A First Attempt with the Slow Cooker... Whole Chicken Crock Pot

For a good few years now people have been telling me I MUST get a slow cooker and my Facebook quite often shows me status' of people who have just "chucked" this or that is their slow cooker and it's smelling AMAZING. For the record no one "puts" food in a slow cooker... It's ALWAYS "chucked".

So with the intention that this is going satisfy a long standing curiosity, broaden my cooking repertoire and produce lovely, flakey, tender meat perfect baby led weaned babies to "gum up" I got myself a slow cooker at the weekend.



I got myself (from Sainsburys) a Morphy Richards 5L Slow Cooker. I double checked the insides could go in the dishwasher and paid £49.99. I'll be honest I didn't do a lot of research. This seemed around the price I had in my head, though I am aware you can go as low as £30 for them. It looks nice on my work top and there are precisely TWO buttons, so how wrong can I go right?

Well not far I don't think!

Basically I put a whole (medium) chicken in an oven preheated to 200 for about 20 minutes, beforehand I seasoned with a salt, pepper and paprika. During which time I peeled and halved about 8 Vivaldi potatoes, peeled and cut 4 large carrots in to thick batons, peeled and cut 1 white flesh sweet potato in to big cubes and roughly chopped one white onion. CHUCKED it all in with 2 cloves of crushed garlic and about 700ml of low salt vegetable stock. The chicken came out the oven and sat on top. Then the whole thing went on for 3 hours on "high" and 6 hours on "low". (How these high/low settings translate on to other makes I do not know but from a rough Google on recipes last night the temperatures seem pretty generic.)

Verdict? Mummy thought great, baby thought great and Daddy thought great! Daddy especially thought great as it is his job to load the dishwasher after and there was hardly any dirty dishes! The vegetables were soft enough for baby girl to wolf down and the chicken flaked away like fish so she got a good load of that in too. The stock mixed with the chicken juices and created a wonderful chicken broth. LOVELY! Not to mention the fact that whilst I was "cooking" dinner I tidied the house, did a load of washing, took Euna to her swimming lesson AND went to a friends' for lunch. Beats slaving over a hot stove.

















And the verdict was evidenced by the typical remains of a successful baby led weaning session...

Gag-Safe Foods

The concept of weaning in addition to the looming possibility that I may be starting an evening photography course in a few weeks has got me thinking that baby A is becoming leave-able...

To catch you up I have left Euna once. At 3 months for 2.5 hours to go to the hairdressers with the husband. I didn't enjoy it, it wasn't "good for me" and I haven't done it since. I have had the luxury that I haven't had to.

She's now on other things besides breast milk. Intense, protective "mummy-lion" (as my friend Gemma calls them) hormones have settled. The idea is a little easier. Not made too easy by the thought of Euna gaging on her food and the appointed Euna-watcher panicking and not know what to do.

So what foods are way down on my gag list? (I could also recommend this to a friend as a finger-food intro list)

1. Porridge fingers (dipped in fruit puree if needed)
2. Roasted Courgette batons, can even remove the skins if you want to be extra careful
3. Toasted pitta soldiers and hummus (she's never gagged on this)
4. Mango fingers (and by extensive I'm tempted to put melon but I haven't tried this yet)
5. Yoghurt dipped with a spoon and handed to baby
6. Flakey fish, she just squashed it with her hands and licked the flakes of her fingers
7. Strips of chicken, she didn't get anything out of it except for chicken flavoured dribble but I see her getting that flavour on her tongue as "eating" and there was definitely no gagging 

P.S. Just added a handful of strawberries to my banana muffins... They smell AMAZING!

Breakfast Diary...

Toast has not been a hit so far in this house. Eggs are reasonably successful but the hunt is on for a favoured breakfast dish. So this morning we tried Gill Rapley's "Porridge Fingers"... They're easy peasey... Just equal parts milk and oats, mixed up, squashed in to the bottom of a dish and 2 minutes in the microwave.

At first I was a little disappointed at the reception but after a little while she really got stuck in! They were easy for her to handle and posed no gagging incidents. I think the real fun is going to be had in making fruit purees to dip them in and/or when she is old enough for a little honey. Regardless for today they went down pretty good.

Then I just have to slip this one in as we had a strawberry massacre for pudding at dinner time...

Oh and tea time snack? Duck.

Lessons:

1. Porridge fingers are fast and easy to make for Mummies and manageable for babies. Probably do better with something to pimp them up though.

2. There isn't a child alive who hasn't eaten a fair few bath bubbles.

SPOON!

A very brief post (it is Friday night after all) to share baby E's dinnertime success with a spoon!

We tried out Gill Rapley's Shepherds Pie but I upgraded the mash to cheesy mash... Was brilliant! We loaded a spoon up for her and she grabbed it and shoved it in like an old pro! There really is a wonderful sense of achievement to watch your family enjoying a meal you made together.

 

Lesson: Spoons are good. This open a whole new manner of menu options. Fish pie, cottage pie, soup, yoghurt... Basically anything gloopy that'll stick to a spoon!  

Rapley's Banana Muffins

I'm working my way through Gill Rapley's "Baby Led Weaning Cookbook". So I thought I would post about my attempts... First up BANANA MUFFINS! Brilliantly simple recipe that is super quick. I got 12 muffins in the oven and cleared up in the time it took Euna to destroy two toast soldiers. I'll be honest they don't look fantastically appetising but they taste nice, they're sugar free, full of fruit and Euna lapped them up.

So here are the muffins...











And here is baby A's review...