hands are washed before and after the activity. Hair is tied back, and when made we put the kebabs onto paper plates (to reduce washing up as much as anything else!) 

Frozen Grapes: Probably the simplest summer essential in the world. Ever

 

So much so, I can't believe I'm writing this post. I've coerced M into taking photos so I have to write it really. But even so, I'm blushing, futilely hiding behind my rose hoping that you won't abandon me purely for the fact that I'm writing this up on a food blog.

I'm a hardened dieter/ healthy eater and abandoner of both of those pasttimes, usually in the face of something with vast quantities of butter or sugar. Junk food has never been my thing and I eat pretty healthily most of the time, but there's nothing that's quite the same as crispy roast potatoes. So, I have to think about my snacks - make sure that my innate tendency towards fabulously flavoured badness is balanced out by fresh, clean, healthiness.

This tends to mean that Monday - Friday, fruit is my snack of choice - apples, bananas, satsumas, cherry tomatoes, sharon fruit. I get frustrated when I can't get British apples, but aside from that am fairly easily pleased. I tend to avoid berries as they don't travel well when wedged in between a laptop and 16 copies of handouts and tupperware containers add to unecessary bulk when travelling on trains that no longer give you somewhere to put your luggage when you're 5'4" and can't lift something above your head.

So yes, fruit. for years I've heard about freezing grapes as a dieters sweetie. It must come up at least annually as a suggestion in every women's magazine I've ever read - from Just Seventeen up to Easy Living. It's there in every Weight Watchers and Slimming world material I've ever read. And yet, I've never tried it. I've dismissed it, much like 'swap your regular sausages for Quorn - you'll never tell the difference!' Yes. I. Will. Or, 'try Turkey bacon in place of regular bacon for a Sunday morning fry (or grill) up' No, it has a weird texture - it's squeaky. Having tried those recommedations and been forced to dismiss them on account of the fact that they're RUBBISH, I also dismissed frozen grapes. Oh how stupid I was. Frozen grapes are a cross between grape flavoured sweeties and an ice lolly. Having stupidly sensitive teeth I choose to suck them and love when they start to go squishy.

I'm so embarrased by including this, but also so keen to spread the word - for those of you doing the 5:2 Feast:Fast I'm hoping frozen grapes might prove to be a something yummy you can fit in on your fast days - according to myfitnesspal, 1 grape is 2 calories and the good thing about freezing them is that you don't pop one in your mouth after another, barely tasting them as they go down. It forces you to slow down and to really enjoy each mouthful.

Quite simply, wash your grapes, put them in a tupperware or similar without a lid, and in your freezer - help yourself to them every time you're peckish.

If I weren't so embarrassed I'd submit these to Kavey's Bloggers Scream for Ice Cream this month, the subject of which is Ice lollies, but I'm too embarrassed. By far.

Simple summer essentials: How do you solve a problem like overripe fruit?

This is the last post in the Simple Summer Essentials series - it's been fun planning, prepping and cooking my way through the fruit and vegetables that Asda kindly sent me. Such a lovely selection of seasonal produce that has really lifted and inspired me over the past couple of weeks.

One of the things I find with the soft fruits that summer brings is that they ripen too fast. I have an ongoing battle with nectarines and plums, hard as rocks one day and complete and utter smush the next. There is no logic! But being the thrifty cook and blogger that I am I do a couple of things I wanted to share with you how I prolong the life of soft fruit, and then how I use it when it's just tipped over that past it's best peak. 

First off ditch the plastic! get rid of that plastic wrap, and instead I gently lay kitchen towel on top. Now I'm not sure as to the science behind this, but fruit releases gasses as it ripens and by absorbing these the kitchen towel stops the fruit ripening too fast. Now this may be an old wives tale - I wasn't particularly good at paying attention during science classes, but I would swear that it does in fact work.

Note from M, the resident scientist: he thinks it's letting the gasses escape but stopping light get to the fruit and so slowing ripening? Your suggestions on a postcard please...

The second part of ditching the plastic is to also get rid of the box.  I'm old enough to remember when fruit came in cardboard punnets, with no cellophane wrapper. Soft fruits last much longer out of the plastic that supermarkets sell them in.

Now, when fruit has moved into the overripe territory I mush it up, adding a bit of lemon or lime juice and stir it into yoghurt - for me, normally 0% fat greek style. This then makes a fantastic pudding, or breakfast. If I'm having it for pudding I'll add a pinch of vanilla extract. it doesn't need any sweetener, is plenty sweet enough the way it is. 

