Making custard at home is a really great option.  You can be guaranteed that it is sugar-free and free of all other nasties – something I am very particular about when feeding my son.

This is an easy custard recipe and baby will love it.  Stir though a little pureed fruit for a natural sweeter or simply enjoy as is.   For older children or for babies 12 months plus, you could add a little maple syrup to sweeten.

This custard is suitable for babies 4 months plus – just be sure to try the ingredients individually beforehand to be sure of no allergies.

Enjoy x

Some other Custard options for you

1. Vanilla Bean Custard 2. Rhubarb Custard 3. Lavender Custard 4. Coconut Custard with Caramelised Pineapple

5. Mango & Passionfruit Custard

Everyone loves fries right?  My little guy certainly does.  I don’t make them often because H will go straight for them, and its often hard to get him to eat anything else, but when I do, I love to add herbs and spices.   These sweet paprika fries make a tasty alternative and being oven roasted they are…

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Maybe not entirely toddler friendly but everyone deserves something sweet once in a while – right! 

H is very much a savoury man but he is a fan of this cake. It is not overly sweet and the combination of cake and tart plums is heavenly.  

I have made this cake a couple of times and H has made one almost entirely on his own.  He did most of the mixing and added the ingredients all in the wrong order, and it was still superb.  So get the kids involved with this one – you can’t go wrong…

If plums aren’t in season where you live, or you would prefer another fruit, try: apples, pears, cherries, peaches or even bananas

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• 6 – 10 medium sized black or red-skinned plums
• 150 g butter , melted
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 150 g caster sugar , plus 2 tablespoons for sprinkling on top of cake
• 250 g plain flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 125 ml (1/2 cup) milk

• Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C (350 degrees F). Wash the plums cut them into halves or quarters – discard the seeds. Lightly grease a 24 cm (9 1/2 inch) cake tin with butter.
• Put the eggs into a bowl with the vanilla and the sugar and beat until pale and fluffy. Add the sifted flour and baking powder and mix to incorporate. Whisk in the melted butter and milk
• Put a few plums in the bottom of the tin and tip the batter over the top. Top with the remaining plums and sprinkle with the extra sugar.
• Bake for approximately 1 hour or until nice and golden. Remove from the oven and let cool in the tin before removing it.
• Serve plain, sprinkled with icing sugar or with a dollop of cream, ice-cream or mascarpone cream

Adapted from Twelve ‘A Tuscan Cook book’ by Tessa Kiros

Green smoothies are to H what lollies are to a lot of kids – he absolutely loves them. Guaranteed if we walk past a juice bar, he will drag me kicking and screaming until he gets one – he loves to choose the ingredients and it has become his little treat after daycare a couple of times a…

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Happy New Year! I have a nice healthy recipe to start the new year.  Apple chips with an optional rosewater toffee just to spice things up a little.   H prefers his apple chips without toffee so I add toffee to half and leave the other half as is.  I use a food dehydrator to dehydrate…

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A delicious compote of peach, apples and spices.  It is lovely eaten on its own, or we like it on our porridge of a morning.   Freeze in ice cube trays and take portions out as you need them.  Compotes are a great why to introduce spices to your little one.

Beautiful Berry Coulis – sugar free Chicken with Apples and Thyme –  such as great combination Delicate white fish with fennel and grapes   I’m very excited to be sharing my very first guest post with you all, on a great blog called  Never the Same Spice Twice.  I have 3 new recipes suitable for babies…

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This is the simplest of purees but I wanted to add it to the blog to highlight that the organic apple season in Australia is coming to an end.  Apples top the ‘Dirty Dozen’ list so it is important to buy organic.  Apples are a bit of a staple for adding to other foods therefore…

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I had never tried Kohlrabi before making this dish.  I spotted it at my local organic store and bought two.  A purple one and a green one.  I googled it when I got home and realised that it is very similar to cabbage.   I am a huge coleslaw fan so I thought I would…

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  This sweet and sour plum recipe is truly delicious; serve with cream, ice-cream, yoghurt, or it would make a lovely addition to trifle, pavlova, on top of cake or with meringues I thought I should also note that this isn’t something that I would make often for H.  It contains both sugar and red wine – not very toddler…

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  Maybe not entirely toddler friendly but everyone deserves something sweet once in a while – right!  H is very much a savoury man but he is a fan of this cake. It is not overly sweet and the combination of cake and tart plums is heavenly.   I have made this cake a couple of times and…

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Summer Fruit Puree with mango, banana, passionfruit and peach.  Simply added to a blender and pulsed til smooth.  No cooking required.  Baby will love it and so will you.   The Stone Fruit Puree with Cinnamon and Star Anise is simmered on the stove top until tender so the spices can infuse the mixture.  It is a…

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I had no intention of putting these mini lamb koftas on the blog when I made them for Little Big H’s lunch today, but they were so yummy and he loved them so much that I though – I have to!  

