Parentdish asked me to come up with some baby-friendly recipes aimed at parents weaning their little ones and also finger food for toddlers.
I’ve moved on a bit from this stage with my strapping 4 and 7 year olds, but these recipes are equally at home in summer picnic bags… bake a batch, fill your freezer and you’ve got instant picnic food ready to go when you really haven’t got time to faff about making sandwiches or hitting the shops.
As the summer holidays are now upon us, we need all the help we can get and foodie shortcuts can really save your bacon in a sea of day trips, camping holidays and long journeys.
The teeny weeny tuna and sweetcorn quiches are super easy, cutting corners by using ready rolled shortcrust pastry. You can easily customise with your own flavour combinations. Sam adores having these in his school lunchbox, but they’d also work really well as party canapes with a nice glass of fizz.
The little banana and oat muffins are a fab sweet treat that also give a nice amount of slow release energy. You could pretty them up with icing – a cream cheese frosting would be delicious.
You can freeze both of these recipes in bags, then simply get them out as you need them. Get the recipes here>>
If you are weaning at the moment check out my fruity puree ideas… Apple, pear, raspberry and mint is a refreshing combo – lovely for introducing little ones to different fruits, but also ideal for stirring into Greek yoghurt or spooned over ice cream.
Finally I came up with these fresh dips and roasted vegetable dippers as an effective way of introducing babies to new flavours. I’m a huge fan of dips, so came up with combos that i’d be happy to put on the table at a drinks party too!
There’s butternut squash, sage and cream cheese, pea and mint and a lovely cooling yoghurt and cucumber. For dipping I baked courgette fingers rolled in egg and breadcrumbs, along with sweet potato wedges. You could also add simple buttered toast soldiers to the mix.
Scoot off to Parentdish to get the recipes>>