The other thing to do is to turn it into a fruit fool - I did this with frozen berries regularly a few years back - but it would be just as effective and tasty with some overripe soft fruits. 

Check back tomorrow for a round up of my Simple summer essentials, and your chance to win £50 of Asda vouchers.

Simple Summer Essentials: Peach melba - musical theatre style

 

 

 

The Simple Summer Essentials series is coming to an end - along with this (all too brief) spell of hot weather. The last recipes I have for you are all sweet - today's peach melba, a patriotic pavlova and a way to use up overripe soft fruits to make a fool.

Peach Melba was originally a pudding created by Auguste Escoffier to honour the soprano Nellie Melba. Vanilla ice cream, peaches and raspberry sauce combined with an ice sculpture of a swan (as a nod to the opera she was singing in) to make an outstanding dessert, recreated time and time over. by the time I became familiar with peach melba it had been diluted into one of those little pots of yoghurt, that along with Angel delight were standard pudding fare in the 1980's. Not quite what escoffier had in mind I'm sure!

Growing up, peach melba seemed impossibly glamourous and fancy. The type of thing one would have at a posh restaurant. Little did I know, that the combination of peach and raspberry I loved so fiercely in my little pots of yoghurt was an easily recreated dessert, one that could easily be done and done diet style as well.

So today's post is Peach Melba - musical theatre style (that is to say less overblown than opera) Consider this the Rent to La Boheme, or Miss Saigon to Madam Butterfly of the pudding world.

Serves 2

100g 0% fat Greek yoghurt (I use Total)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
100g raspberries pureed
2 peaches
1 tsp dark, soft brown sugar

Split your peaches in half, and remove the stone. Sprinkle the cut side with the soft, dark brown sugar and put under a hot grill until the sugar starts to bubble.
Meanwhile, mix the vanilla extract into the yoghurt and leave to stand. You could sweeten if you wanted, either with a sweetener or sugar. I don't find I need it and avoid artificial sweeteners as a rule, but you should make sure it tastes lovely for you.
This is an ideal way to use up ripe raspberries - either mush them up in a bowl, or (if you're being fancy) push them through a seive.
Then either, stir the puree into the yoghurt and top the grilled peaches with this (as I've done in the pictures). Or top the grilled peaches with plain yoghurt and drizzle with the raspberry puree

It's such a simple pudding, but grilling the peaches makes it slightly different as the peaches take on a fantastic caramelly flavour from the sugar and grill. This method of cooking them would also work on a barbeque if you're planning on one last hurrah with yours this weekend.

I feel pretty, oh so pretty... Preserving

Over the last couple of weeks when we've been going along in the car, I've not paid M a great deal of attention (sorry). My eyes have been trained on trees and hedgerows looking for a glimpse of the bounty late summer and early autumn brings the keen and nifty cook.

The blackberries are nearly there, those that have benefitted from the (occasional) sunshine already turning glossy and purple, those in more shady spots just hitting a glorious rose. I dragged M out this afternoon and between us we managed to pick 2lb or so of beautifully ripe blackberries - I have earmarked half of this for apple and blackberry jelly (one of M's mum's recipes) but the other half is destined for more alcohol. 

I haven't seen either elderberries or sloes yet but they are normally Autumn's later gifts.

As you know whilst my patience with dough and children is legendary, my patience for my need to preserve less so. It was with (a swiftly stifled) squeal of delight on Friday evening that I noticed that Sainsburys had marked down three punnets of blackcurrants and two of blackberries. I gazed around me, sizing up the other shoppers, trying to decide if there might be any competition, and then swooped in, scooping up the punnets into my trolley and heading off in search of the Basics rum. Apparently Sainsburys don't do Basics rum, so I got the next one up the ladder.

I followed the recipe I used a couple of years back where you start by making and straining a berry juice, and then add spices and alcohol, leaving it to mature briefly before boiling up with sugar and bottling. Previously I did this with redcurrants and you can see in the photos in the original post the pretty pink colour of the end result. Unsurprisingly doing this with blackberries and blackcurrants produces a stunningly dark and glossy liquer. The vodka and this rum are all destined to be gifts 

I wanted to write this post despite the recipes not being new ones, and the photos all being on Instagram already to remind you just how easy preserving is and how fabulous the results can be. You don't need a sugar thermometer, jam sugar, a maslin pan, or even a jam spoon - I start with my Ikea 365 pan, a long handled wooden spoon and a saucer in the freezer. That's it. I don't even buy jam jars, I save all ours, and ask Guide parents to donate any they have. Sterilised with boiling water and in a low oven, you're good to go. Also, my jellies (and alcohol is all strained through an old pillowcase in a seive. Yes, the picture below is an old pillowcase. 

