Baby-Gusto has always been a little hit or miss with his eating. He has a reasonably narrow diet that I try to make as healthy as possible. I have read books about feeding children (Karen Le Billon’s* is a particular fave), read loads of online sources and am nearly at my wits end. I have consoled myself with the thought that he gets a good, nourishing, well-cooked meal at school, but lately he has even been eschewing that and eating the sandwich alternatives on offer. Dinner times has begun to veer towards a battleground – the worst thing that can be done with children who are fussy eaters.
After alot of thought I decided to break dinners right down to the very simple basics. Almost reverting to nursery food as Husband-G calls it. Last night was the first night of the ‘experiment’. I made a simple pasta consisting of macaroni, tomato passata mixed with some cream cheese to make it creamy. With cucumber salad on the side (thinly sliced cucumber marinated for a few hours in a little bit of cider vinegar and a sprinkle of sugar). H-G nd I had the same as the days of cooking three meals (albeit adapting to H-G’s vegetarianism) are over. B-G ate the lot. I cannot tell you what that means…but suffice it to say is is a Very Big Thing.
I highly recommend Karen Le Billon’s blog and book- fabulous.
I put three baking potatoes on a long metal skewer. The metal draws heat to the centre of the potato. I then baked on 200 degrees celsius for about 1 hour 15 minutes.
In the meantime I made a mix of cooked pancetta cubes, cream cheese and grated cheddar cheese.
Vegetarian H-G had the same mix without the pancetta.
Then when the potatos were cooked I halved them, sco0ped them out and mixed well with the mix, adding a bit of butter to moisten it.
These were then popped back into the oven for 5 minutes or so. Baby-G’s plate – Jacket potatoes, a little bit of asparagus and a small amount of baked salmon. The salmon was not touched, which I knew it would not be but I put it on the plate anyway.
My plate- jacket potatoes with asparagus and salmon baked with cherry tomatoes.
H-G’s version. In hindsight I would have sprinkled more cheese on the top and then put it under the grill part of the oven for a minute or so to make it bubbly and golden brown.
Baby-G ate the insides of the potato – albeit fairly reluctantly. He ate a teeny bit of his asparagus. On the whole, while the pasta from yesterday was a 10/10 success, this was a 6.5 out of 10.
