Baby Breakfast Ideas

I struggle with innovative breakfast ideas for myself, let along my two girls. We get stuck in a breakfast rut and so I was happy to be asked to try out a couple of new products for weaning babies, suitable for use at breakfast time.

Holly has been trying out these bright, clever pouches of Wakey Wakey breakfast cereal from Ella's Kitchen which are available in both plain flavours (so that you can add your own fruit or yoghurt if you fancy it) and fruity flavours.

Holly started by trying the stage 1 Wakey Wakey Mango + Apple Baby Porridge which is made from rice maize and oats with tiny flakes of fruit. At first she REALLY enjoyed the change from smooth plain porridge but I think the novelty soon wore off - it is quite a big packet for a stage 1 weaning product given that stage 1 doesn't last very long.

Next she moved on to the stage 2 textured Wakey Wakey Strawberry, Mango + Banana Porridge. It is noticeably thicker but not lumpy and it comes with visible flakes of strawberry in it. I think this one went down better with Holly.

I really like the pouches - they come with a screw top which means you can keep the porridge fresh and pour it into a bowl easily without having to store a box in your cupboard which leaks flaky porridge dust everywhere! OK, so the pouch is plastic and that worries me, environment-wise but Ella's Kitchen at least make some efforts to encourage recycling of their food pouches.


Normally however, I like to mix Holly's porridge with some fruit puree (sometimes homemade!  sometimes not) or with a spoonful of yoghurt - it makes me feel like I'm in control of the flavour.

On the day when I decided to first introduce Holly to yoghurt, Rachel's got in contact with me to tell me that their "My first yoghurts" selection packs had just been re-invented with a new improved recipe and four fruity flavours; the perfect accompaniment to Holly's breakfast porridge!

Rachel's organic first yoghurts are suitable from 6 months onwards and come in strawberry, banana, raspberry and peach flavour.  They are naturally sweetened with fruit juice so there is no added sugar and because they are made with whole mik, they are packed full of calcium.  Rachel's My First Yoghurts claim to have the perfect texture for babies when weaning but I find the texture a bit alien; there is rice starch added which gives them a thick appearance and it makes the yoghurt appear ever so slightly grainy.  Mind you, Holly loves them and I'm hoping that because they are a little sweeter than some children's yoghurts, Holly will enjoy them for longer than her big sister did (Lara mysteriously stopped eating yoghurt at about 8 months old and has refused to try it since).

New Stage One Organic Baby Food Pouches

Over the past few weeks, my panel of reviewers have been trying and testing a number of brand new organic baby food pouches. Below you will find a review of four different brands of organic baby food pouches for stage one and two of weaning - great for taking out and about or for when you simply haven't the time or inclination to make your own purees.

Baby Zilli

You have to be a pretty brave chef to put your name to a range of pre-prepared baby foods. Aldo Zilli and his celebrity lawyer friend Dean Dunham have 7 children between them so you'd hope they knew a bit about weaning babies! The Baby Zilli range starts from stage one (4-12 months) and features recipes all the way up to stage 4 (toddlers).

We like...
...the combination of flavours sound like things mum and dad would happily sit down and eat. The stage one flavours are Aldo's Fruity Punch (pear, apple and banana) and Tasty Veggie Blend (sweet potato, butternut squash and broccoli).
...the pureed foods actually look and smell quite appealing!

We'd prefer it if...
... the pictures on the packet were of the food rather than the chef. Without larger images of the food it is hard to distinguish from the packaging which flavour is which (or which stage is which).




Plum Baby
The new range of stage one breakfast pouches from Plum Baby are a little different to many others because they offer a mix of both fruit AND cereal while remaining gluten-free which is important for a first weaning puree so as to avoid the risk of allergy. The two new flavours are Banana, Apricot & Oaty Porridge and Prune, Peach & Baby Rice.

We like...
...the mix of cereal and fruit means that you can have an interesting breakfast combination even when away from home.
...carbs for breakfast seems to make baby fuller for longer.
...the cereal (unlike some other baby foods, not mentioned in this post) are naturally sweetened with the fruit alone.

We'd prefer it if...
...there were more flavours on offer.
...the baby rice puree was a little thicker (we love the thickness of Plum's boxes of baby cereals).