If you're west of me, you may still be able to get some strawberries at your local PYO so why not have a go at strawberry jam (see the idiots guide on that post)

Otherwise, go, forage (or buy heavily reduced) blackberries and have a go at vodka, rum or jam. I'll put my recipe for blackberry and apple jelly up as soon as I've done it. 

For all my preserving exploits - click here and you'll be able to scroll through and pick the ones that appeal to you. 

You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to: Tomato & mozzarella salad

 

But let's not call the whole thing off.

 

I said this week was going to be dedicated to simple summer essentials, and was keen from the outset to include my favourite summer salad: tomato and mozzarella.

 

But first, some background (or waffle - you decide and feel free to skip this paragraph). Growing up, salad for us, like many working class families, included the ubiquitous iceberg lettuce, watery tomatoes (although cherry were always my favourite) and cucumber. A summer staple, served with leftover roast meat or ham for packed lunches. The amazing thing about being a market shopper is the fact that you had to buy seasonal produce. Now it seems odd that those of us on lower incomes were embracing through necessity something which is now seen as a desirable indicator of one's ethical status and an appropriate choice to make. But enough preaching, you get the picture; salad = boring. And I have to admit it took me a long time to move away from the familiarity of that prescriptive recipe as it were. I remember a flatmate at uni adding dressing and mango to a chicken salad and thinking it wonderfully decadent. Adding croutons and thousand island dressing (yes, I know, kill me now) was my next step, and then - once again spurred on by Mr Oliver - I started to experiment. Watery tomatoes were replaced with home grown (actually that is a lie I distinctly remember my grandma growing tomatoes in her greenhouse and indulgently letting us eat them straight from the plants). Peppers were added and dressings experimented with. Over time I discovered first rocket, and then watercress preferring to grow my own in window boxes and plant pots than use the bagged, extortionate supermarket versions.

Today salad is once again a summer staple, it's largely diet friendly and means I get an extra serving of my five a day.

The produce Asda sent me was calling out to be made into a salad and my tummy was calling out for that to be my favourite. I'm including two ways of making this, not because I'm showing off, but because if you're left with some overripe tomatoes then slow roasting them first works best.

Now just before I get any further I want to address (possibly reiterate) the mozzarella equation:

• If you're eating mozzarella raw, such as in this salad - buy the best you can afford. The taste does make a difference. Please don't remortgage your house though, stay within reason.
• If you're cooking with mozzarella buy economy/ basics branded. In blind taste tests when the cheese has been cooked people categorically can't tell the difference.

 

Mozzarella and tomato salad (fresh tomatoes)
 

 

If you store your tomatoes in the fridge, get them out at least an hour before making this as it means you can taste the flavour of the fruit as opposed to just the cold.

 

Around 1 large or 2 medium (really, use your judgement) tomatoes per person

 

Mozzarella - usually balls are around 250g and I allow half a ball per person
Fresh basil or if you've had a glut of herbs you needed to preserve, a drizzle of basil oil. See tomorrow's post for details.

 

Slice the mozzarella and tomatoes about the thickness of a £1 coin
(I can't believe I just typed that, slice them how you want!) if you've not got a super sharp knife use a serrated one as it makes slicing tomatoes easier.

 

Scatter over fresh basil leaves, salt, pepper and a little olive oil. Or just salt, pepper and your herb oil

 If I'm being fancy I arrange them on a plate, alternating the tomato and cheese. If, on the other hand I'm making lunch for me I whack it all in a bowl and scoff greedily sat in as much sunshine as either the office, training room, front step or balcony can muster!

 Mozarella and tomato salad - take two: using overripe tomatoes

 

 

Halve all your ripe tomatoes and place them on a baking tray cut side up. Sprinkle with salt & pepper (and if you've got some fresh thyme lying around add that)
Drizzle over olive oil
Cook in a preheated oven - 200 degrees C ish for about 45 minutes, until the skins are just starting to blacken and the tops are wrinkly

Serve with your mozzarella, save the olive oil-y juices though and use that as a dressing with some basil

 

 

The roasted tomatoes will keep in an airtight container in the fridge for a few days. Bring up to room temperature before using them though

So there you have it, my salad history and mozzarella and tomato salad two ways. What more could you want?

