Easy meal for the baby and the whole family-Parmesan and Cod Fish Cakes

Introducing Morgan to solids has thankfully been a very good experience so far. She has already proven to be a good eater and has loved pretty much everything we have given her.  I have been very adventurous on what to feed her and have been pleasantly surprised at how quickly she has taken to it. I think we don't give babies enough credit for how quickly they learn. Being that she is only seven months old and doesn't have any teeth yet you would think that she wouldn't be able to chew her food and yet she has somehow mastered it. It is remarkable to watch her feed herself and to work on her problem solving skills.

I have also enjoyed the different meals that I have been trying so that she can eat dinner with my husband and I. This meal for example was the first time I had ever made fish cakes and I was excited at how delicious and easy they were to make. I think it is important to introduce your little one to a wide variety of foods as early as possible so hopefully when the toddler years come around they will be less likely to be a picky eater. I don't know this for a fact but it makes sense in my mind so I am sticking with it.

An easy and cheap way to enhance your homemade Chinese Meal-Scallion Pancakes

It is yet again one of my favorite days, Pancake Day! This year I learned why Shrove Tuesday, which is the day before Lent, is also called Pancake Day. In most traditions the day is known for eating pancakes before the start of Lent because pancakes are made out of the main foods available, sugar, fat, flour and eggs, whose consumption was traditionally restricted during the ritual fasting associated with Lent. Now I don't participate in Lent but I have no problem participating in Shrove Tuesday by eating pancakes.

But one thing that also love to do is to find a different way to celebrate instead of the traditional sweet pancakes. So today I decided to highlight a delicious, savory pancake that I use to enjoy when my family lived in China, Scallion Pancakes. This was always a favorite of mine when we would go out, but sadly I haven't had a lot of success finding a Chinese restaurant that serves them. I never thought about making them myself because I imaged that it would be a difficult task. I am here to say that it is incredibly easy! And it uses such simple ingredients that it is an easy and cheap way to compliment your home cooked Chinese meal. I found the inspiration for this recipe from a blogger that I deeply respect and admire, Nicky from Delicious Days. If you are a food blogger you really need to read her blog, not only is the photography and writing wonderful but she has a lot of good advice about how to grow and develop your food blog.

Discovering two different meanings for biscuits

My home has becoming quite an infusion of traditions ever since I married a Brit, and I love it. Marrying someone from another culture has helped push me to try new things and has has opened my eyes to new tastes and even new names for ingredients.  If you said you were having a biscuit to someone here in the UK they would think of what as an American I would call a cookie. But when someone says biscuits to me I immediately think about this buttery, warm pastry with strawberry jam; one of my favorite breakfast treats. Thankfully my husband agrees that these are a must keep tradition so now in my home we have two different kinds of biscuits. For me this is the best recipe I have come across and I am delighted to share it with you. I hope for all of my UK readers that you too can enjoy too different kinds of biscuits in your home.

Chocolate Dipped Valentines Cookies

Happy Valentines Day to you. Up until now I had never really paid much attention to this day. A day that was created for the sake of commercialization just didn't scream love to me. But my sister pointed something out to me that has changed my attitude about this day. She said it is what you make of it. Yes there are commercials on tv that tell you what this day is about and how you need to celebrate it, but today is a day to celebrate love, no matter how that love looks like. My sister for example, she works with special needs kids and her and her teachers are trying to teach the kids to love each other and giving them creative art projects that are helping them express that love. You see it doesn't need to be an over commercialized day, having a day that we set aside to remind us to show the people around us that we love them can be a very good thing. 


Today I wanted to make sure that I let my amazing husband know that I love him. But today was also a difficult day as I only arrived home at 6am after a 21 hour traveling journey with a seven-month-old. So I knew that I wouldn't have a lot of energy today. So on Sunday I spend some time making these Valentines Day cookies so that when I arrived today I was able to present a token of my love to the one I love very much. 

Caramelized Onion, Mushroom and Bacon Stuffed Burger

There is something about the smell of charcoal on a hot summer day that creates such a perfect day for me. So even though it has been a rather mild winter, I can't wait for the cold weather to go away and for the sun to feel warm on my skin again. At the first hint of good BBQ weather I plan on throwing a party so I can enjoy this delicious burger hot off the grill.  This is an easy way to make in impressive gourmet burger and you really could use any stuffing ingredients that you want. The key is to make sure the pieces are small so it is easy to fold into the patty.

Aubergine Parmesana

A little over three years ago I was visiting my, then fiance's, family in England. We were traveling to a family wedding and to pass time on the drive we played the game 20 questions. It was my turn and I decided that my word would be 'eggplant'. So the questions began, they had it narrowed down to the fact that it was a vegetable and that it was purple but still no one seemed to be able to guess it. After a while of being confused as why it was stumping everyone my mother-in-law asked, 'is it an eggplant?'. Exasperated I said yes, that is when she informed me that in this country it is called an aubergine. They had answered aubergine several times but seeing as how I had no idea what that was I didn't realize that they had answered correctly. Funny how we can speak the same language and yet still sometimes fail to understand each other.