Ella's Kitchen
Ella's Kitchen are just launching a new range of stage one baby food pouches that contain nothing but one single fruit to help when you very first start weaning. The first tastes pouches from Ella's Kitchen come in banana, pears, mangoes and apples flavours.


We like...
...the single flavour makes it easy to introduce one new flavour at a time to your weaning baby and can be combined with baby cereals or yoghurts.
...the pouches are really nice and small so are good for taking out and about and mean that there is less waste (tiny tummies don't need much!)

We'd prefer it if...
...there were some savoury single flavours too. When we weaned, we made our own purees for eating at home and lots of the favourites were veggies rather than fruits.





Organix
Organix have launched a range of new stage one savoury pouches.

We like...
...the new recipes such as Sweetcorn, Chicken & Broccoli and Pumpkin, Cheddar & Lentils all sound really tasty and introduce some grown-up tastes.
...the colour of the purees looks brighter and more appealing than many others.
...the packaging is really bright and it is clear what product and ingredients you are getting.

We'd prefer it if...
...the pouches were a bit smaller as we couldn't use them up in one go and it seemed disappointing to offer the same flavours twice in one day.

Do Your Children Eat The Same Meals As You?

This blog post is sponsored by Giraffe Childcare.

Do you eat the same food as your children? Do you share the same mealtimes? We do. If you've read any of my blog posts about weaning you'll know that I feel strongly that children shouldn't be treated any differently than adults at the dinner table and, wherever possible, they should be encouraged to eat the same food as you do. It's not something I'm religious about but I really do think that a love of food, cooking and eating doesn't need to be reserved for grown-ups. Children don't NEED to eat “Children's food” (although I'll admit to serving Lara kiddies food as a special treat on occasion).

When I look back on my own childhood I sometimes question my decision. Some of my fondest memories are of the special feeling of being privileged enough to share a meal with my parents for sunday roasts, or family events. Not until I started college did I regularly share an evening meal with my parents. Perhaps Lara will miss out on that feeling if she eats with us for every meal? Perhaps she's missing out by not getting to eat branded 'children's' food and her childhood friends may think that she's weird as she grows older?



But, the more I think about it, the more I struggle to understand why children are commonly expected to eat differently to us. Different times of day, different foods, different expectations. Admittedly, Lara goes to bed later than many children her age, so she doesn't need to eat earlier than us. We are also in a situation where, given that both parents work, we would never have time to cook a separate meal for Lara even if we wanted to. There are sacrifices we have to make at meal times so that Lara can share with us – a reduction in salt, pepper and chilli are really the only compromises that we still make. But why should Lara not share the same quality of food as us? Why should she not be able to share the pleasure of an amazingly cooked meal with incredible, fresh ingredients?

Which is why, last weekend, Lara sat down to dinner with us and enjoyed a gastronomic extravaganza cooked by the lovely Mr. B.

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Pan-friend scallops with a butternut squash purée and a bacon and fennel-seed dust

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Slow-roasted Barkham belly of pork served with a celeriac mash, tenderstem broccoli, carrots and an onion and apple gravy

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Home-made strawberry ice cream (actually, Lara won't eat ice-cream!), fresh strawberries, blueberries and meringues.

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For some reason, this makes me incredibly proud. I'd like to point out that Lara didn't share our bottle of Beaujolais! I wish you could have seen the look on her face as she devoured a scallop for the first time in her life – right then, I knew my decision was right. Lara is enjoying gastronomy at 23 months.

She is still, like many toddlers her age, what I would consider to be a fussy eater; she refuses to eat potato in my presence (but will eat it at nursery) and screams if anyone so much as whispers the word 'yoghurt'. However, I like to feel that Lara has a wider repertoire of foods than most toddlers so if she finds two or three things she doesn't fancy eating right now then there are plenty of other things to choose from. I'm hoping that the yoghurt fear will sort itself out given time, and I'm aware that over the years Lara will go through fussy periods. In general I'm astonishingly proud of her appetite and adventurousness when it comes to food. She's my superstar.

Colouring Pencils In Restaurants – A Rant

Dear restaurant owner, please ask before offering my child colouring pencils or crayons at the dining table. It isn't allowed at home, so why would it be allowed in your restaurant?