Olympics food and no-cook cooking activities for little ones

This summer a lot of our Brownie activities have been Olympics led - my unit are so excited about the Olympics badge (as am I, I can't wait to get it on my blanket, badge nerd that I am - isn't it pretty?)

Girlguiding UK's On Your Marks resource isn't just about sport, but also culture so some of the activities the girls chose to do in our pow wow were about food. I wasn't surprised! The activities they chose are ones that we know they love, but as the summer holidays are nearly upon us, I thought I'd add here in case anyone wants a healthy foodie afternoon that's an alternative to cake decorating and biscuit baking - which I admit would be my preferences but with our focus on healthy activity (as well as sport) introducing some more fruit can be a good thing.

One of the things our Brownies love to make is fruit kebabs. Now as with aforementioned new Guide and nuts, we have a Brownie who's allergic to kiwi and strawberries. Please be sure if you're a Leader to check your Join us forms or Go! to check before doing with your unit. If you're doing this at home, well I guess you know.

We choose lots of brightly coloured fruit - including different ones that the girls haven't seen before - typical choices are:

• Kiwi
• Strawberries
• Raspberries
• Pineapple
• Apple
• Pear
• Orange/ satsuma (our girls prefer smaller fruit as it's more manageable for little fingers)
• Starfruit
• Grapes
• Mango

Now having said that the girls won't have seen these before, it seems that few or even none of these are particularly different to your average 7 year old in North London - I think I would have fainted on sight of a mango at 7 in East London (but that was 26 years ago). Lots of units make fruit kebabs but we try and tie it in not just to healthy eating, but also to learning knife skills. When we go on Brownie holiday the girls take on the role of 'Cooks' with their six - in this role they help to peel and chop up potatoes, carrots (we whizz the onions in the food processor to prevent random breakouts of swimming goggles) fruit for puddings and elevenses and anything else that the girls have chosen as part of their menu.

In our weekly meetings we don't have time for all of that, but we do have a stash of coloured plastic chopping boards (which can be dishwashed) and what I would call paring knives. They're neither dangerously sharp nor dangerously blunt, and the boards have enough friction(?) that things aren't slipping around. We also put the boards on old teatowels that we routinely collect from time to time. We work with what I would call the 'bridge' technique of cutting. The girls hold the knife in their right hand (if right handed) and make a bridge with their left, holding the fruit in place, we then encourage them to chop the fruit into bite size peices. There's no expectation that the fruit will be chopped up evenly, there's no sense of their being a standard to meet. As in our promise each girl does "her best". Each type of fruit goes into it's own plastic (or disposable) bowl, and each girl has a kebab or cocktail stick.

For our Olympics challenge, the Brownies had to try and get a peice of fruit of each colour of the rings on their stick, with a second challenge that if there was a type of fruit you hadn't tried before then to add that one (even if it meant you had an extra ring). This all linked in to the Olympic value of Excellence.

excellence – how to give the best of oneself, on the field of play or in life; taking part; and progressing according to one’s own objectives

Now I'm no Mummy blogger but it's worth noting how rarely we have leftovers on Brownie holiday as the girls are proud to eat what they've made. This activity was the same, everyone tried everything - and the chatter on leaving was about their newly learned abilities to chop fruit. And I really do mean made - there's no sense of token 'helping' in the kitchen. It's also always a surprise that if we haven't started our holiday prep with a session on knife skills, the amount of girls who 'aren't allowed' to help out in the kitchen.

A couple of other thoughts I wanted to include about children and fruit that I've noticed over the years - should I qualify this by explaining that I've been Guiding in a leader role since the age of 14? I'm sometimes hyper aware that I'm not a Mum and I don't want anyone thinking I'm trying to teach them to suck eggs, or that I'm speaking out of turn.

• Children (and by that I mean those between 7 and 14) who won't eat a whole piece of fruit, will do so if it's chopped up. I frequently core and quarter apples and love that girls who nibble a whole apple for a long time and ask if they can leave it, will eat 6 peices of chopped up apple.
• I've already mentioned satsumas, easier to peel for little fingers, sweet to eat, less pips and again as they're little - lots of our girls will eat 2
• If we can't get smaller ones, half a banana is sometimes enough
• Now I can't take credit for this one, but our Division Commissioner has been known to scoot around the local Greek supermarkets and get a watermelon cheaply that we can then hack into peices for elevenses - the girls devour this in the same way they do marshmallows!
• If seedless grapes are on special I chop them up into small bunches
• Chopped up fruit is dressed(?) sprinkled(?) with lemon juice. This was a Hugh F-W tip that I shamelessly adopted a year or two back. In the same way my two units go crackers for Tanfasticks, they love fruit with lemon juice on it.

