5532 A Day Guide: How to give baby a balanced diet every day

I received these rather handy booklets in the post from the British Nutrition Foundation. I thought I would share this info with you as I found it so helpful!

Quinoa Fish Fingers!

I made this recipe using leftover mix from the quinoa burger recipe. However added a few extra ingredients.

For this you will need:

1 cup quinoa, cooked in veg or chicken stock

1 cup broccoli boiled or steamed 

1 small sweet potato boiled or steamed

1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese

1 small portion of fresh salmon (I used salmon side)

1/2 small tin of mixed beans drained and washed

Breadcrumbs to coat

1 egg whisked

Mash the broccoli, sweet potato, beans, and cheese together. Mix into the quinoa. Then either finely dice or blend the salmon so its almost a paste and add to mix. Shape into patties or finger shapes.

Then dip the fish fingers/patties into the egg mixture and then coat in the breadcrumbs so it's evenly coated.

Transfer into a lined baking tray and cook at 180C until golden and fish is cooked through.

Quinoa Burgers!

I stole this recipe from @bubsbistro on Instagram! It's really easy to make, and tasty too!

For this you will need:

1 cup quinoa, cooked in veg or chicken stock

1 cup broccoli florets, boiled or steamed

1 small sweet potato, boiled or steamed

1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese

Mash all ingredients together in a bowl. Shape into patties and lay onto lined baking tray and cook at 180C in the oven until golden - easy!

These can also be frozen!

I also made homemade quinoa fish fingers with this recipe, which you can find here!

Easy Overnight Oats

This is a great breakfast meal as it can be prepared the night before, making breakfast time that little bit easier!

For this you will need:

Oats. I use plain rolled porridge oats. I usually but the supermarket's value version as not only are they cheaper, but contain no chemicals or other hidden extras! 

Fruit of your choice

Milk/yogurt/water etc

First fill your serving container with the amount of oats you want to use.

Then top with the yogurt/milk so it's covering the oats. 

I used Alpro Soya Almond Coconut Milk.

Then add your fruit and any other extras you want to soak with the oats. I used a couple of raspberries, some chia seeds (which expand in liquid anyway) and a squirt of maple syrup.

Then mix together, cover with cling film and pop in the fridge overnight. 

The following morning as you can see, the mixture is nice and thick (just how we like it!)

I then topped this with more raspberries, a few blueberries, more chia seeds and a sprinkle of mixed seeds. 

The flavour combination for this recipe is endless and it's a great meal to try out self feeding with a spoon! Hope you enjoy!

Sardine and Tomato Pasta

I'm not doing too well with these blog posts at the moment am I?! I will try to be a bit more efficient from now on! 

Anyway, this recipe was mainly inspired by a book we recently bought - Bart Van Olphen's 'Cooking With Tinned Fish'. It's a really great book with so many great ideas. 

Tinned fish is a great item for the store cupboard and can be used in so many ways. We usually keep tins of sardines or mackerel in the cupboard, however these days they come in a whole range of sauces, from tomato to curry! I find the plain flavoured ones and the tomato sauce ones are most used in our house!

For this recipe I used:

1/2 small onion

1 small carrot

1/5 of a butternut squash

1 tsp garlic paste

2 tbsp tomato purée

1 portion of wholewheat pasta

1 tin of sardines in tomato sauce

30ml vegetable stock

Olive oil

Method

Dice all of the veg into small pieces do they will cook together quickly. 

Open the tinned fish and remove any bones. The bones are soft and are edible, so you can leave them in but I preferred to remove them just in case! 

Cook your pasta as per the packet instructions. Meanwhile heat a little oil in a pan and add the veg and garlic paste. Fry lightly until they start to brown. Then add the stock and reduce to a simmer. Once the veg has started to become soft, add the tinned fish and tomato paste. Cook together until all veg is cooked through. Then add to the pasta and stir together... And that's it! This is a very adaptable recipe, next time I think I will add more veg and possibly bake it in the oven to crisp it up a bit like a pasta bake!

Apple and Pear Butter (Improved!)

I feel that the original pear butter recipe I posted isn't really very good as it was the first time I made it, and I have since tweeked and made it easier and better to make. So here is an updated version! 

This recipe is enough to make half a small jar of butter.