I made them using lamb loin (because that’s all I had), so I was thinking that they may turn out to be quite dry or tough, but they were tender and squishy and easy for Big H to chew.  You could use lamb mince if you prefer.  Serve with greek yoghurt and a little squeeze of lemon – delicious xx 

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• 250 g lamb loin (or you could use lamb mince)
• 2 medium sized carrots
• Coriander – a couple of tablespoons of chopped coriander or to taste
• 1 onion
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic paste – or the fresh stuff if you have it
• 1 egg
• 2 slices of wholemeal bread
• A good splash of milk
• Oil for frying (coconut, grape seed oil are great)

• Chop all ingredients roughly and place them in a food processor. Pulse the processor until all the ingredients are finely chopped
• Heat a frying pan over medium heat and add the oil. Using a teaspoon and your hands form little balls from the mixture and add to the frying pan
• Cook on all sides until nice and golden and they are cooked through

• Grate the carrot and finely chop all other ingredients. You could also try adding meat to a blender to get a fine consistency (or alternatively use lamb mince). Combine and continue with the above steps.

You could use any veggies in this dish. Zucchini would be great. Also try adding spices like cumin or a mild paprika

Fresh ling fillets with a sauce that is the perfect balance of sweet and sour. The tamarind adds a lovely sour note but doesn’t over power the fish – it’s also only mildly spiced so the kids will love it.

You create the sauce in the frying pan by frying your onions and adding your herbs and spices and tamarind water, then simply add the fish and simmer away for 15 minutes.

Serve with rice and a simple salad, here I’ve served it with shaved cucumber.

Looking for quick healthy main meals? Try a couple of these….

Teriyaki Salmon / Spiced Chicken / Quick roast chicken /

Print Pin Prep Time 10 minutes minutes Cook Time 35 minutes minutes Total Time 45 minutes minutes

• 2 tablespoons olive oil ,or enough to cover the base of your frying pan
• 1 large onion ,finely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic ,or garlic paste
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1 large bunch coriander ,finely chopped
• 1 heaped tablespoon tamarind paste
• 500 ml water
• 600 grams ling fillets ,or any firm-fleshed white fish
• rice and shaved cucumber to serve

• Add olive oil to a frying along with the onion and cook until tender and the onion begins to colour. Add flour and cook stirring for a coupe of minutes. Add garlic, turmeric, ground coriander and sugar.
• Combine tamarind and water to a bowl an stir to dissolve.  Add to the pan and combine.  Partially cover and simmer for 15 minutes. 
• Dice fish into 2 inch sized pieces.  Add to pan and spoon some of the sauce over the top.  Season well with salt and pepper. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes or until the fish is cooked through. 
• If the sauce is still quite runny, remove fish and increase heat to high; reduce until it has thicken a little.  About 5 minutes. 
  Serve wth rice and a simple salad of shaved cucumber

Loosely based on a recipe from Sabrina Ghayour’s book Persiana 

If you make my tamarind and coriander fish, be sure to take a picture and upload to Instagram with the hashtag #littlebigh so I can check out your creation. xx

The inspiration for his salad came from a girls night out last weekend.  A girlfriend and I went to the Sydney Opera House to see Stephen Hawking speak and went to a great little Italian restaurant beforehand.  My little man loves lentils and he is a huge fan of goats cheese so I thought of…

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This is my version of a recipe that I have made many time from the Vanilla Bean Blog.  I have simplified the recipe significantly, but the idea is the same and they are equally as delicious.  I use store-bought puff pastry to speed things up, rather than use the homemade honey spelt pastry in the original recipe (which is…

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I love to make my own pastry and when I came across this recipe in one of my favourite cookbooks I couldn’t wait to try it out.  It is very simple and sugar-free.  I have added a little orange blossom water because the combination of that with the strawberries is heavenly.  

