Is it weird that I'm eating baby food (and liking it)?

Most of my cooking the past month has been making purees for the O-man. I sometimes think that he gets more home-cooked foods than my husband and I do. My probably irrational and somewhat hypocritical (you should see some of the junk I eat) paranoia about what's in the food he's eating certainly plays a big part in that.

Before I get to the actual recipe here, please allow me to rant a bit about two things I have seen recently.
(1) A woman feeding a baby of, oh I don't know, about 9 months, McDonald's french fries.
(2) This TV show that takes people who don't know how to cook and teaches them to make high end restaurant-quality food. So far, I've seen:
-a woman who couldn't even cook a frozen fishstick for her daughter without burning it so they ended up eating fish and chips from the chippy EVERY NIGHT.
-a family (with 11 year old son) who managed to have a PUB inside their home (complete with draught beer) but mom was TOO LAZY (her words) to cook 'fresh food.' Their fridge and freezer had nothing but ready-meals and chocolate bars (um, you do know you don't have to COOK lots of fresh fruit/veg in order to eat it, right?).
-a single man with 4 kids who hadn't had a working stove or oven in his home for 4 years.

PEOPLE. What is WRONG with society? I know some people don't have time or money for fancy-schmancy food or that they weren't lucky enough to learn how to cook when they were young, but COME ON. Couldn't you just replace some of your chips and chocolate with a fresh apple, banana or orange? And to that woman feeding the baby Mickey-D's, you can buy a whole bag of baby rice cakes for 99p at Boots, Tesco or Sainsbury's. And it will last longer than those fries that cost the same price. And not be loaded with fat and salt.

OK rant over. Back to the point.


The O-man's tried all kinds of goodies, and loved pretty much all of them - even green veg. I'm somewhat horrified to admit that I've liked pretty much all of them too, including the pureed chicken (OK, it's mostly sweet potatoes and apples), avocado mixed with banana, and this little gem of a recipe for a spinach pasta sauce (called Popeye Pasta of course). So I decided to make it a bit more adulty and have it for dinner last night.

The recipe is from a book I got called the 'New Complete Baby and Toddler Meal Planner' by Annabel Karmel. She's kind of a baby food guru here in the UK, and while some of her recipes are a bit ridiculous (eg homemade low-salt stocks so you can put 2 oz in a baby puree), the book has been a great help to me with this whole weaning thing.

Popeye Pasta (the adult version)
250 g (1/2 lb) pasta (I used farfalle, aka bow-ties)
200 g (8 oz) frozen spinach
85 g (3 oz) Pancetta, cubed (I am sure bacon would be just fine here)
1 T unsalted butter
1/2 a medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
red pepper flakes to taste (be careful-a little goes a long way)
1/4 c milk
1/4 c (4 T) cream cheese
1 c grated cheese (I used strong/mature cheddar because it was all we had)
salt and pepper to taste


Cook your pasta in boiling salted water until al dente according to package directions.

Meanwhile, thaw/cook the spinach for about 3 minutes in the microwave. Squeeze out as much excess water as you can. Note: It's always difficult to get the water out of spinach, especially when it's hot. I find that, while it makes a mess, it is somewhat easier to put it in a wire-mesh strainer (like this one) and push some of the water out than it is to squeeze it with your hands.
Cook the pancetta in a skillet until crispy, about 5 minutes. Drain on paper towels and pour most of the fat off from the pan.

Melt the butter in the same skillet used for the pancetta.

Sautee the onion in the butter. After about 4 minutes, add the garlic and red pepper flakes and sautee a further 1 minute. Add the spinach and sautee another 2 minutes.

Sitr in milk, cheeses and reserved pancetta. Add the pasta. I like to use my skimmer to pull the pasta directly from the boiling water into the sauce so that a bit of water comes with it, which helps bring the sauce together. I'm sure a slotted spoon would work as well. Or you could just drain and reserve some pasta water to add back to the sauce.

Add salt and pepper to taste (be careful about adding too much salt too early since the pancetta, cheeses and pasta water are all salty).


A note about the cheeses and fat. I found that my parmesan had molded, so couldn't use part parmesan and part cheddar as planned. The baby food recipe in my book called for gruyere (although the online one I linked too uses parmesan), which I'm sure would be yummy as well. As for fat, I used reduced fat cheddar but full-fat cream cheese and whole milk (because I had bought full-fat versions of those for the baby's portions). I am sure you could use all reduced-fat cheese and skim milk and it would still be yummy.