On holiday we always always have bowls of fruit and jugs of squash and water that the girls are encouraged to help them to at any point. They don't have to ask, all they have to do is wash their mug up themselves. We use a cleverly titled 'mug bin' on camp - yes literally, but it's never been used for rubbish, full of beakers, mugs with handles that the girls can help themselves to so there's no having to find your plate bag if you're gasping thirsty.

To keep the fruit and squash cool, another tip - old, clean net curtains. Yes, really. Dampen it down in cold water, and cover the fruit bowls and juice jugs, then dip one end in a washing up bowl of cold water. Voila! Camp fridge

And also we're not perfect - threesies (yes, it's a word) are always a biscuit or little cake. On Guide camp the girls bring their own, home-made ones - extra snaps this year to Mia and Anoushka who made stunning cupcakes and chocolate cake respectively - and we all have that with our drink and break in the afternoon.

Just a quick note: I'm away from home this week and without pictures, but wanted to get this up before the end of term.  All pictures used are from Google images.

Preserves round up: home made and well preserved

I was chatting on twitter a while back about the preserving I've been doing (I'm waiting on my badge that says I'm preserves queen) and realised that since first attempting marmalade I've done a fair bit. Susan of A Little bit of heaven on a plate tweeted back to tell me about her post on preserving. So I thought I'd take the opportunity to link up with another blogger, and do a round up of everything I've been up to.

If you bear in mind that roughly this time last year I was too anxious of boiling sugar to do anything other than preserve some redcurrants in rum (and leave that shrub in the dark to steep, for ooh too many months to mention) I think the learning curve I've been on this year is fabulous. Most recently this hit home when I knocked up a sugar syrup for my Christmas cake fruit and barely even blinked. One of the best things about blogging is that you can see yourself growing and developing and being someone that spends most of my waking hours doing that with and for others, be they adults at work or Guides or Brownies in my free time, it's lovely to have that reflection about yourself.

I thought it might be useful as even with the search function and some fairly detailed tagging on my part I can't get everything to come up in an accessible fashion (another reason to go to WP perhaps?) to link to all my preserving posts - and I'll add to this post and link to it in the sidebar, so you can always find it as I do more.

So here's my round up of my preserves so far:

Green tomato chutney

Seville orange and whiskey marmalade

Strawberry jam

Gooseberry jam

Apple and mint jelly

Plum jam

Spiced redcurrant rum

Christmas is coming, the fruit is getting drunk

*ducks and hides*

I know Christmas isn't everyone's cup of tea, truth be told for the last few years it's not been mine. But this year I've decided to put on my big girl pants, and get involved. Clearly the hottest weekend of the year was the ideal time to start my prep (sense the tone).

Having my broadband back has meant I'm doing a lot more blog reading, and as always being late to the party means I've recently started following Ruth at The Pink Whisk and a couple of weeks back she posted here about putting her fruit into soak for her Christmas cake. This prompted me to get my posterior into gear and my friend Louise and I got organised.

I'm making three cakes - one for me, one for Mum and one for the Division Christmas do, Louise is making one. Clearly this called for one thing. Spreadsheet! Duly organised off we pottered. Lou was substituting figs for brazil nuts and almonds and we both added extra glace cherries in.

We're roughly following Ruth's quantities, although I did the brandy by eye and added in the juice of the oranges and extra spices, nutmeg, cloves and sweet mixed spice.

Ingredients:
Fruit
200g raisins
200g sultanas
175g dried figs, chopped
100g dates, chopped
55g glace cherries

Soak
55g caster sugar
55ml water
170ml brandy
Zest and juice of 1 orange
1 cinnamon stick
Half a nutmeg, grated
1 tsp sweet mixed spice
5 cloves

I have to say a year ago I wouldn't have attempted this, owing to the need to make a sugar syrup - and I'm really proud of the fact that this didn't phase me at all on Saturday, I just got on with it, making a sugar syrup and then cooling it slightly before adding it to the brandy, orange juice and spices.

It's living in the cupboard with my kilners of sloe gin that's nearly ready to strain into pretty bottles. I've stirred it every day this week and will soon start forgetting but it smells amazing already - really Christmassy and I get a little smile every time I haul it (it's heavy) out to stir.

