A summery salmon dinner for kids

We visited my parents over the long weekend and my dad made this summer salmon menu for the kids. Salmon baked from frozen on a bed of yellow zucchini, parboiled carrots and butterfly pasta cooked with cheese and tomato.

A lovely summery meal for kids! They ate it outside on the patio. Of course they did not appreciate it as much as they should have, but I know for a fact it was a great meal because I ate the leftovers!

Sweet potato and kale hash with fried egg

I love any supper that involves fried eggs so this lovely recipe from Laura Keogh over at Sweet Potato Chronicles caught my eye at once. The maple syrup made the kale and sweet potato so sweet and delicious that I forgot I was also eating something very healthy and fortifying. Yum yum. Another recipe for my "workweek dinner ideas" file. I gave some of the potatoes and kale to the babies and they scarfed it down with gusto. Yet another reason why it's such a keeper.

Salmon patties

Worried that the babies were getting sick of scrambled eggs every day for lunch, I decided to try something new. Quick salmon patties to the rescue, recipe courtesy of Kidspot Kitchen. They liked them and so did I! It made a nice change from eggs. Now off to find even more lunch ideas ...

Gratin of haddock with tomato sauce and spinach

This is a wonderful dish, an Annabel Karmel's recipe in Superfoods. Friends recently cooked this for lunch and everyone — four adults, two toddlers and two babies — just loved it. We ate it with baguette and butter.

Make ahead: I cooked the tomato sauce the night before and put the spinach in the fridge to thaw so it would be ready to go the day of cooking.

Gratin of haddock with tomato sauce and spinach
(adapted from Annabel Karmel's Superfoods)

1 Tbsp olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 400-mL can of diced tomatoes
1 1/2 tsp tomato paste
1/2 tsp sugar
1 bay leaf
1 Tbsp herbes de Provence
1 300-g package of frozen spinach, chopped
10 oz haddock (or other white fish fillets), skinned
2 Tbsp flour
2 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups cheddar cheese, grated

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Heat the oil in a frying pan and saute the onion for five minutes until glassy and soft. Add the garlic and saute for two more minutes. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, sugar, bay leaf and herbes de Provence. Bring to a boil and then turn the heat down and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes. Remove the bay leaf.

Thaw the spinach in the fridge. When thawed, take out a handful at a time and squeeze out the juice. (Chop up the spinach finely if using whole leaf.)

Put the flour in a large plastic freezer bag. Add the fish fillets and coat them in flour. Melt the butter in a frying pan and fry the fish for one-and-a-half minutes per side — seasoning each side with salt and pepper as you go — until lightly cooked.

Spread the spinach over the bottom of an ovenproof dish. Layer the fish fillets on top. Pour over the tomato sauce and sprinkle grated cheese over the top.

Bake for 10 minutes or until the fish is cooked all the way through.

Spaghetti with meat sauce

Spaghetti with meat sauce

If this recipe wasn't so delicious, I'd stop making it because it makes me feel old. It's the first substantial dish I learned to cook on my own and it has been a trusty standby for years. Well ... ahem ... decades. Of course it's evolved since I made it almost every week as an undergrad. Now I use whole wheat noodles and add some kale, making this a much healthier version than the one I cooked as a student. If I cut up the spaghetti then the babies like it too, which is always a bonus nowadays. How things have changed.

Spaghetti with meat sauce

1 box (454 g) whole wheat spaghetti
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 carrots, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp herbes de Provence
a pinch of red pepper flakes
1 small zucchini, diced
1/2 cup kale, chopped and stems removed
1 package (~454 g) lean ground beef
1 tsp each of salt and pepper
1 jar (24 oz) pasta sauce
1 rind of parmesan
2 bay leaves
1/2 cup chicken stock or water (optional)
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 cup grated parmesan cheese

Put a large stock pot of salted water on the boil for the spaghetti. Cook it according to package directions, about 12 minutes. Drain the spaghetti and put it back into the stock pot. Set the stock pot aside off the heat. 

In a Dutch oven or a large high-sided frying pan, heat up the olive oil. Add the onions, carrots and celery and saute five to seven minutes until glassy and soft. Add the garlic, herbes de Provence and red pepper flakes, and saute two minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add the zucchini and kale and cook another three to five minutes until the zucchini has softened. Scrape the vegetable mixture onto a plate and set aside. 