Baby food

No, this is not about actual food for babies, although I've started to have fun with that now that the O-man is on solids. However, this post is about food that works for adults when there's a baby in the house. That's not to say you can't make it if there isn't a baby in your house (which is probably the case for 95% of my readers). It's just that about 2 months after the O-man was born, I realized that baby-friendly dinner is not the same as working-until-8pm friendly.

Let me explain. Now I actually want things that take an hour or more to bake in the oven or simmer on the stovetop so that we can concentrate on feeding and bathing the baby and getting him to sleep just before we eat rather than cooking something that's fast, but takes a lot of prep time at the end and/or is best eaten as soon as it's ready (eg, sitr fries). I've also learned that prepping as much as possible ahead of time when the baby is napping is key, but more on that in another post I think.

Today we're going to concentrate on things that cook slowly in the oven. Lasagna is one of my favorites of these, but again, I have planned that for another post about making over your leftovers. I'm thinking about this yummy cross between mac and cheese and tuna casserole that I made a few weeks ago.

First, a slight digression about tuna casseroles. My parents are from the Midwest. I grew up eating my Grandma's 'Friday Tuna Casserole' (she wasn't Catholic so I suspect the recipe wasn't actually hers), which included a can of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup and a large quantity of crushed potato chips both inside the casserole and sprinkled on top for crunch. When I lived in the US, I am almost ashamed to say that a regular staple in our dinner rotation was a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese (you know, the one with the powdered, radioactive orange cheese) with tuna-in-a-can and a handful of frozen peas thrown in. This is inspired by that, but is slightly less processed and definitely more homemade!

The recipe is a blend of two from the Food Network, one from Ina Garten (again) and one from Dave Lieberman. Those recipes are here and here. I couldn't quite fathom the amount of butter and cheese in Ina's recipe, but I liked the idea of the tomatoes on top.

Cheesy pasta with tuna, peas and tomatoes
1/2 lb pasta (I suppose macaroni is ideal, but I only had farfalle so used that)
1 1/4 c milk (I used skim because I had it and it tasted fine, but I'm sure it would be creamier with whole milk)
2 1/2 T unsalted butter, divided
1 1/2 T flour
1 3/4 c shredded cheese (I used 1 c mature cheddar, 1/2 c mozzarella and 1/4 c Parmesan)
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
1/8 tsp red pepper flakes
Yellow mustard (or mustard powder)
1 can tuna fish, drained
1 c frozen peas
Tomatoes (I used halved cherry tomatoes but slices of big tomatoes would be fine)
1 c fresh breadcrumbs (I used wheat sandwich bread because it was all I had, but I think day-old baguette or something similar would probably be best). If you've never made homemade breadcrumbs before, it's really easy-just cut the bread into chunks and process in a food processor for about a minute. If you don't have a food processor, a blender might work.

Cook the pasta to al dente according to package directions (see TIP below). You want it to be a bit under-cooked since it will get softer in the oven.

Melt 1.5 T butter in a pot and whisk in flour. Cook for 2 minutes (stir frequently if not constantly). Add milk, whisking to prevent any lumps, and cook for 1-2 minutes until thick and smooth. Take off the heat and stir in the cheeses and pepper. Add in the red pepper flakes and a squirt of mustard.

Mix the cheese sauce with the pasta and add the tuna and peas. Put in a baking dish (I used a 10x7 inch oval gratin dish, so an 8 inch square would be similar). Top with the tomatoes (cut side up for cherry tomatoes) and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Mix the bread crumbs with 1 T melted butter and some pepper and then sprinkle these on top of the tomatoes.

Bake at 375 F (190 C) for 30-35 minutes.


NOTE: The leftovers weren't as great as I was hoping, so it's good if you can use it all up the same day. This makes 2 REALLY generous servings, but probably more like 3-4.

TIP: Always add salt to your pasta water (I don't think oil is necessary). Apparently if you have pots with stainless interiors, salt will mark and pit your pot, so you should add it just before adding the pasta. I was always under the impression that it makes sense to wait until the water's boiled to add salt since the salt will raise the boiling point of the water, and therefore make it take longer for your water to boil. However, the change is apparently insignificant, and interestingly the same volume of 20% salt water boils faster than pure water owing to heat capacity. Ah, chemistry...

