Pizza Dough Recipe

Pizza makes a great finger food if you're doing baby led weaning and if you make it yourself it doesn't have to be unhealthy.

The pizza pictured has been topped with homemade tomato and basil sauce​ (click through for the recipe), roast chicken, mushrooms, red onion, yellow pepper, sweetcorn and cheese. Top your dough with your own favourite flavours for a personalised​ pizza.

Serves 3-4 adults and 1 baby (if served with a side dish; such as sweet potato fries, loaded jackets or wedges).

Ingredients

• 400g strong white bread flour
• 2 1/4tsp yeast
• A pinch of caster sugar (I would normally avoid adding sugar to anything I'm cooking for a baby, but unfortunately without it the yeast won't work)
• 325ml warm water

Method

1. Combine the flour, yeast and sugar in a bowl.
2. Pour in the water a small about at a time until a pliable but not sticky dough is achieved (you may not need all the water. If the dough becomes sticky add a bit more flour).
3. Knead the dough on a floured surface for 5 minutes until smooth and elastic.
4. Return the dough to the bowl and cover with a tea towel. Leave to rise in a warm place for 1 hour.
5. After 1 hour punch down the dough and leave for a further 30 minutes.
6. Oil a large baking tray.
7. Transfer the dough to a floured surface and roll out to match the size of the baking tray.
8. Cover with layers of pizza sauce, cheese and your favourite toppings.
9. Bake in a preheated oven at 200C for 20-25 minutes.

Paprika Chicken Recipe

Not the prettiest looking of my recipes but definitely one of the tastiest. Can be served with jacket potatoes (I always do jacket sweet potatoes for Isabella because of the higher nutritional content) or pasta. If you've got enough left over sauce you can, get two meals out of this by serving with jacket potatoes for tea and then using the leftover sauce with pasta for dinner the next day.

This is a great dish for different weaning stages as its easily puréed or can be cut into small chunks for baby to (somewhat messily) feed themselves.

Serves 2-3 adults and 1 baby.

Ingredients

• 2 chicken breast fillets
• 1 clove of garlic
• 500ml single cream
• 500ml chicken stock (made using a Boots baby organic stock cube as this has virtually no salt in as oppose to regular stock cubes that have a high salt content)
• 4tsp paprika
• 4tsp dried mixed herbs
• 50g grated cheese
• 500ml boiling water

Method

1. Dice or crush the garlic and place in a measuring jug.
2. Add the stock cube, paparika, herbs and water to the jug and stir till dissolved.
3. Dice the chicken and place in an oven proof dish.
4. Pour the stock mixture over the chicken then add the cream. Gently stir (so that the sauce doesn't slop over the sides) until the cream and stock mixture are combined.
5. Bake in a preheated oven at 180C for 40 minutes.
6. Removed from the oven and sprinkle over the cheese (most of the cheese will sink into the sauce so don't worry about this). 
7. Return to the oven for a further 20 minutes then serve.
8. If you are keeping the leftover​ sauce, pour it into an airtight container and keep in the fridge.

Isabella feeding herself paprika chicken and sweet potato chunks.

Cheese and Chive (or Blueberries and Cinnamon) Baked Pancakes Recipe

These little pancakes are great for lunch and brilliant for baby led weaning. The basic batter can be used with other ingredients as well as cheese and chive to create​ a variety of different flavours. For breakfast adding blueberries and cinnamon instead of cheese and chive gives you a delicious treat.

To make this recipe you will need 4 cup Yorkshire pudding trays.



Ingredients

• 150g plain flour
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup water
• 3/4 cup whole milk
• 50g greated cheese
• 1 tbsp chopped chives 
• Unsalted butter for greasing

Or

• 100g blueberries
• 1tsp cinnamon

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200 C
2. Put all the ingredients into a large measuring jug and whisk until fully combined.
3. Place a small amount of unsalted butter into each cup of Yorkshire pudding trays and melt in the oven until bubbling.
4. Remove the trays from the oven and pour in a thin layer of batter.
5. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes​.
6. Serve as is or top with meats and pickle for the cheese and chive pancakes or banana and maple syrup for the blueberry and cinnamon pancakes.

Tomato & Basil Pasta / Pizza Sauce

The quantities of ingredients shown for this recipe are for a bulk batch that will give you 3 servings of pasta sauce (to feed 1 baby and 3 adults) and 1 serving of pizza sauce (to feed 1 baby and 4 adults). Once made the sauce can be boxed up and frozen to be defrosted when needed.

Ingredients

• 18 tomatoes
• 3 red onions
• 3 cloves garlic
• 2tbsp oil
• 25g basil

Method

1. Score a cross in the bottom of each tomato, place in boiling water for 5 minutes then drain.
2. Dice the onion and garlic.
3. Place the oil and onion in an extra large pan and cook on a medium/high heat for 4 minutes.
4. Add the garlic and reduce to a low heat and cook for a further minute.
5. Remove the skin of the tomatoes (it should just peel away from the cross in the bottom) and dice. 
6. Tear up the basil and add to the pan along with the diced tomatoes. Cook for a further 20 minutes.
7. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly before blitzing in a food processor, (depending on the size of your processor you may need to do this in batch).
8. Box in airtight containers and refrigerate or freeze until needed.