For this I used:

1 apple

1 pear

1 tbsp maple syrup (or agave nectar)

Half tsp cinnamon

Half tsp ginger

Splash lemon juice

Pinch nutmeg

Pinch ground cloves

Pinch salt

1 sterilised container to store it in

Method

Peel and cut your fruit into small pieces and place into a sauce pan. Add all the other ingredients and bring to the boil. Then reduce heat and simmer. Continue to stir and monitor the progress of the fruit cooking. The smaller the pieces have been cut, the quicker they will cook! Depending on this, this could take around 30 mins. Once fruit is cooked through, take off heat and leave to cool. Once cooled, blend up to the consistency of your choice. I like mine to still have a few lumps in! 

Then transfer into a sterilised container and keep for up to 3-5 days. This is such a great accompaniment to yogurt, toast, smoothie bowls, muffins etc. and is a great way to get your little one to eat fruit if they are fussy!   

(I like to keep my old almond/ peanut butter jars for these kinds of occasions!)

Chicken and Vegetable Stir Fry in a Peanut Butter Sauce!

This as per usual, was a bit of an experiment! I wanted to try out a bit of a different flavour stir fry with ingredients I already had... This resulted in using peanut butter! And it went down pretty well with my boy!

For this I used:

2 mini chicken fillets diced

2 tsp peanut butter (I used Meridian Foods smooth)

1 tsp lemon juice

1 tsp soy sauce

1/2 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp garlic paste

1/4 yellow bell pepper

1/2 small carrot

A few broccoli florets

A handful of peas (frozen)

A handful of spilt green beans (frozen)

1 portion of noodles or rice

Oil

First cut up chicken and marinate with peanut butter, lemon juice, ginger, garlic and soy sauce.

Meanwhile cut up your veggies. I cut up them up into match stick shapes to make it easier for the boy to grasp, but obviously cut to suit your child. Boil the noodles as per the packet instructions. 

In a separate pan or wok, heat up a little oil (sesame would be a good choice!) and add the veggies and chicken and any frozen veg (you can always add more of the sauce ingredients if the chicken marinade doesn't look as though it's going to cover the veggies!) Add the noodles and stir through. 

I made enough to freeze off a couple more meals, which is always useful!

Chicken and Apricot Curry (with loads of veggies!)

This was another one of my experiments, and I'm pleased that it worked out well!

For this you will need:

1 small white onion

1 clove garlic

1 tsp cumin

4 cardamom pods crushed

1 tsp ground coriander 

1/2 tsp fenugreek 

1 tsp mustard seeds crushed

1/2 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp crushed chilli flakes

1 tsp turmeric

Handful green lentils

2 apricots skinned and chopped

Handful spinach

Half pint reduced salt vegetable stock

Splash of lemon juice

1 small carrot

1 small potato

1 small disk of butternut squash 

2 tbsp tomato purée

1 tsp mango chutney

3 mini chicken fillets

Coconut oil

Method

Peel and dice potatoes, carrot, butternut squash and apricots. Dice into small pieces to allow them to cook quickly. Place to one side.

Cook lentils to packet instructions until they have half cooked. Meanwhile, dice onion and garlic clove and add to a pan with coconut oil and all spices. Fry on a medium heat for around 3-5 mins and add half of the stock. Then add the potatoes, carrot and squash and add more stock. Bring to the boil. Then add lentils, chicken, tomato purée, lemon juice and mango chutney. Reduce heat, add the spinach and leave until sauce has thickened and chicken and veg are cooked through. If sauce gets too thick, add more water rather than stock. This can be served with rice, naan breads, jacket potato... The choice is yours! This is definitely a meal for the whole family! 

Pea, Ricotta and Mint Quesadilla

This is my favourite flavour combination at the moment - perfect for summer! This is a Jamie Oliver recipe which I watched on his Food Tube channel. We ended up cooking two of the four meals for tea last night they were so good! 

This dish is perfect to top toast, as a sandwich filler, on pizza, as a pasta sauce... You name it! And it's really easy to make.

For this you will need 

Fresh mint leaves

Ricotta

Peas

Lemon juice

Pinch of salt and pepper (optional)

As I used garden peas in a pod, first take peas out of pods and leave to one side. I used about a handful of peas in total.  Pick leaves off mint (again about a handful) and put into pestle and mortar with rock salt. 

Then bash up into a paste. Then add the peas and bash until it forms a paste. Add a squeeze of lemon and half a tub of ricotta. 

Then spread over your tortilla and place a second tortilla on top. 

I then placed this into a warm griddle pan  to seal together (although this doesn't need to be cooked). And to be fair, just makes it look a bit more snazzy! 

And that's it!! It's so so good, I urge you to try it!