Please pass the sodium metabisulphite

The subject of my first real post might not actually qualify as being a tip, but it is something that's important to me. So much for keeping to a theme...

Possibly more than the US, the UK is full of what they call 'ready meals'; in the US these are known as 'TV dinners'. Now I've eaten my share of Stouffer's lasagna and M&S chicken tikka masala, and I'm a sucker for the grocery store brand 'fresh' tortellini and soups. I also eat out a lot (well, not so much now that I have a baby, but the guys at the pizza place up the street are now concerned if we haven't ordered take-out in a while). And sometimes you just need a Big Mac and fries washed down with a McFlurry...

I'm not knocking any of these things, but I am starting to appreciate the value of a home-cooked meal, in which the ingredients do not include sodium metabisulphite, autolyzed yeast extract and 2 tablespoons of salt per serving. Perhaps this has something to do with my mother, who pretty much made home-cooked dinner every night while I was growing up (more about that will come in a future post, I think). Maybe it's because I like cooking, or because the older I get the more I need to be careful about what I'm eating (interesting aside - in high school I typically ate seasoned curly fries, a Coke and Little Debbie snack cakes for lunch, either Swiss Cake Rolls or Nutty Bars).

The point of all this is that although you really cannot make a homemade dinner in the same time as it takes to order take-out or heat up jarred soup in the microwave like some of those TV chefs would like you to believe (don't you just hate Rachael Ray and her "In the time you've just wasted sitting on your butt on the couch eating Cheetos and watching TV, I'll have made a delicious and healthy meal"?), you really can cook food at home fairly easily. Now is where the 'tips' for today come in - some of my standby 'recipes' for easy/fast cooking at home.

First, two pasta dishes that aren't spaghetti with meat sauce or boxed mac-n-cheese.

Clear Out the Fridge/Pantry Pasta
Cook some pasta-spaghetti, ziti, whatever.

While that's cooking, sautee some cut up bacon or pancetta cubes with some chopped onion (yellow, green, shallots - whatever you have) and garlic. Alternatively, you can chop up some ham and add that after sauteeing the onion/garlic in some olive oil. If you don't want the meat, leave it out (duh). Toss in some red pepper flakes (careful with these; a little goes a long way) and some dried Italian herbs (oregano, basil, etc; in the UK I use Sainsbury's Mediterranean style mixed herbs, which contains oregano, basil, bay, sage and thyme).

Then throw in whatever veggies you want. I typically use frozen peas (no need to thaw, they'll heat up in the pan) and chopped fresh tomato (add this towards the end to prevent it from dissolving into nothing). Mushrooms also work great, as does asparagus or spinach. Tip: Frozen peas are almost always better than fresh because they are frozen so soon after being picked and 'fresh' peas usually aren't all that fresh.

Toss everything with the cooked pasta (you can add a little pasta-cooking water to help bring things together), add some fresh herbs if you want (parsley, basil), grind some black pepper and grate some fresh parmesan over. A tip about the cheese - freshly grated parmesan really tastes better than the alternatives. Please, NEVER buy parmesan cheese in a can. Also, it really is better (and I think cheaper) to buy a block and grate it yourself rather than buying it pre-grated from the store. Bon appetit!


The second pasta dish I just made up last weekend after we bought a ginormous bag of cherry tomatoes at Borough Market.

Margherita Pasta
First, roast the cherry tomatoes. Turn the oven to 200C/400F. Toss tomatoes in a baking dish with olive oil, dried Italian herbs (see above), 8 or so garlic cloves (don't peel-just throw in whole), salt, pepper and a few red pepper flakes. Basically you need enough tomatoes to create sauce for pasta for 2 people; I just put enough to make a single layer in my 9x13 Pyrex dish and that was enough. Bake for 10-15 minutes. They should be starting to burst open.

While the tomatoes are roasting, cook enough pasta (I used penne) for two hungry people. When the pasta's done (make the tomatoes wait for the pasta, not vice versa), toss with the tomatoes, garlic and all the pan juices.

Throw in some chopped fresh mozzarella (I used one large ball) and chopped fresh basil and parsley. Add some freshly ground pepper and freshly grated parmesan, and you're good to go. Oh, and be sure to take the garlic cloves out of the peel before eating them (I kind of like them smeared on bread more than in the pasta itself).


I was also going to write about my easy pizzas and quesadillas/guacamole, but that can wait for another time, as the baby's waking up from his nap now...