Simple Chicken Enchilada Casserole

On Friday I am taking Morgan with me to visit my parents in Nashville, Tennessee. It will be my little six-month old's first plane trip and I am doing it solo so I am a little nervous. Right now going through my mind are all the times that I have been on a plane with a small baby who wouldn't stop crying, I remember thinking to myself that I wished the parents would just make it stop. Now that I am a mom, I have so much empathy for that parent. I guess you don't really understand until you are a parent yourself. All I can do is prepare as best as I can, bringing her favorite toys and food, and hope that mommy cuddles and breastfeeding itself will help keep her calm.

With all of that on my mind, I am in need for some distraction; good, simple, comfort meals. The first one that came to my mind was something that is going to get me ready for my trip, Mexican Food!! I am so excited to step off that plane and eat my fill of Mexican food as well as enjoy some El Salvadorian food as there is an amazing place in Nashville that makes Papusas. Latin American food is not a cuisine that can easily be found here in the UK and it isn't all that surprising as it isn't a huge immigration destination. I have a secret that I will share and that is I have decided that I am going to open a Taco Restaurant here in Newbury. I will start off small at first, opening a taco stand in the market but in the next three to five years my gold is to open my first restaurant! Which is very exciting.

But now I have gotten myself distracted; today's recipe is a simple Enchilada Casserole. When I was living in the States I would always buy my Enchilada sauce from the store, but being that I live somewhere that doesn't have that I had to do some research on how to make it from scratch. I am happy to say it isn't hard at all and to be honest even if I could get enchilada sauce at the store I think I would choose to make it from scratch any way.

What to do with the leftover Brandy Butter

Christmas is long behind us but I do have one last ingredient that is still in my fridge, and until now I had no idea what to do with, brandy butter. We make brandy butter to serve with Christmas pudding and yet very little of it ends up being used. I tried to do some research on ideas of what to do with it and I am sorry to say I was bored with the results. Most people said use it to make brandy butter ice cream but that sounded way too rich for me and besides I was already leaning towards using it in a baked good. So after striking out from my research I decided that I would just do my own thing and see if it works.

Chris and I had recently bought some white chocolate chip cookies that I found delightful and I had been thinking about trying to recreate them. I have only recently been enjoying chocolate and white chocolate, up until now I never cared for the taste of either but ever since giving birth I have discovered some changes to my taste buds that I have enjoyed exploring. So I thought, why not try substituting some of the sugar and the butter for my brandy butter and see how it turns out. Now when it comes to cooking I have no fear about my substitutions. But baking is more of a science and it can be far more risky when you choose to substitute an ingredient, but you never know until you try. It took some tweaking with the cooking times and temperature but the result was worth it. I am going to be very honest here and say I have no idea exactly what using the brandy butter achieved for me, but it was a great way to reduce waste of an ingredient. Plus I got to eat cookies with my tea, no what could be better then that?

Easy melt in your mouth roast chicken

Have you ever made a meal that made yourself stop and say 'Wow this is amazing'? Every once in a while I surprise even myself, especially when that surprise comes from a near disaster. This latest delightful recipe can in the form of a roast chicken. The night started off on a bad note when I went to prepare what was going to be a Chinese inspired roasted chicken, only to discover that I didn't have any more rice wine nor any thing that could be substituted for it. Frustrated but stuck with a defrosted chicken that needed to be cooked I had to come up with something else. I will confess, my disappointment about the discovery of the lack of ingredients left me a bit stumped for ideas of what to do. Sometimes when I get so focused on one idea I have a hard time coming up with a new one and it is often those nights I get frustrated and we go out to eat. But I was determined to come up with something good. I was starting to run out of time to have it all prepared in time for dinner so I came up with a less fuss recipe that I hoped would yield juicy results without having to do things like brining the bird beforehand. I am pleased to say that the result was better then I had imagined and definitely made up for the failure of the first idea.
 

 

Easy meal for 2: Minced Beef and Veggies over Cousous

After such heavy meals and large portions my husband and I are working to curb our increased appetite, and one of the ways to do that is to cook just enough for two portions without leftovers. We try to be self-disciplined to only eat the portion size that we should but we are often guilty of cleaning up the dish. So I am often experimenting with easy meals that only cook up enough for the two of us. This dish came from me trying to use up an odd assortment of veggies that I had leftover from two other recipes. What are tricks that you have come up with to try to make sure that you don't over eat?