We're planning on doing baked bean tin Christmas cakes with the Guides, so the week before half term will be doing this en masse and without alcohol! Wish us luck, I'll be sure to put some pictures up, and document our progress as we bake, marzipan and decorate.

Grazing at your desk? Offer from Groupon

A while back I reviewed my regular Graze box here A fantastic way (if you don't get sidelined like I did into the flapjacks!) to up your fresh and dried fruit intake, they are a convenient way to try a portion controlled approach to snacking healthily. If Mark were office bound I'd get them for him as he loves dried fruit, and needs a bit of a prompt to eat more fresh and this would be just the thing.

It's actually a good precursor to tomorrow's post on Nasi Goreng and packed lunches for the new academic year. Which for me is still a time for starting afresh despite being long out of school and college.

Anyway, Groupon have an offer on today for 4 Graze boxes for £5 for all new customers, which saves nearly £9. I know this isn't the sort of post I usually do, but in the interests of taking a bargain opportunity to help yourself be healthier I thought I'd post about the offer. Click here to take it up, and remember - even I could only kid myself the flapjacks were healthy for a little while!

Riverford veg box: Week four

I do like the veg box arriving, if it weren't for the email each week announcing my debit card being charged I'd persist with the view that it feels like a present arriving.

This week was a bit odd, truth be told. I felt so let down by last week's fruit bag that I really wasn't sure what to expect and was worrying about the content quite considerably. However, I needn't have worried as the produce that arrived was of a lovely quality. There's two things this week that I'm not sure what to do with. I wonder if you can guess what they are?

Blackcurrants
Melon
Salad bag
Cherry tomatoes
Courgettes
Head of broccoli
Bunched beetroot
Broad beans
Apples

I just had to go and check I hadn't forgotten some fruit, but nop that's everything. An easy to use week - Mark loves brocolli, as do I. And courgetti spaghetti is a firm favourite on our menu plan. Melon is lovely to use as a simple, fresh breakfast, and cherry tomatoes when not used up in lunches tend to be my 'hovering around the fridge' snack of choice.

A nice week, nothing explosively surprising, but all good quality and not overripe which is a key thing for me.

Next week a break - but week five will be back soon.

Spiced redcurrant Rum Tum Tugger

I have a Musical Theatre confession to make. I hate Cats. It terrifies me. I think it's the makeup. And the fact that it has Memory in it. Oh there are so many reasons. I could go on all day, but the opportunity to throw in a character name was too good to miss.

Last year, I randomly got a punnet of redcurrants in what I think was my last veg box before the move of doom. Much in the same way of last week's gooseberries, I had no idea what to do with them. I'm generally not a fan of meat and fruit on the same plate which were a lot of Google's suggestions. When I say not a fan, I actually mean slightly afeared and trepidatious. My foodie friends came up with some amazing suggestions, although I convinced myself that making jam required a sugar thermomenter so didn't try. Oh what a fool I was. What I did do though, was add them to alcohol! I know. I am contemplating this with all veg box leftovers from here on in. Swede sherry anyone?

Spiced redcurrant shrub

The recipe is called Currant Shrub, I just adapted it.
Stage one - to make the basic juice:
1kg redcurrants
400ml water
You don't have to top and tail the currants or even take them off their stalks. (Can you see why this recipe appealed to me?)
Wash them then put in the pan with the water and simmer until they are very soft and have released all their juices. This will take about 45minutes, I kept it on a low heat, but didn't stir.
Strain through a jelly bag (or muslin) for several hours, or overnight.

Stage two

300ml strained rudcurrant juice
600ml rum or brandy
finely grated zest of 1 orange
1 tbp grated nutmeg
300g granulated sugar

Mix the juice, rum/brandy, orange zest and nutmeg together in large widenecked jar. (I used a kilner)
You may find the mixture of acid and alcohol forms a gel. Don't worry the mixture will become liquid again when you add sugar.
Seal jar and leave for 7-10 days in cool, dark place. Surprisingly I used the pantry. I do have an admission to make. After moving (which was about 8 days after making this, I left it in the fridge for a while. A few months. Until this week)

Transfer the currant & alcohol mixture to a pan, add the sugar and heat gently to about 60oc. (I just brought it up to a gentle simmer stirring all the while so that I could feel when the sugar had dissolved.)
When sugar has dissolved strain the liqueur through the jelly bag or muslin. I fixed a muslin over the neck of a big kilner and let the mixture strain through that.
Decant the strained liquid into a sterilised bottle and seal. Store for several months in a cool dark place so the shrub can fully mature. Use within 2 years.

