English Muffins

These English muffins were a hit with Izzie who seems to have grown tired of toast for breakfast.

The recipe was taken from Gill Rapley's The Baby Led Weaning Cookbook, where I always go back for basic baby-friendly recipes. You can actually find the recipe here. It's very easy but it takes a while, so make sure you have plenty of time.

English muffins are so versatile, you can even use them as buns for a burger, so it's worth keeping a few in the freezer.

See them in action with my version of Eggs Benedict.

Almond & Apricot Scones

Great with the No Sugar Jam these scones will sweeten your little ones afternoon.

Makes 6 small scones.

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cup of Self-Raising Flour
1/4 cup Ground Almonds
1 Tbsp Baking Powder
50 g Coconut Oil set or cold
100 g Dates
1/4 cup of (dairy-free) Milk
6 dried apricots chopped

Preparation:
Pre-heat the oven at 220 C.

In a medium bowl, sieve the flour and baking powder. Add the ground almonds. Mix in the coconut oil with your hands until you achieve the consistency of breadcrumbs.

In a food processor, blend the pitted dates with the milk until the dates are chopped and mixed in with the milk. Add this mixture to the breadcrumb mix until you achieve a soft dough slightly wet. If needed, add teaspoons of milk.

Finally, add the chopped apricots.

Lightly flour a surface area and stretch your dough to the height of 2 cm. Using a 5 cm round cutter, cut rounds. Repeat until there's no dough left.

Place the scones on a baking sheet lined or greased and put then in the oven for 12 minutes or until golden brown.

Raw Raspberry Jam (No Sugar, no Pectin, no Cooking)

My girl loves fruit but berries were always her least favourite, so I've been thinking of different ways of adding berries to her meals. An easy way was to use jam but this was not ideal because not only had the fruit have to be boiled (thus losing nutrients) but I'd also need sugar or to add pectin. Then, I was mind-blown by this No Pectin Refrigerator Jam which uses chia seeds to set the jam! I couldn't have been happier. Izzie loved it too!

It has some crunch due to the raspberry seeds and the chia seeds. I'm thinking of sieving the raspberries and grinding the chia seeds just to see how it turns out. After all, I don't want Izzie to become one of those people who only like seedless jams.

Coconut Panna Cotta (Dairy Free and Sugar Free)

For Easter, I wanted to make a light fresh dessert we could all have. I had read some time ago about panna cotta using coconut milk, so I had to try it as Izzie loves her homemade coconut milk yogurt. I garnished with a simple raspberry coulis with a teaspoon of honey but this won't be needed if your fruit is sweet enough.

Coconut Panna Cotta (serves 3)

Ingredients:
1 can of full fat Coconut milk (over 60% coconut minimum)
2 tsp of Agave Syrup or honey
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp Agar Agar flakes

Preparation:
Melt the milk in the pan on a low heat. Add the syrup, vanilla extract and Agar Agar and keep stirring for around 5 minutes. Don't allow the mixture to boil. Turn off heat and sieve the mixture into a jug to get rid of any flakes that didn't melt completely.

Pour the mixture into 3 ramekins lined with cling film (this allows you to remove the panna cotta without any risk of accidents. Leave in the fridge to set for at least 2 hours.

Serve with fresh fruit or coulis of your choice.

*Meal Idea* Eggs Benedict (or a vegetarian, healthy, baby-friendly version)

What's not to like? Homemade English muffins, poached egg and whatever else you can think of. In our case, we added mushroom sauce (mushrooms in Oat Cream with paprika), guacamole, blanched mangetout and kale lightly fried in coconut oil. For a splash of colour I added a smudge of our own fermented red cabbage rubykraut.

The portion might have been overestimated for my snacker but the egg and the muffin went down a treat!

Red Kidney Beans Falafel

This is a super easy falafel recipe. It's yummy and we have used it to stuff pittas and complement couscous salads.

Makes 6-8 falafel.

Ingredients
1 can of red kidney beans drained
2 garlic cloves chopped
1/2 teaspoon of turmeric
1 teaspoon of cumin
1 spring onion sliced
1 tablespoon of plain flour
1 handful of chopped coriander
Olive oil to grease the baking sheet and brush the falafel

Preparation
Pre-heat the oven to 200C.

In a large bowl combine all of the ingredients and mix until it forms a "dough".

Grease a baking sheet by lightly brushing it with olive oil. Shape the bean mixture into small balls. Place them on the baking sheet and brush them with a little oil.

Bake them in the oven for about 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Rosemary & Thyme Mini-Crackers

I've been looking for a savoury cracker recipe for a while. Unfortunately, most crunchy crackers have some sort of cheese to add texture and as we're dairy-free, we had to settle for a more cream cracker crunch.

The thinner you roll them, the crunchier they will be. Izzie was a bit suspicious of them at first but they soon became a staple of her snack plate.

Rosemary & Thyme Mini-Crackers

Ingredients:

175 g self-raising Flour
Pinch of Salt
1 tsp fresh Thyme, finely chopped
1 tsp fresh Rosemary, finely chopped
75 g Vegetable Margarine, diced
1 egg


Preparation:

Pre-heat the oven to 200º C.

Put the flour and salt in a bowl and rub in the margarine until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs. Add the rosemary and thyme, the beaten egg and mix it until the dough is soft.

Turn out on to a lightly floured surface and knead gently until smooth. Roll out to a thickness of 3mm.

Use a small cookie cutter to cut into rounds. Knead together whatever dough is left, roll again to the same thickness and cut dough. Repeat until there is no more dough left.

Place on a baking sheet and bake for about 12 minutes.

I keep them in an airtight contained lined with parchment paper and they keep for about a month.