Lentil Tomato sauce that the whole family will enjoy

I shared at the end of last year that I was going to be incorporating more recipes that are good for the whole family including a weaning baby. Baby weaning dishes can pretty much be anything we eat minus the salt. The key to remember is less is more, the fewer ingredients in the recipe the easier it is to control what the baby eats. Our weaning journey with Morgan has been mostly baby led weaning, which means that we don't puree her food and allow her to feed herself. But right now in these early stages of feeding she hasn't quite mastered getting food to her mouth all of the time so I always make sure I feed her the first few bites and then let her play. It has been amazing to see how quickly her chewing ability has grown. Many people worry about babies choking on foods so they rely sole on pureed foods until they are older. But with careful thought to how the food is prepared and placed in front of them you will be amazed at what a baby can achieve in such a short amount of time. More often then not the early 'choking' that you see a baby do is actually a gag reflux. A babies gag reflux is triggered further forward from the air way then an adults in order to actually prevent a baby from choking. So when a six- or seven-month-old baby gags it doesn't necessarily mean the food is too close to the airway or that the baby is choking. Once this reflux has been triggered several times the baby learns not to put so much food in their mouth and it also teaches them to not push too big of a chunk into the back of the throat. It can be hard for a parent to watch but it is actually an important learning stage in their life and if they have to learn it at some point I say the earlier the better. When Morgan first started trying to eat food almost every other bite would go to the back of her throat and cause her to start gagging and then she would throw the food up. But after only a few weeks of eating food she has learned not to allow the food to go that far back in her mouth when it is so big and even when she does gag now it isn't as bad and she manages to dislodge the food without throwing up.

Even if you don't feel that baby led weaning is right for you make sure that you carve out some time for the baby to play with some food while sitting in their highchair. It is amazing how much learning goes on during these play times. I have watched Morgan problem solve how to pick up the slippery banana and get it to her mouth without squishing it in her hand, it is a wonderful, messy activity for you both to enjoy together.

This recipe came from my desire to create a pasta sauce that Chris and I could enjoy with Morgan and also one that would be healthier then the typical meat pasta sauces. This lentil tomato sauce was so delicious and meaty it tasted like there actually was meat in it and all three of us really enjoyed it.

Using that last bit of leftover stuffing in a delicious Chicken and Broccoli Casserole

So there is only one last ingredient, leftover from my holidays and that is my cornbread stuffing. I use to really struggle with ideas about what to do with my leftover stuffing, until two years ago when on a whim I decided to use it instead of pastry on a meat pie, the result was amazing. Now I am sure I am not the first person to come up with this idea but up until that point I had never thought about it. But ever since then I have had a lot of fun using up stuffing, so much so that I actually make too much on purpose just so I can have the leftovers. I have used it in replacement to breadcrumbs in dishes like a Chicken Bake and have come up with a new casserole dish every year.

It is interesting to me, that something as ordinary as leftovers can become such a fun traditional challenge. It's amazing to see how much I have grown in my cooking skills since the first time I started to push myself to be more adventurous. I use to be very dependent on recipes, if I couldn't find a recipe on how to do it I would have never even thought to give it a try. But as the years go by I have found my confidence at just throwing ingredients together has greatly improved. To be honest I think that cooking is a lot more to do with confidence then it is to do with skill. Once you have the confidence to give it a try all it takes is practice and you will find that each time it gets better and better. I have found that these days 90% of my experiment dishes turn out as a success, while only 2 years ago that figure would have probably been around 50%. Yes sometimes you have an odd meal that isn't your best but think of it this way, the more you experiment the better you will get. And more experimenting means a wider variety of dishes coming out of your kitchen and that is the best way I have found to stop the family from wanting to eat out. When your cooking is better and has more variety then a restaurant does it will mean that it can get harder to convince people to want to eat out, it isn't an impossible dream for your cooking abilities. The other day I finally convinced my husband that I was tired and didn't want to cook so we went out, and after his first bite he grumpily said, 'You could make this better and it would have cost less'. Oh well!

Creamy Ham and Pea Risotto without using Cream

Happy New Year! It's hard to believe that an entire year has passed and a new one has just begun, where does the time go? I remember as a kid thinking that it always took forever to get to Christmas but these days I can't believe how quickly the time goes. Just when I start getting use to writing 2011 all of a sudden I need to start writing 2012. It's amazing how your perspective of time changes when you get older.

I hope that everyone had a fantastic Christmas and New Years. And I am sure everyone has eaten more food then one person should really consume in that short of a time frame. I know I feel like I put on 10 pounds this Christmas season. Lots of rich foods and tons of sugar delights. Not only did I probably eat too much in the last two weeks but I am also tired from all of the prep and cooking I did for so many large meals. So not only am I looking for lighter meals for the next few weeks, I am ready to find some easier meals to prepare. I still have some leftovers from the holiday season so my first step is to make sure that I use those up, wasting food is wasting money so I try to utilize each and every ingredient.

I ended up with rather a lot of leftover ham and I was inspired by a friend to try make a risotto. Risotto is one of those dishes that is very easy to make just a little time consuming because it does require you to stir constantly. But it has become a favorite of mine so I don't mind the extra work. But seeing as how I am trying to keep to a lighter meal plan I decided to avoid the creams and cheeses that often goes into a risotto and focused on allowing the natural starches in the arborio rice to provide the creaminess while the leftover ham brought a salty richness to it. Although a small sprinkle of Parmesan on top I am sure isn't too bad.

While this dish isn't good for babies just weaning feel free to give it to a toddler to enjoy with you.