Return the pan to the hot element and add the ground beef, breaking it up with a spoon. Cook it, stirring often, until mostly done. Season with a pinch of salt and pepper. Add back the vegetable mixture and fold it into the ground beef. 

Add the pasta sauce, bay leaves and parmesan rind. Add half a cup of chicken stock or water if you need more liquid to cover all of the ingredients. Mostly cover the pan (leave an edge open for the steam to escape) and simmer the spaghetti sauce for about 20 minutes. Add the Worcestershire sauce and stir.

Add a cup of the pasta sauce to the pasta noodles in the stock pot and stir to loosen them up. Slide the cooked pasta into serving bowls and top with another ladle of sauce and a sprinkling of  grated parmesan cheese. Serve with salad or garlic bread.

Spinach, mushroom and red pepper frittata

The babies and I eat scrambled eggs almost every day for lunch. They love the taste. They can pick them up and eat independently. I can make them really fast. Everybody's happy. But once in a while I make a frittata for variety. I put in all sorts of precooked veggies and sprinkle grated cheese over the top. After the frittata has cooked, I slice one half into thin strips and then small squares for them, and then keep the other half for myself.

For this recipe I used red pepper and baby spinach, but you can add any combination of vegetables you like. In the past I've done red pepper and zucchini, and sweet potato and spinach, which are both nice combinations. Use a saucepan that you can put under the broiler for a few minutes (ideally all-metal and without a long handle, but do what you can — mine is non-stick and has two small handles).

Spinach, mushroom and red pepper frittata

1 Tbsp olive oil
half an onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup red pepper, minced
handful of baby spinach, julienned
6 mushroom, sliced
3 eggs
1/2 tsp sugar
pinch of salt

Heat a dry saucepan on medium heat on the stove. Add oil once it's hot.

Crack the eggs into a large bowl or measuring cup. Add the sugar and salt, and a little bit of water (a couple of tablespoons). Whisk everything together and set aside.

Fry the onion in the saucepan and stir until soft and glassy, about five minutes. Add the minced garlic and cook for two minutes. Add the red pepper and mushrooms, stirring and cooking another three to five minutes. Add the spinach and cook for two minutes until just wilted. Once the vegetables are cooked, spread them evenly around the bottom of the pan.

Preheat the broiler.

Gently pour the egg mixture into the frying pan and let it swirl around the vegetables to evenly coat the bottom of the pan. Don't stir. Turn down the heat and let cook for a few minutes until the bottom has set, then sprinkle grated cheese over top.

Put the whole saucepan under the broiler for a few minutes until the top has cooked through and the cheese is bubbling.

Cheesy chicken pasta stars

This is a typical supper that I often batch-cook for the babies. They get about four dinners each out of it. It's an example of my baby food system of combining cheese sauce with a couple of boiled vegetables and a cooked meat.

Cheesy chicken pasta stars

1 cup stelline pasta
1 cup cooked broccoli florets
1 cup cooked carrot pieces
1/2 cup cheese sauce
1/2 cup cooked cubed chicken breast

Put a pot of salted water on the boil for the pasta. Cook the pasta according to package directions, about 10 minutes. Reserve half a cup of pasta water before you drain the pasta and set it aside.

In a frying pan, gently heat the broccoli and carrot for a couple of minutes. Add the cubed chicken and stir for a minute or two. Add the drained pasta and a couple of tablespoons of the reserved pasta water. Add the cheese sauce and stir to combine and heat up. Serve at the appropriate temperature for babies.

You can see in the photo below that there are many pots on the boil in preparation for this dish. It's a sort of assembly line, but well worth the effort considering the amount of baby dinners I can get out of it.

Butternut squash and sage pasta for babies

I've made this recipe twice for the babies. The first time they loved it. The second time one did but the other only ate the pasta. One out of two isn't bad! I'll keep offering it because it's tasty and nutritious and makes a great lunch with some fruit or chicken on the side.

Butternut squash and sage pasta for babies
(inspired by a similar recipe in Annabel Karmel's First Meals)

900 g cubed butternut squash (I use a ready-to-steam President's Choice package similar to the one pictured below)
1 Tbsp fresh sage, finely sliced
2 Tbsp butter
1 cup ditalini rigati pasta
a handful of grated cheese (optional)

Put a pot of salted water on the boil for the pasta. Cook the pasta according to package directions, about 12 minutes. Reserve half a cup of pasta water before you drain the pasta and set it aside.

