WOW - more new stuff

Dh let me know in advance, rarely happens!, that he was going to be late home from work so I decided we would eat later and the kids could have fish fingers. I fried them as it was quicker than the oven although I wouldn't do that all the time as they are more greasy. But 2 still got devoured in very short time. With potatoes & carrot and, WOW, sweetcorn! I had cooked it and peas for Luke so thought I would try Naomi with them. The pea's reception was lukewarm but the sweetcorn was going down as if it were blueberries like last week. I guess because it lives up to its name!

And she allowed a few pieces of the pineapple that Luke was having for pudding also. It was in syrup because that's all I could get at the time but at least she ate it!

I was beginning to wonder as she didn't eat very much breakfast, having not had all that much dinner last night, but she wolfed Laughing Cow cheese & cucumber sandwiches for lunch so I guess she knows what she is doing and we just have to go along with it!

still no to mince

My choice today so I went through the freezer and found loads of 'bits' of spag bol. Put them all in the same saucepan for tea. After all we need to defrost both the freezers so its good to start running them down.

Unfortunately Naomi decided it was STILL the food of the devil and refused to eat it after one mouthful that identified what it was. That said she didn't eat much at all. I gave her gnocchi in cheese sauce which should have been devoured in seconds but wasn't. She didn't want pudding either. She slept through the night though. Maybe she was just tired out. She woke up early and dozed on and off for a few hours and then when I went to wake her during her nap so we could go out to a special music group she was already awake.

But she and Luke loved the music time. Now she is crawling it is SO much fun. She goes off and gets a percussion instrument and can stand up to play or shake something. She is SO cute!

dh back at work

It is so lovely having DH at home and he loves it SO much. I wish we could win the lottery so he didn't have to work at all. So we are back to boring breakfasts and lunches as I get very samey with what goes on!

For dinner Luke chose quiche. Not at all exciting but very easy.

chinese chicken

We had BIL staying over last night so didn't go to church this morning. Weather was lovely so had a lazy day in the garden.

DH cooked chinese chicken for dinner which both children adore. So no problems there then :-)

Naomi's first pasta

We have my husband's brother staying the night as he is over from Spain on holiday. As DH has been away all week we were going to go out anyway and don't change our plans. So teatime finds us in Pizza Express, Luke's absolute favourite. As usual we decide to feed Naomi a combination from our plates so DH has his favourite pizza and I decide to have pasta. I usually have cannelloni but Naomi's pasta issues have all been to do with chewing and even though she has cut her top 2 front teeth and they have come through incredibly quickly, I settle on the tortellini. It promises to come in a ham, mushroom & cream sauce which I know she will love as she's had similar a number of times in our favourite pub.

The tortellini are large bite size in Naomi's terms and I put a couple on her plate after they have cooled. In they go and they do not reappear! This is wonderful news. I have longed for Naomi to eat pasta because its such a staple in our diet and its yummy. Italy is one of my favourite places and I really want to take the children there.

So she has bits of DH's pizza, bits of Luke's and more and more pasta. Yahoo! Obviously it is baked pasta and so I might need to think of doing some of our dishes along these lines for a little while but it bodes SO well.

Maybe her first birthday did bring a sea change after all, although her sleeping through has gone to pot a bit. Can't decide if its teeth, the weather or something else we cannot yet diagnose. C'est la vie. IT WILL PASS!

more rice and a fruit success!

Yesterday Luke asked for chicken pesto but it was too late to cook it as it takes 90 mins to prep and cook. So I said I would do it today. Both children absolutely love it and its so easy.

Basically you put enough chicken for 4 people in a dish (roasting tin or something like a lasagne dish) and add a chopped onion, chopped mushrooms, a bit of pepper or any other veg you fancy. Then 6oz of rice, 2oz of raisins, 1pt of chicken stock and a 190g jar of pesto. Cook at 180 degrees for an hour or until all the liquid is absorbed. Taste the rice. If its still a bit chewy - brown rice might be - cover with foil so the top doesn't burn. Make sure you put the chicken in the dish first because any rice trapped underneath won't cook. Thigh & drumstick meat comes out really really soft and unctious but breast is fine too. Yum yum.

For pudding all this week we've been having strawberries as we all enjoy them. This morning, while shopping, I grabbed some blueberries too and I decided to give Naomi one. Well, it went in and didn't come out. So I put another one on her tray and she ate that. In total she must have had about TEN. Yes TEN blueberries! Regular readers will know this is something unheard of so I am absolutely delighted.

tasty tasty but not food

As the week goes on I am running out of ideas a bit. The kids haven't had sausages for a while so I cook up some of these with some savoury rice. Naomi has gone rice bonkers lately and so I make sure she eats some sausage and veg first. As with gnocchi, once she has seen the rice it all has to be eaten before she will then go back to anything else.

Earlier in the afternoon though Naomi decided to help herself to an interesting snack from her changing bag! Fortunately they are green flushable ones and not tested on animals.