Riverford veg box: Week three

Last week I spoke to Riverford about the veg boxes I've been receiving. Even with the vast quantities of veg I eat I just wasn't getting through the whole box, and whilst it is value for money I had another issue with overripe fruit last week (the first week I had the same issue with pears, last week with nectarines - no compensation has been offered for these items, something interestingly Abel and Cole always did when I called to complain yet again). The discussion I had with the lady on the phone resulted in me opting to try alternating a fruit bag with my regular box on the week's between. Hopefully this would overcome my issue with not having enough room in the fridge for the veggies, and I wouldn't be stuck with no fruit in between times.

At the moment I've been supplementing the fruit and veg with potatoes for Mark, and bananas for both of us, as well as anything that partifularly grabs me owing to a special offer when I do the weekly shop. Part of me resents this, the other part accepts it as par for the course with a fruit and veg box - not being able to choose your contents means you are sometimes pleasantly surprised but may need to supplement with the things you need, be they for packed lunches or standard recipes.

Truth be told, at first glance I'm not that impressed with the fruit bag, 3 relatively dull types of fruit: grapes, satsumas and apples. The grapes, like all of the soft fruit I've been sent, need to be eaten today and are a small bunch - 300g. .  The apples and satsumas will hopefully last longer, and quanitity wise I would say that is perfect, 6 apples and 8 satsumas (I typically take an apple and two satsumas to work each day). I used Mysupermarket.c.uk to compare prices from my local supermarkets (and by local I mean the ones I can walk or take the bus to):

Tesco: £1.34
Ocado: £1.79
Sainsbury's &; Asda: £1.49

Bearing in mind that the fruit bag cost £6.45 - if we put Riverford's grapes on a par with Ocado's then we're looking at a cost of £4.66 for the apples and satsumas. This got me to thinking - what would be their cost at the local supermarkets too.

	Apples	Clementines	Total
Ocado	£      2.83	£        2.49	£    5.32
Tesco	£      2.25	£        1.50	£    3.75
Sainsburys	£      1.50	£        2.09	£    3.59
Asda	£      1.80	£        1.77	£    3.57
	Grapes
Tesco	£      1.34		£    5.09
Ocado	£      1.79		£    7.11
Sainsburys	£      1.49		£    5.08
Asda	£      1.49		£    5.06

I was surprised at just how much more Riverford are charging - and I've deliberately not compared them with Basics or Economy range fruit and veg as I didn't feel that would be a fair comparison. Interestingly with the exception of Waitrose (where I would automatically buy their Essentials range anyway) Riverford fruit is around £1.50 more expensive for the 3 types of fruit. Now obviously I am getting it delivered, which accounts for some of the cost, but I think for me the quality of the fruit is such that I can't justify this difference. I need fruit to last a week, to be fairly transport friendly - as well as fitting in to my budget. I think for me, this is just too much which is a shame. So, despite the convenience being a huge bonus for me, the fruit is going to have to go.

Next week, I'll do a similar compare and contrast with the veg, but truthfully I'm much happier with the veg box, so I'm hoping to be able to justify retaining that.

Riverford veg box: Week two

Well, last week's veg (with the exception of the pears) have lasted really well. I'm using up the greens tonight, the tomatoes and cucumber are going strong in packed lunch salads, and the mushrooms are waiting to be used up. What for I'm not entirely sure, I had some kind of inspiration about polenta cakes or something yesterday but can't remember where that was. I blame the meds as I'm trying to head off another migraine, and it's leaving me a bit groggy.

Excitingly I had no idea what to do with the gooseberries, so decided to live life on the edge and try making some jam - whilst entirely unsupervised. It was a success, set beautifully, tastes gorgeous and is a glorious colour. Photos to follow with excitable post. I did tweet throughout the process, and if you fancy being party to the occaisional overexcited rambling, click the follow me on twitter button to your left.

The aubergine was another matter entirely. They are still the work of the devil, pretty much ruining my gorgeous pasta bake surprise last week. The surprise is a middle layer of mozzarella. Pantry tip by the way - if you're cooking with mozzarella, then buy the cheaper options as in blind taste tests consumers can't tell the difference between the fancy and bargain when it's cooked. For tomato salads and the like, get as good as you can afford.

