Tag: cumin

Lentils, Broccoli & Cumin for Babies

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Lentil Broccoli Cumin

Once again, I literally just made what I had at home! Although I do give Braxton meat (only organic, free-range from trusted sources), I like him to get a lot of his protein from plant-based sources and lentils are great for this. They are also cheap and go a long way. Broccoli is just full of bioavailable calcium, better than any sort of calcium you can get from dairy, so he has quite a lot of broccoli in his diet.

Cumin is great for digestion so it’s a really good spice to add when first weaning to help their tummies adjust. It is also an antiviral so great to give if baby has a cold.

Ingredients

1 organic broccoli
Half a cup of lentils – I used red lentils here
Half tsp cumin
1 cup of vegetable stock (homemade or low salt version if store-bought)

Method

Put the lentils in a pan with the stock and simmer until cooked – they can take a while. Add more water as needed until they are fully soft.

While the lentils are cooking, steam the broccoli for about 7 minutes. You don’t want to over-steam it.

When both are cooked, put in the blender with the cumin and blend to desired consistency.

Love & health,
Lauren & Braxton

 

Broad Bean, Sweet Potato & Cumin Plus Baby Led Weaning vs Blended

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Broad bean, sweet pot, onion, cumin

How great are these Nuk by Annabel Karmel food cube trays? Perfect for batch cooking for your little ones.

So, let’s talk baby led weaning (BLW). I had intentions of doing only baby led with Braxton but when the time came (when he was 6 months), he wasn’t very good at picking food up and he started getting very frustrated. So I decided that ‘baby led’, for me anyway, means being led by your own baby. Why should I let him get frustrated just because I’d decided I wanted to do something a certain way? He was trying to communicate with me that it wasn’t working for him, and he needed some more time, but was certainly ready to eat the food, so I decided to do a mixture of blended foods and BLW.

He’s now nearly 9 months so feeds himself a lot, and he’s got so good at it! He’s even perfected his pincer grip and understands how to take a bite and keep the rest in his hand while he chews, then finish what’s in his hand when he’s ready, so I give him a lot of food that he can feed himself with, but I still spoon feed him some things as I want to make sure he gets heaps of nutrients so I’ll make a blend of veg like this one, and it’s too hard for him to feed himself with a spoon.

What I’m saying is that we do a mixture of the two. At the beginning I’d mainly feed him myself but always give him something he could hold himself with each meal; some avocado, a piece of cucumber, a piece of broccoli, some roast chicken cut in strips.

This has all worked really well for us and he most definitely has still developed when it comes to his fine motor skills and hand-mouth coordination, despite what the militant baby led weaners told me about doing a mixture!

When it comes down to it, you have to read your own baby, as they are all so different, and do what works best for YOUR baby and YOUR family. This has worked brilliantly for us and I love that we can be flexible.

I hadn’t planned to make this, but I was sent broad beans in my Abel & Cole box this week, so I decided to make this mixture and it worked really well.

Ingredients 

1 bag of broad beans (they should come in their pods, then you must take them out of the pods)
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced
1 onion, peeled and sliced
1 tsp cumin
1 cube of homemade bone broth / veg stock or a low salt Kallo stock cube

Method

Shell your broad beans then put them, along with the other veg, into the steamer (this helps the veg retain more nutrients than boiling them).

If your stock cube is homemade and frozen, melt it in a saucepan over a low heat. If you are using a store-bought stock cube, mix it in a quarter cup boiling water.

When the veg are soft, put them in the blender with the stock and cumin and blend until smooth or leave lumps if you prefer.

I hope your baby likes this as much as mine did!

Love,
Lauren & Braxton

Spicy Kale Chips

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Spicey Kale Chips 2

This is a variation of my regular Raw Kale Chips. By adding dried onion and tamari you get more of an umami flavour and the cumin seeds give them a middle eastern twist. Healthy snacking!

Ingredients

150 – 200g kale leaves, weighed once you have removed the tough centre stem
70g raw cashews
45ml fresh lemon juice
60ml water
1 tbsp nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp cayenne
1 tbsp dried onion
10ml organic tamari
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp Oryx Desert salt

Method

Tear the kale leaves into pieces about 5cm square, making sure that there are no tough stems remaining.

Place the remaining ingredients except for the cumin seeds into a blender, and blend until smooth. You may need to add a little extra water to get a dressing-like consistency which can be poured over the kale. Add the cumin seeds and blend just for a couple of seconds, so that you don’t grind them completely but still have bits of seeds.

Pour over the kale leaves and use your hands to “massage” the dressing into the leaves, making sure that it gets into all the frilly bits of the leaves.

Spread the leaves out on dehydrator trays and dehydrate at 46 C overnight. If you don’t have a dehydrator you can dry them in your oven on its lowest temperature.

Store in an airtight container.

Health & happiness!

Love,
Raine

Traditional Israeli Shakshuka

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Shakshuka

Growing up in an Israeli family, shakshuka was always a big part of our lives… tomatoes, parsley, coriander, cumin and paprika are the flavours of my childhood and today I just fancied shakshuka so I decided it make it for lunch as my sister-in-law was coming over and I know she loves it.

The flavours are so aromatic it just fills up the whole kitchen. Traditionally you serve this with bread and Israeli salad. I used Biona organic linseed and rye bread, toasted, and I made a traditional Israeli salad and cut up and seasoned some fennel too.

Ingredients

2 tins chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato puree
6 organic free-range eggs
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp paprika
1 onion
1 red pepper
3 cloves garlic
2 tbsp parsley
2 tbsp coriander
Himalayan salt and black pepper
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil

Method

Heat the oil in a large, non-stick pan. Once hot, add the onion and cook for one minute. Then add the pepper and cook on a low heat, stirring occasionally for about 15 minutes.

Add the garlic and cook for a further minute.

Now add both tins of tomatoes and the puree and stir well and cook on a medium heat for one minute. Then add the cumin, paprika and some salt and black pepper. Mix well and turn down heat to low and let the tomatoes thicken, this should take around 20 minutes. While this is cooking, turn on the oven and prepare a tray that the pan can rest on.

Once ready, gently crack the eggs onto the tomatoes, season the eggs with salt and pepper then place the pan in the oven to bake the eggs for around 10 minutes.

Remove from the oven and sprinkle the parsley and coriander over the top and serve with bread of choice and Israeli salad. (Israeli salad is made up of cucumbers, tomatoes, red or spring onion, red pepper, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper – all cut up very finely).

Hope you enjoy it as much as me and my sister-in-law did!

Love,
Lauren