soy beans and vegies with tahini avocado dressing

i highly recommend soaking, cooking then freezing beans so you can break some off and steam up with vegies for a quick meal. with something like soy beans that take 24hr soak time and 2.5hr cook time it's often not worth the effort for a small batch!

1/2 cup cooked soy beans
1/2 cup broccoli, cauliflower, carrots.
1 T tahini
1 T avocado
dash of lemon juice or apple cider vinegar
1 T water
pinch of golden kelp

steam vegies and if you need to defrost the beans add them to the steamer with the vegies. stir tahini, avocado, lemon juice, water and kelp with a fork until smooth. top vegies with the sauce and serve. blend all together for younger babies.

not milkshakes

here are 2 milkshake blends but any combination of fruit and nuts will do!

blend in the following proportions:

half banana, small handful of blueberries, 150mls soy/nut/oat milk and 10g soaked almonds.

or try

small handful of boysenberries, 10g cashews, 150mls soy/oat/nut milk

when the berries are frozen it makes the milkshake nice and cold and thick.

optional extras: wheat germ, linseeds, green leafy vegetables, avocado, dates and figs.

vegie and legume pastry parcels

obviously you can make more than the following recipe suggests and freeze the extra parcels for another day. i only made a small amount enough for the one meal because i used defrosted cooked legumes and i didn't want to refreeze these for a later meal. so increase the ingredients as desired.

2 10com squares of pastry (you can find vegan puff pastry in the supermarket but it still will have additives so i am in the process of mastering a home made vegan pastry recipe but not ready to post it yet...)
cup of diced steamed vegies (sweet potato, pumpkin, peas)
2 T chickpea paste or hummus
1/2 cup cooked legumes (i used soy beans and red lentils)

preheat oven to 200deg C. on a baking tray lay down some baking paper then the 2 pastry squares. spread the pastry with chickpea paste leaving at least 1-2cm from the edge. into the centre spoon vegies and legumes, not too much that you can't fold over the pastry to meet the other edges easily (keep leftover vegie and legume filling for spoon feeding). fold pastry over to make a triangle and pinch edges together. bake for 15mins. allow to cool before serving - parcels will be very hot inside.

steam vegie and chickpea nori rolls

zac loves nori and i've found it a good option if i'm in the shops and he's hungry. however the vegies sticks inside are often too crunchy for him to eat well with the soft rice - he doesn't really know how to bite them. so the avocado or tofu options are often easier for him to eat. i quickly decided to start making my own for him so i could use brown rice and steamed vegies and make sure there was no sugar or salts as ingredients.

1 sheet of nori seaweed
1/4 cup brown rice
2 chunks of pumpkin
2 florets of broccoli
1/8 avocado
3 T chickpea paste (see previous post)

cook brown rice and leave to cool. steam broccoli and pumpkin. place nori roll on a bamboo sushi roller (can be rolled without one of these but they make it easier and less messy). spread rice down first then place other ingredients in a row on top of the rice - cut vegies into stick like shapes to form a neat row. roll up and then cut into 2 peices - or smaller if your baby likes smaller finger foods)

you could try quinoa instead of rice and a range of different vegies to steam. also try tempeh sticks or mashed lentils on the inside.

chickpea paste

this makes a large round take away container sized batch. i normally then freeze half of it and use the other fresh half throughout the next 2 or 3 days on anything i can think of. zac often just gets into it in the container with both hands! he loves hummus so i thought i'd make something like hummus but a high concentration of chickpeas and no olive oil or salt.

1 cup dry chickpeas
water for soaking and cooking
1/4 tsp cumin
1 tsp golden kelp
i clove garlic
1 T tahini
juice of one lemon

soak chickpeas over night. cover them with water in a pot and bring slowly to boil. simmer for 1-2 hrs or until soft. drain off cooking water and add chickpeas to the blender with remaining ingredients.

use as a spread or stir through other meals. you can stir through some water with a fork to make it more like a dip consistency.

home made baked beans

this can be made with smaller quantities of the ingredients, or store what you don't use in the freezer, or share as a family meal.

1 C dry cannellini or butter beans
half jar of tomato paste or 4 tomatoes blended
pinch of mustard seeds
4 cloves
1 clove garlic crushed
1 small onion finely chopped
1 tsp golden kelp
water for soaking and cooking

soak the beans over night. put them in a pot with water about an inch higher than the beans. stir through tomatoes or tomato paste. bring slowly to the boil. add mustard seeds, cloves, onion and garlic. simmer for 1-2 hrs or until beans are a soft. add more water if needed so beans are always covered though water level should reduce substantially by the end of cooking. remove from heat and try and locate the cloves and take them out. blend for younger babies (take out what you want to eat first!)

i normally keep half of this mixture for both zac and i to eat at breakfast and freeze the other half. if freesing i like to use long flattish rectangular containers (like take away containers) then i can take out the block of frozen beans and slice off chunks when i need if i don't just defrost the whole lot for me to eat as well!

normally a baked bean recipe would require you to add sugar, black strap molasses and salt to taste but i have avoided this because i don't want zac having added salts and sugars - i might as well by a can of baked beans if i didn't mind those ingredients. however some books say that black strap molasses is a good source of iron for babies so you can do what you wish. i think zac gets enough iron in a range of other foods so i have left this out too.

lentil and pumpkin burger patties

1/2 cup of cooked brown lentils
1 slice of steamed pumpkin
1/4 C quinoa flour or wholemeal wheat flour

mash ingredients together with a fork. shape into patties. grill, bake or lightly fry.

i normally have a stash of cooked lentils and beans in the freezer and break off as much as i need for a small meal. i often steam up the frozen legumes with the vegies i am steaming for the dinner. this makes everything very quick. these patties should not take longer than 15 mins to prepare.