So this week, we have no aubergine - Hurrah! but we do have broad beans, which I know for many people are comparable to my loathing of aubergine. I'm actually quite excited, and utterly undecided about what I'm going to do with them as yet. Suggestions would be very welcome.

Bunched carrots - will probably be scrubbed and eaten raw with moroccan houmous. I love this, and actually the only thing I will voluntarily eat aubergine in is my houmous recipe.
Courgettes - so courgetti spaghetti will feature on next week's meal plan
Onions - I have to do something with onions, I feel like they're breeding in the veg drawer
Nectarines
Apples
Tomatoes
Peppers
Melon, I'll blatantly eat this for breakfast and will do nothing of any interest with it.

So another lovely box, save for one damaged nectarine and despite spending much of Tuesday in a darkened room being poorly I managed to have a lovely chat with my veg man. Apologies for no pictures of my produce, I can't make the camera turn on or find the charger.

So, lets see what next week shall bring - well I know actually - as I've still got so much veg to use up, I'm just getting a fruit bag. Fingers crossed for lots of fruity goodness. Or something.

Baked Bean Christmas cakes

Not literally, but we could have been. Thanks must go to Jules of The Butcher. The Baker (no longer a Domestic Goddess in Training we note!) who donated a sizeable portion of the ingredients, and several baked bean tins as well.


I should probably get the baked bean tin thing out of the way first. We wanted to make individual cakes, that the girls could make up in Patrols and I could cook for them (my oven's just that bit more reliable than the one at the Guide hut), and then after a period of resting and feeding with brandy, the girls could then marzipan and ice themselves. Research led me to the half sized baked bean tins as the perfect vehicle for such escapades and so across the country consumption of the delicacy increased considerably (perhaps I should ask Heinz for commission!) So, these are affectionately known as Baked Bean Christmas Cakes. Hopefully all is becoming clear.


I used a recipe from Imaginative Icing (thanks for that tip go to Libby of Caking Agent - seriously, how many bloggers can I namecheck in one post?!) as the site provided a variation depending on the size cake you were baking. As the baked bean tins were about 3 inches in diameter, I halved their smallest recipe to provide the ingredients per girl, and then multiplied it up for the number of Guides in each Patrol. This way each Patrol (we have Daffodils, Roses and Shamrocks) got to make up the quantity of cake mix they needed and then share it out into their tins (points go to Sharpie for making markers that stay on when baked at 180 degrees or I'd have had no hope at working out who's was whose!)


I have lovely spreadsheets, that are colour coded for each patrol showing quantities, but I'll just add a rough estimate of the ingredients for one patrol (roughly 6 girls) needed here.


Baked Bean Christmas Cake - Daffodil Patrol

450g currants
150g sultanas
150g raisins
120g chopped glace cherries
75g chopped mixed peel
75g chopped blanched almonds
1 lemon - rind only, grated
270g plain flour
1.5 tsp cinammon
3/4 tsp ground mixed spice
225g butter
225g light brown soft sugar
4.5 eggs (I used 4 extra large)
3tsp Black Treacle

Some action shots to go with the method


The girls creamed the butter, treacle and sugar (by hand - I tried to pretend this was to make authentic cakes, it was actually because I had forgotten my beaters)



We then added the eggs (with a tablespoon of flour for each egg to stop the mixture curdling) beating each in well



The flour and spices were seived in and mixed in thoroughly

All the fruit was then added and stirred in well (by this time the mixture is a little too stiff for small arms)

Everyone then has to have 1 stir and make a wish before spooning out the mixture into their greased and lined baked bean tins.

The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed that the next step was clearly marzipanning - there was a break of a month between these stages. In that period I baked the cakes (an hour and a half was slightly too long I found) and fed them with brandy fairly regularly. When I say fairly regularly I mean whenever I opened the cupboard, saw the brandy and thought "Oh I haven't fed the cakes lately!"

We then marzipanned the cakes, each girl rolling out her marzipan and smoothing it over the cake. It was at this point that I realised we should have turned them upside down so that they were beautiful and flat as my levelling efforts were, shall we say... efforts?

We finished, in true Guiding style, at the last possible moment, by icing them on our last meeting. I decided to keep the decoration simple, being primarily constrained by time, but also constrained by lack of skill in icing. Each cake was iced in white royal icing and had a ribbon pinned around it's base. We made homemade cake boards and each girl took her cake home, proud of her achievements. I still have the big one on my sideboard, waiting to be taken into work.

All in, a successful (if lengthy) project, maybe next year we'll do stained glass biscuits and tree decorations!