The only sugar in these jam filled ricotta pastries comes from the strawberry jam filling which adds a lovely sweetness, but if you were after an even healthier option, you could use fresh fruit in place of the jam or possibly a sugar-free chia jam?  Both would work well.

Not really looking for a healthy treat!  What about adding a few square of good quality dark chocolate instead? Yum…

They are best serve on the day of making but an option would be to make the pastry a day or so in advance and keep it in the fridge until you are ready to roll out and bake on the day.  

These jam filled ricotta pasties are based on one of my favourite cookbooks called Twelve by Tessa Kiros – a Tuscan cookbook.  I have made so many of the recipes and they all work out well.  

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• 200 g (7oz) butter; softened
• 300 g (10 1/2oz) fresh ricotta cheese
• 300 g (10 1/2oz) plain all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 1 tablespoon orange blossom water
• pinch of salt

• Strawberry jam
• *optional – icing sugar to dust on top

• Add the butter and ricotta to a bowl and mix with a wooden spoon until combined. Add the sifted flour, baking powder, vanilla essence, orange blossom water and a pinch of salt. Tip out onto a bench and knead together with your hands until the mixture comes together into a soft ball of pastry. (If not wanting to do it by hand, I have made this recipe in my Kitchenaid with a dough hook attached, it works out perfectly)
• Cover dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30-60 minutes.
• Pre-heat oven to 180 C/350 F. Roll out pastry with a rolling pin on a lightly floured surface, to a thickness of about 3mm, and into 10cm (4inch) squares.
• Put a heaped teaspoon of strawberry jam in the middle of each square and pinch the opposite ends together with a little water.
• Line an oven tray with baking paper and bake for about 20-30 minutes, or until golden brown. Serve warm or cold, and dust with icing sugar if using.

If the pastry feel a little wet just give the bench and your hands a good dust before rolling out it out.
Why not alternate the flavours and try strawberry jam, apricot jam, fresh fruit or even chocolate. It’s a great excuse to try all the flavours 🙂 Adapted from Twelve – a Tuscan cookbook by Tessa Kiros

Now that Big H is 10 months old it won’t be long before he is eating dinner with the family (no separate kids meals for us!).  So as often as I can I like to give Big H what we are having for dinner – only puréed.

It has been a challenge to avoid adding salt/sugar to recipes and instead substituting with fruits and other ingredients to add sweetness or saltines.

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• 1 duck breast
• 2 figs
• 1 large potato
• balsamic vinegar
• 5 dates
• pinch of bi-carb soda
• Tiny splash dry sherry (optional)
• 1/2 cup of water

• 3 duck breast
• 6 figs
• balsamic vinegar
• 10 dates
• pinch of bi-carb soda
• Splash dry sherry (optional)
• 3/4 cup of water

• I removed the fat from the duck and chopped it into pieces before adding to the steamer basket along with the potato. Depending on what type of steamer you have, you could steam the duck breast as a whole. Steam for approximately 15 minutes or until cooked through.
• Once cooked add duck and potato to the blender along with the cooked figs (see below) and two teaspoons of the date sauce.

• Chop dates and add to a saucepan. Add water and bring to the boil. Remove from of the heat and add bi-carb soda. Stir until dates start to breakdown. Allow to cool a little and add dry sherry and extra water if the consistency is too thick. Pass through a sieve.

• Chop the figs in half and add to a baking dish. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar and grill for approx. 5 minutes. You want them to be tender but still holding their shape

• Use a sharp knife to score the skin of the duck breasts (without slicing all the way into the flesh)
• If using a sous vide – vacuum breast and cook for 40 minutes at 64 degrees C (147 degrees F). Once cooked sear the breast in a frying pan skin-side down over medium-high heat to render the fat. Allow to rest
• Alternatively – Heat a little oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Sear the duck, skin-side down, for 7 minutes reduce the heat to medium-low after 3 minutes. Turn the breasts over and place the pan in the oven for a further 5 minutes. Transfer to a plate and let rest for 5 minutes.
• While the duck in resting place figs in the oven.

• Slice duck and add to a serving plate along with the figs. Drizzle some of the remaining balsamic from the fig pan and top with the date sauce.