Little minx!

baking day

Tomorrow is Cake Sale Day at ds's school. They are raising money to build another rain shelter in the playground and all sorts of events have already gone on, this being the latest. DH is usually the baker in this house & loves having Luke to help. But there is no time for that this week and so I have to get my pinny on. We make raisin biscuits as its a really easy recipe and I can't make anything for which I don't have the ingredients because Naomi is sleeping and so I can't leave the house. So it's actually a recipe for chocolate chip cookies but I know that DH has doctored it before. We still taste 'just to check'.

So at the same time we make another bacon & egg loaf. It is a big favourite and I only have a couple of slices left in the freezer anyway. Naomi would eat a whole loaf if I let her!

simple food

DH is having a 5hr round trip (door to door by train) every day this week to a different site office so although he's trying to help out as much as ever, I have to feed the children because he's getting home so late.

So today I cook a quiche for ds and we eat it later. He's just got into eating salad which is great and EASY! So Naomi has her own pie & quiche from the freezer stock with carrot & broccoli and new potatoes.

I must start making my own quiche and then we can all eat the same one.

mixed bits and pieces

Today should be Luke's first day back at school after half term but its an Inset Day. His old preschool are going to Legoland so I decide to go too, along with, or so it feels, the entire county of Berkshire. It is HEAVING.

Because I only decided this morning, not wanting to take the kids if it's going to be too hot, I haven't got any food plans and so eat in the restaurant. This is woefully overpriced and so I try and avoid it wherever possible usually. I pay far too much money for a very sad ploughmans but at least it has bread and cheese that I can give to Naomi. I also buy some breaded chicken for her, intending to take off most of the coating, but it seems stuck somehow and so I have no choice but to give it to her. But its made from real chicken, you can see by the texture and the way it tears and however they have been cooked, they are nice and dry, not at all greasy. And she ate so well over the weekend its not so bad once in a while.

I make her a veggie omelette for tea which disappears in seconds, even though I'm not as good at making them as DH.

its sunday so it must be roast time

We often have roast on a Sunday but its usually chicken so we decided to get some pork instead. Failed and failed to order it from the butcher so got it from Sainsburys, which was fine as it was a whole piece still vacuum wrapped from the supplier. But it meant no fat to make crackling :-(

We've tried Naomi on pork in the past and she's found it a little bit chewy but we checked the timings in the cook book and it was very very yummy. Soaked in a little bit of gravy she managed absolutely fine, really really enjoying it. DH also bought a parsnip and some sweet potato for variety and they were also wolfed.

And it was nice enough weather to eat it outside. What more could one want?

weekend downtime

Dh is going to be very very busy work wise the next two weeks so we decided to try and potter today whilst getting stuff done. I had a lie in, lovely!, while DH & the kids breakfasted on the patio. Porridge & banana were, as usual, made short work of. Then we went and bought DH some new running shoes in a nearby village before heading back into town.

This took us up to lunchtime so we went to Costa Coffee and Naomi munched her way through half a pack of egg mayo sandwich and half a pack of tuna mayo. They had no highchairs so she remained in her pushchair, eating SO daintily. Hardly any of it went anywhere except her mouth, even though she kept kicking against the retainer bar so that she slumped down. Looked more like a teenager reclining on a sofa ha ha.

For dinner DH made chicken goujons. Strangely enough Naomi only ate one, albeit a decent sized one, and refused the others. Maybe she didn't like the coating, I'm not sure. They were yummy though! Strawberries for pudding are never refused, unlike the raspberry we again tried her with. Straight in and straight OUT again! I am determined to keep going though. She refused strawbs the first few times we gave them to her and now she inhales them whole. We'll put some in her breakfast tomorrow so that she can have another taste mixed in with something she does like.

busy busy busy - its birthday time

This last week has been really busy! My baby turned 1. Eek! She is a baby no longer but a proper little girl. To be truthful she's been turning into one of those for quite a while now. She has a great sense of humour and now she's on the move she just doesn't look like a baby any more.

We had a big family party and she happily munched her way through the buffet twice! Helped by cutting her two top front teeth. Her other bottom one is nearly here also so she will soon have four and hopefully the food world will then be her oyster.

So here are just a few pictures from the big day. She never seems to like cake so I didn't have the camera handy when we gave her some. Predicatably she wolfed it! It was layers of victoria sandwich with chocolate buttercream and this yummy yummy chocolate icing made from boiling cream and melting in dark chocolate until you like the taste. It then firms up into chocolate fudge in the fridge which you spread over and then put the whole cake back in the fridge if you aren't going to be eating it in the next few hours. I made mine the day before and found that adding some orange juice to the cake mixture stopped it from going claggy.

Naomi is such a carb loader that I think she's going to be a marathon runner like her dad! So here she is enjoying, as ever, some lovely yummy french bread.

She had a wonderful day with lots of lovely presents and attention.

So I leave you with my favourite picture of the day of my gorgeous gorgeous little cutie!