I am very, very happy to announce the arrival of the newest addition to team Nice – my first nephew Milo!

He’s absolutely brilliant! And the whole family is over the moon. My Dad is a National Trust volunteer and he baked some jam tarts to take into work to celebrate becoming a Grandad! He used my recipe from my last blog post and made Milo’s initials out of pastry – check it out:

I am so pleased to be an Auntie, but I have absolutely no idea what to do. Babies baffle me, as do so many of my female friends who seem to instinctively know how to hold a them, change a nappy and understand all the crazy noises they make. Why don’t babies arrive with step-by-step guides like flat pack furniture? And as for crying, turns out they are just sleepy or a bit hungry – so why do they sound like they are in mortal danger? It’s misleading, like when you get a work email marked URGENT but it’s for a marathon in six months time.

Ok, so we’ve established my hopelessness with babies, but I like to think I’ll do pretty well at the unending stream of “Why?” and “are we nearly there yet?” questions later on… and I could cook for them too (seamless link)!

So to welcome Milo and to give the new Mum and Dad a bit of a break I spent a day in the kitchen making a whole plethora of ready meals, freezer meals and baked goodies so they can spend even more time with the little fella. I tried to do some research on the kinds of foods most suitable for new Mums and Dads but the results were conflicting – some websites have huge lists condeming ingredients like fresh herbs, peanuts and eggs, whereas other sites seem to advocate eating whatever you like as long as it is healthy and doesn’t include too much shark. Hmm. So I just made a selection of foods I thought they would like, but included a list of all the ingredients, just in case. Worst case scenario they’ll give the food to visitors – which I hope is still vaguely helpful.

Here we go. My menu for my Brother and his Wife:

Eat Now…

Blueberry and Lemon Drizzle Cake

Soda Bread

Eat Later…

Spiced Couscous (just add water, serve with pomegranate and fried Halloumi cheese)

Mkomazi Cardamom-Mashed Sweet Potato (from the “World Food Cafe” Book)

Very Garlicky Hummus

Freeze…

Lentil Moussaka

Giving food seemed to be a good plan, and I would recommend doing this for anyone you know who has just had a baby. Making a selection of dishes that won’t all go off at the same time is also a good tip…oh and things they can eat with one hand 🙂

xxx