Steam the butternut squash in the microwave according to package directions. Mash the squash with four or five tablespoons of the pasta water.

In a medium-hot frying pan, melt the butter and cook the sliced sage together for two or three minutes. Add the butternut squash and mix together until combined. Add the cooked pasta and if needed, up to a quarter cup of the pasta water to loosen up the squashy sauce. Serve with a sprinkling of grated cheese if you want.

Good pasta shapes for babies

I have a tip for all the moms out there feeding older babies past the mushy stage of life.

I've tried offering mine big pastas, such as shells or rotini cut in half, but they'll have none of it. Little people like little pastas, and mine like these two kinds in particular — stelline (little stars, pictured left) and ditalini rigati (grooved beads, on the right). I buy them at La Bottega, an Italian grocer in Ottawa.

I add them to diced boiled veggies, diced meat and cheese sauce to make a complete meal.

They love them. The only drawback is you tend to find little stars all over the place for a few days afterwards. These of course are the pieces that have been tossed overboard during the meal. I'm sure you moms know what that's all about!

Cheese sauce

Homemade baby foods. From top to bottom they are squash and sage pasta, chicken with peas and red pepper in cheese sauce, and carrots and broccoli in cheese sauce.

Lately the only way I can get the twins to eat vegetables is to smother them in cheese sauce! This post is all about the cheese sauce, but here's how I use it. Once you have cheese sauce, add finely diced boiled vegetables and a finely diced cooked meat, such as pork tenderloin or chicken breast. Mix together with the cheese sauce. Voila — baby food. 

Cheese sauce
(recipe given to me by a friend)

2 Tbsp butter

2 Tbsp all-purpose flour 

1/8 tsp dry mustard

1 cup milk

1 cup grated cheddar cheese

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Slowly melt the butter in a saucepan and whisk in the flour and mustard powder.  Cook this for a minute or two while stirring, until smooth. Slowly add the milk, whisking out any lumpy bits after each pour until smooth and combined.  Gently cook over medium heat until the mixture has thickened.  Take off the heat and gradually add in the cheese, stirring until smooth.  Stir in the Worcestershire sauce. Freeze in quarter cup measures for later use. 

Baby's first cod casserole

Our babies are finally done with purees! Hooray! Now we can move on to real recipes (although still in mushy form, but that's okay). One-year-old babies can officially join in on family meals, but I find I'm still cooking their food separately because they like everything well cooked and still quasi-mushy. No tender-crisp veggies here, thank you very much!

I made this cod casserole with cheese sauce, peas, broccoli and cauliflower. In three separate pots I poached fish, made cheese sauce and boiled vegetables, then assembled everything together at the end. It's a bit of an effort, but so worth it. First of all, they ate it (always a triumph) and they got three dinners each out of this batch, so I didn't have to cook again for the next couple of days.

Since the babies discovered fruits, veggies have been poo-pooed something serious. But cheese sauce does the trick! They loved this dish.

Baby's first cod casserole

cod, one fillet
1/2 cup frozen peas
one head broccoli
half a head of cauliflower

cheese sauce
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup flour
2 Tbsp butter

court bouillon (poaching liquid for cod)
4 cups water
1 Tbsp cider vinegar
1 onion, sliced
1 celery stalk, sliced
1 tsp salt
2 bay leaves
2 thyme sprigs
2 parsley sprigs
8 whole black peppercorns

To poach the fish, put all the ingredients for the poaching liquid in a pot and bring to a boil. Turn heat down and simmer for 15 minutes uncovered. Add the fish and simmer for 10 more minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool. Remove the fish from the liquid and break into bite-sized pieces. You can strain the poaching liquid and freeze it for the next time you poach fish.

To boil the veggies, bring a pot of water to a boil. Chop the broccoli and cauliflower into baby bite-sized pieces and simmer for 20 minutes until soft. Add the frozen peas during the last five minutes of cooking time. Drain the vegetables and set aside.

To make the cheese sauce, melt the butter in a saucepan and add the flour. Stir in the flour and cook it, while stirring, for a couple of minutes. Whisk in the milk and whisk away any lumps of flour. Bring slowly to a boil, and then turn down to a simmer until thickened. Remove from the heat and stir in the cheddar cheese.

Combine the veggies with the flaked fish and cheese sauce. Serve immediately and refrigerate the rest for future meals.