DrØmmekage fra Brovst or Danish Dream Cake

Yummy Danish Dream Cake

If you are a regular reader of my space then you must be aware that I am a member of egg-less baking group.  The group is the brainchild of Gayatri and we try out making baking recipes from with eggs to egg-less.

 Recently Gayatri had asked members to give suggestions for different cakes and we have been trying new cakes. Most of them I will not even dream of. Have you thought of making molten lava cake, cauldron cakes all egg-less?

Boiled Cauliflower for BM #24

First let me wish you all

A Very Happy Republic Day!!

For the Blogging Marathon #24 I am blogging Weaning foods. The first weaning food that Akanksha was fed was boiled cauliflower!

I know this is quite unconventional. In fact I had the ire of lot of my Elders’ in the family they had wanted the traditional payasam to be fed, but I was adamant. You see my elder daughter was fed the traditional foods but no veggies then getting her to eat veggies was an uphill task that was running in 7 long years after a lot of threatening, cajoling, crying etc.  I did not want the same process repeated all over again. Thankfully the hubby and the paediatrician were there to support me.

Among veggies carrots and beets were favourites with Akanksha.

Coming down to boiled veggies there  is no recipe as such.

·      Just boil the vegetable washed, cleaned and in case of veggies like carrots scraped in the cooker for 2-3 whistles. Generally I soak them in salted water and turmeric.

·      It’s easier to mash the veggies with the back of a spoon.  Just before you feed the baby mash it again with your fingertips.

·      You can blend it too but the idea is to introduce some texture in the food.

The only precaution that you have to take is to check if the baby is allergic to any foods. So introduce only one new food to the baby and repeat it for a week.

Next week change the veggie or foods. Like this week its cauliflower next its carrots, then beets. The fourth week a combo of all 3. In the fifth week keep veggies as one meal and introduce something new like Dalia. How I wish I knew about oats then I would have fed the little one with different things made of oats. Gradually reduce her dependence on milk only diet to more and more varied diet.

One more feature was that Akanksha was never a patient baby, at least where food was concerned.  For her first birthday after slicing the cake I fed her a little cake and was still on the dais holding the slice in my hand looking out for Hubby’s Aunt  thinking she may want to feed Akanksha too. Well baby took matters out of our hands much to everyone’s amusement she took the slice and stuffed it in her mouth!! 

She never was spoon fed just bowl fed if that may be an expression. The bowl had to be at her mouth not the spoon as long as I fed her.

As Akanksha grew older and she was introduced to bread sticks any dal, mild rasam, amti, sambhar was given to her with the bread stick, rice anything she fed herself. There was a mess; in fact she had 2-3 bed sheets per day on which she sat to eat. Feeding her was never an option she had to do it herself. The paediatrician encouraged me in this.

“She will play when she has fed herself, she told me,” let her do it. She has to learn the texture of different food, the different tastes, let her make it interesting for herself. You unlearn having to feed her and your judgement that she has not had enough, she will not sit quietly if she has not had enough.”

 And I am grateful to her because of this I had no stress that my baby was not eating in fact she was a bouncy, baby always smiling and very healthy. Touch wood she rarely falls sick  even now.

By and by she started using me as her chewing machine anything she could not chew like nuts, went in my mouth and was given a instruction which was “HMMm!” I had to chew and after she had judged I had chewed enough she hooked her finger in my mouth transferred it to her mouth. Am I grossing you out? Well she did it and I used to get mad at her.  But when I watched on Discovery I think the baby gorillas or was it the chimp, anyway one of the great apes doing the same I just stopped getting so grossed out. Cannot argue with her papa’s genes can you?

With this I bring an end to my sermon on weaning your baby. This is what I have followed you may or may not agree with my methods but I hope this will make it less stressful to you both!
Bon Appetit'!

In this BM #24 I have in the linked
As Kids Delight
1. Chocolate filled Canapes
2. Ragi Cupcakes
3.Trifle Pudding

As Weaning Foods
1. Dalai
2. Lapsi 
3. Boiled veggies namely Cauliflower

Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#24

Hi! First time here? Well then you are Most Welcome! I hope you keep coming back for more here. If you are my regular visitor then Thanks, for you encourage me to experiment more!! I would like you to please click on my link below and like myFacebook Page. I will be happy if you can follow me on on Twitter too! 

Lapsi a Maharashtrian Delicacy

“Lapsi” this is a very delicious porridge that is great breakfast dish for young and old alike. The pro in “Lapsi’s”   favour is that its light to digest and very filling and most importantly very healthy.

But making “Lapsi” is tedious process. You need to soak the wheat to make the “Lapsi” for 3 days. The water is to be changed every day and on the third day the wheat is ground. The ground batter is strained and then the strained mixture is used to make “Lapsi”.

Tiring and backbreaking… and very difficult to manage with the help I had on a regular basis.

But   I was determined to feed Akanksha with “Lapsi”. I did this once! And realised it’s not possible for me to do this on regular basis. That’s when my husband’s aunt told me an easier way.

I do not think that the taste is like what you make with the soaked wheat but the baby does not lose out on the health factor.

Dalia or Porridge

This Blogging Marathon I will be posting Weaning Foods.

For my elder daughter I had no problems as my MIL and Mother were around and I just did what I was told.

But for my second daughter both were not around and I had to manage. So one of the first things that I had served Akanksha, my daughter no 2 after veggies was ’Dalia’!

 It’s simple to cook and good for health.  In fact I have served it to her both as sweet and salted flavours and she has loved both.

Today we will make the sweet kind. Basically I used very little sugar with Akanksha it was either jaggary or dates as sweetener.

Akanksha learnt to eat chocolates after she was 1 year because Smita, my SIL, who had come down for her delivery used to bribe Akanksha, to get Akanksha to come to her. Akanksha was not very social quite opposite of her elder sister who was never found at home from the time she could walk and talk, say at around 1 year. Yes both my kids were running and talking for their first birthdays.

But I am rambling… so getting back to sweeteners for babies the 3 basic rules are ... avoid refined sugar, salt and maida or all purpose flour!