Lara has been dining out with us at restaurants since she was 3 weeks old! At 19 months she is now old enough to sit up at the table with us and enjoy a meal (quite what foods she gets to enjoy depends on the 'children's menu' available but I shall save THAT rant for another day). Over the last few of months, every time I have taken Lara to a restaurant, she has been presented with some paper and coloured pencils... this is doing my head in.

Lara enjoying a meal out when she was 8 months old!

Like all toddlers, Lara can be a bit of a handful when she is hungry, and if she gets bored she sometimes needs some entertaining. I understand the thinking behind the presentation of coloured pencils to children, I really do, but I just wish that restaurateurs would ask me before supplying 'entertainment' for my own children. I want Lara to grow up to know how to behave at the dinner table and to join in with the pre-dinner chit cat with the grown ups. Dining out is as much about the social occasion as it is about the food. I don't want Lara to be the troublesome kid causing havoc, or the child who ignores everything going on around them. I don't want her to be absorbed in colouring pencils, or a personal console, or even a cuddly toy... I want Lara to join in with us.

That isn't to say that I would always refuse the offer of colouring pencils in a restaurant. No, sometimes I need all the help I can get to keep her calm until the food arrives. But, once the crayons have arrived, there is no going back and even food can sometimes be ignored in favour of frantic scribbling. For this reason, Mr or Mrs waitress, kindly ask me before plonking the colouring pencils down in front of my child. Thank you.

The Sunday Review - Ella's Kitchen Organic Baby & Toddler Foods

Regular readers will know that packet foods are not my normal thing, but that I DO believe in 'convenience foods' such as Ella's Kitchen, just so long as the ingredients aren't alien and the nutritional contents don't read like a horror story. There are occasions during a busy working week, or a frantic weekend when I do just need to grab something quick from the cupboard to cook a meal for just Lara, not the family.

When Lara was younger, we tried a couple of Ella's Kitchen organic pouches but I didn't 'get' the pouch thing and despite the flavours sounding a bit wacky, I found them all to smell a bit miserable. Recently, I've been trying out some of the range of Ella's Kitchen stage 3 and toddler foods with mixed results.

The Pack 'o' Snacks seemed like a great idea, especially when Lara was at the childminder and I was looking for ideas for lunchbox snacks. They are cute, brightly-coloured pyramids that contain little pieces of organic dried fruit. The trouble with toddlers is that they don't sit still long enough to hold a little bag (pyramid or no pyramid) so I end up tipping the contents into a pot more likely to withstand the challenge of a mobile toddler; this immediately makes these snacks less convenient than I'd thought. I also find that Lara struggles with the very tiny pieces; a raisin is about as small as her little fingers can reasonably manage and so she leaves the smaller bits and pieces.

We tried a couple of the Ella's Kitchen Stage 3 pouches which are a bit bigger than their other pouch products. The ingredients all sound great – no nasties or unidentifiable chemicals anywhere. But, upon opening, heating and serving, I was still very disappointed. The contents were sloppy and looked like the texture of food I would have fed Lara at about 8 months old. Both the sachets we tried smelled a bit... processed. Packet food just has this smell that repulses me and Lara wasn't much more impressed than I was.

We were much more impressed with the 'Has-to-be-Pasta' and 'Nice-Rice' which come in boxes containing a few single servings making them incredibly convenient when I need to knock up a Lara-only meal. Paired with one of the Ella's Kitchen cook-in sauces (The Italian One or The Indian One) and a few crunchy vegetables, I can fashion an acceptable meal for Lara in minutes, should I need to. Mind you, I do still struggle to understand the need for the rice and pasta to be 'boil in the bag' unless you don't own a seive or a colander... it means I can't test the food to see if it's ready and I also don't like being TOLD how much pasta or rice constitutes a 'nutritious' meal because every child's appetite and requirements are different. The pasta pieces are a bit small for Lara now but would be good for a smaller baby.

One of Ella's Kitchen's plus points for me is their website – they have some great baby and toddler recipes, many of which have absolutely nothing to do with their range of products; they are just healthy, easy to make foods ideas for children.

Another plus point is that Ella's Kitchen have a partnership with Terracycle to encourage mums and dads to 'upcycle' their used baby food pouches (the recent trend for which does my head in when I have my green hat on). You can read more on their website.