the things not said

In one of my previous blogs I said I hated eggs so it may come as a surprise that essentially I’ve cooked an omelete for my children.  I’m pretty shocked I went for it myself but not as shocked as I was when my children LOVED THEM.  Which is why I have decided to recommend it, I mean who knew!

This recipe is from the River Cottage Baby & Toddler Cookbook.  This is a good book and they don’t shove their organically charged aspirations down your throat as much as you may think.

As they say, you can put in almost any vegetable into this recipe and I would also be tempted to add in crispy bacon, chorizo or cooked chicken.  What I’ve written below is my adaption of the recipe – if you want the original, buy the book you probably won’t regret it.

Recipe:

350g new potatoes (cooked)

2 tbsp olive oil

1 yellow pepper

8 cherry tomatoes

Handful of frozen corn

Handful of frozen peas

Bunch of spring onions

5 eggs

100g hard cheese (I mixed Cheddar and Parmesan)

Chop up the potatoes into cubes, cover with water and bring to the boil.  Simmer until tender. Lightly beat the eggs and season.  Heat the oil in a frying pan, add the spring onions and peppers and fry for five minutes, until soft and browned round the edges. Add the cubed potatoes and toss around until crisped up.  Add the peas and corn.  Finally add the cherry tomatoes chopped in half. Make sure the ingredients are distributed evenly around the pan.

Now pour in the beaten eggs.  Don’t move the egg around, just keep the pan over a medium heat and let it set slowly.  After around five minutes, the base of the frittata will be set but the top will be wet.

Sprinkle the cheese over the top then put the frittata under the grill for 3-5 minutes, until cooked through and golden brown on top.  This is best served warm.  My children got to have ketchup with it, when they’re older I would make a salad.

Notes:

I cooked this at lunchtime when I have a little time (pre-dinner time is generally an outing to the park or play in the house so no time for beating an egg!) wrapped it in foil and then put it under the grill for another five minutes to heat up before we ate.

Obviously you could make this, let it cool, wrap it up and present it for lunch the next day.

They both enjoyed eating it with their fingers and dipping each mouthful in tomato sauce – messy but plates were cleaned – job done.

This recipe is very basic and therefore adaptable.  I am just giving you one example but there are many variants. It’s really more a principle that I am sharing here, which is, if you want to get vegetables into your children, have soup at lunch time.  My little boy has been harder than his sister to wean, and I cried a lot weaning her.  One of Jackson’s top three annoying-to-feed features is he doesn’t want to eat vegetables or fruit so I have to adapt.  I make fruit puree which he eats every breakfast with yogurt and five days out of the week we will have vegetable soup at lunch time.  This may change when we get into the hotter months.

I generally use three vegetables from the following; carrot, swede, leek, parsnip, sweet potato, pepper, tomato, squash, pumpkin.

This is the soup for the next few days (I make a batch and don’t worry if I serve it two days in a row – it’s only lunch).

(I will try to improve my food photography!)

Recipe:

Olive oil or butter

1-2 cloves of garlic (chopped)

3 carrots, 1 parsnip, 1/2 a swede (chopped)

450 ml of chicken or vegetable stock (don’t use the low salt stuff, your child eating vegetables is the priority here)

Heat the fat for 20 seconds in a pan. Add in the garlic and stir for two minutes. Add all the vegetables and stir for one minute. Add the stock and bring to the boil.  Once bubbling, turn down the heat so it simmers and leave for 45 minutes until the vegetables are nice and soft. Turn off heat and leave to stand for 10 minutes.  Get a stick blender and blend until smooth and thick (you will need to use your judgment on if you need to remove or add liquid before you blend).  Serve with granary bread or toast.

Notes.

I make two batches a week and I make it in the morning so I can have the first lunch from it on the same day it’s made.  Then I put it in a Tupperware in the fridge and heat up portions for lunches later in the week.

I make it in the morning, after breakfast because once it’s all in the pan simmering, I can go off and get the children ready, have a shower and tidy the kitchen in the time it’s cooking, then I just blend and leave it on the hob when we leave the house for the morning.

It’s great to take out, heated in a flask with a couple of slices of buttered bread.

If you use parsnip, add a teaspoon of sugar as it can be bitter.

On the days when we have had vegetable soup, if my one year old swerves the vegetables served in the evening meal I don’t sweat it because I know he’s had three already that day.   That said I always offer him at least 2-3 more vegetables within his evening meal, because one day he will choose to love them or, once he understands words, he will be forced to love them, whichever comes first.