Dee’s very own cottage pie!

Cottage pie ready for the oven

As Dee Dee is approaching 8 months now, it is the time for feeding him food! It has only been a couple of months that I have given him food mostly fruits and veg purees, carrot sticks and cucumbers for finger foods. I do find it quite scary feeding him proper food in case he starts to choke and I worry if he can swallow certain foods. I remember, Dan and I gave him some soldiers of toast and we would be sitting there watching Dee intensely shoving the whole toast in his mouth and wondering if he is going to be ok. I know he has got 2 teeth but he doesn’t really use them for eating, it was quite frightening and we were just watching him trying to eat it and he would start to coughing if the piece was too big! The health visitor told me that I should be giving him 3 meals a day and a pudding!!! I have only just started to give him breakfast of porridge which he quite likes and have been making more lumpy food that contains fish and chicken for dinner! For snacks, I would give him some yoghurt or cheese. At dinner time, he would always wants to eat whatever Dan and I are eating instead of his own food!! I knew it was messy when they start having food but did not realise it would be so messy!!! All the food would end up on the floor! 🙂

I have got a few Annabel Karmel books to get ideas of what to cook for babies, some of the recipes are quite adventurous and does uses a lot of ingredients! And most often for meat, it would add fruits to it which is a strange combination i think! 🙂  I guess at the moment, for babies, it is a blank canvas, they would just try everything! I love Dee’s face when i give him a segment of an orange, his expression is so funny, i think he finds it quite tangy but still adamant on sucking the juices! 🙂

Yummy cottage pie ready for Dee Dee to munch!

My mum came over the other week so i made us a big cottage pie and made Dee his own cottage pie as babies are not allowed any salt. I fried some beef mince, onions, carrots and courgettes and added some tomatoes. Once cooked, I used a mini food chopper to cut them into smaller pieces and then added the mash on top with some cheese and put the whole thing in the oven for approx 20 minutes. Dee really enjoyed his meal! 🙂

Chocolate and Orange cake

Glistening chocolate icing!!! 🙂

Haven’t baked for a long time and seeing as the Great British Bake Off now back on tv! It puts me in the mood for baking!! 🙂

My friend is coming over for lunch today and last night I baked a chocolate and orange cake using one of Mary Berry’s recipe! Quite simple to make although I was worried about my icing as it was quite runny! I think due to our hot weather, it wasn’t setting! I did put it in the fridge to see if it would thicken but it was still runny! So in the end I couldn’t wait any longer and just slapped it on the cake and hoped for the best!

Luckily by leaving it overnight, the icing thickened and looked very glossy! 🙂 This chocolate cake tasted amazing! Normally when i bake chocolate cakes in the past, I am not happy with the outcome as it is either too dry or over baked and taste quite horrible! This cake turned out to be really moist and very chocolatey! I was really pleased with it!! 🙂 One of my best chocolate cake so far!!! Thank you Mary Berry! 🙂

We had chicken, veg and gnocci

 

Inside the cake – YUM!