cooking

Have You Heard About Bliss Balls?

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So, a few months ago I was introduced to a food concept I’d never heard of before – Bliss Balls. Despite some extensive research (also known as Google), I haven’t been able to work out where they come from or who came up with them, except that they’re popular with the raw food movement. What I do know is that they’re fabulous!

Bliss balls are basically a mixture of dried fruit and nuts which are blended together, smooshed into a ball shape and then rolled in coconut or nuts or something similar before putting them in the fridge to set. The key ingredient tends to be dates or figs (which have extra stickiness) and some people use a nut paste in their bliss balls (which means you have to get the consistency right) and you can experiment with them a lot, but they’re easy to make and yummy to eat, which ticks all the right boxes for me. They’re also essentially healthy – though I like to add a little chocolate to them to make them extra yummy (the little bit of chocolate does last longer, though)

So, here for you all, I’m going to share my basic bliss ball ‘recipe’ and some of the things I do to mix them up.

 

Adventures of a Subversive Reader: Bliss Balls

Some Bliss Balls I made in December

 

Basic Bliss Ball

  • Pitted dried dates
  • Crumbed walnuts
  • Other dried fruit
  • Other nuts (sometimes)
  • Bit of chocolate (I like 70% dark chocolate)
  1. Soak the dates for a few minutes in a small amount of water. Chop them up (which is helpful in making sure that all the dates are pitted)
  2. Stick the dates in the food processor and process. Add in walnuts and other fruits (chopped up if needed) and process them through. The mixture should stick together.
  3. Chop up a small amount of chocolate (2 rows from a block or a chocolate bar is enough) and blend it through for extra yumminess.
  4. Roll the mixture into small balls and roll through coconut or chopped nuts (or milo is good!)
  5. Stick in fridge until set

 

The dried fruit you use can be anything you like! I love cranberries and dried pear at the moment, but using mixed dried fruit is pretty awesome because you get the fruit peel taste through it. I haven’t tried apple yet, but I think that would be lovely.

I’ve used almonds and macadamia nuts too.

Aside from 70% dark chocolate, I’ve used rum and raisin chocolate (so good) and a Cherry Ripe bar. Pretty much any firm chocolate should be good for this.

You can also add a little flavouring – I used a bit of peppermint essence which was awesome 🙂

 

 

Have you made Bliss Balls before? What chocolate would you use?

What is Baby-Led Weaning and Why Are We Doing It?

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Baby Led Weaning

What is Baby-Led Weaning?

It’s become ‘common understanding’, in most western countries anyway, that there’s a certain path you must follow to introduce solids to your baby. Somewhere between 4 and 6 months (though for medical reasons, some people wait longer) you introduce cereals to your baby, followed by a set period of purees, mashed foods, then finger foods. I thought this was the only way to do it, at least until I was pregnant and came across baby-led weaning.

Baby-led weaning, or baby-led solids, is simply an alternate way of introducing solids to your baby’s diet. It involves the baby becoming part of family meal times – sitting with the family and sharing the family food. Some parents do it by offering food from their own plate, while others put some of the food the family is eating on a plate or a tray for the baby to chose from.

Because it is baby led, the baby chooses what they want to ‘eat’ or not eat. In the early days, this is more exploration or play – they need to work out how food, and their mouths, work, so they still get almost all their food from milk. But as they are being introduced to a wide range of food – and they see their family eating it – they are  likely to eat a wide range of food from a young age.

Why are we doing Baby-Led weaning?

When I came across Baby-led weaning, I became kind of excited. This seemed perfect for us:

  • No preparing purees, mashes or special food different to us. This so appeals to the lazy side of me 🙂
  • Creating the idea of a family table right from the start. Squirm eats with us, at the same time as us, from the beginning
  • Being able to introduce a wide range of food early. I can be a bit picky in my eating, so I’d like Squirm to be introduced to lots of foods
  • Letting Squirm control his food from the start.

What do we need for Baby-led Weaning

  • A way for the baby to sit up at the table – either in a high chair or on the parents lap
  • A cleanable surface. Baby-led weaning can be messy to start with, though that improves with a bit of time.
  • Some modifications to food. Egg must be well cooked and it’s a good idea to avoid honey until the baby reaches 12 months. Small nuts and other things which may cause choking need to be avoided or modified. To start with, it’s easier to cut food into easy to hold shapes. And it’s best to avoid a lot of salt and sugar.
  • And understanding of the difference between gagging and choking.

We read the Gill Rapley books – Baby Led Weaning and the Baby Led Weaning Cookbook. The first one gives a good in depth look at Baby-led weaning, while the second one gives an overview and then some good recipes to try out (if you want to buy one, I’d suggest the cook book. We’ve tried some of the recipes and they’re great). You don’t need to read either book, but they do give some great background and information.

So we’ve got a few more weeks to go until we start and we’re just beginning to get ourselves organised. Squirm sits with us for most meals and enjoys the social aspect of dinner already. We still need to buy a mat to go under his chair, but we’ve been trying out a range of different recipes which we’ve really enjoyed. And we’ll be sure to share the adventure with you.

What was the hardest part about introducing solids with your child? What were the funniest bits?

New Year Goals: A Healthier Lifestyle

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As we head towards 2013, Mr Pilot and I have been assessing our goals for the new year. One of the goals for both of us is looking at our food and exercise and trying to make the healthiest choices we can. There’s a number of reasons that we are thinking about this, including:

1. Squirm will be moving to solids around February. We are going to be doing Baby-Led Weaning with him, which means he’ll be sharing the same foods we eat. Obviously we want him to have the healthiest start to food possible, so that means we have to get healthier too

2. We’re becoming more aware of how good healthy food can be. There are some awesome alternatives out there to high salt, high sugar, high fat foods and it’s going to be a bit of an adventure to discover them 🙂

3. Eating healthy means making a lot of our own food, which tends to work out cheaper in the end. My maternity pay runs out soon, and we want to keep our savings up, so that’s a good reason to spend less on food.

4. There’s obvious health benefits to eating well and exercising. I have a thyroid problem, so eating well has to help that. We’re also becoming aware that health in our 30s isn’t as simple as it was in our 20s . . .

5. The pregnancy and birth took a lot out of my body. I had stomach separation and a few other health issues, plus it mustn’t have been good to eat the number of Frosty Fruits I ate!

Some Bliss Balls I made - almost entirely healthy :)

Some Bliss Balls I made – almost entirely healthy 🙂

We’re look at this as a goal, rather than a resolution, because I think we’re more likely to approach a goal in a methodical manner. We’re going to have to learn more about the food we eat, hunt down some new recipes to cook and think about what we want the outcome to be. We don’t want this to be a weight loss thing, we want this to be a lifestyle change – so coming up with an end goal is harder. I’d like to try to cook a new meal each week and to avoid prepackaged food as much as possible (it’s much harder to be sure of the contents with prepackaged food). I also want to avoid eating lots of chocolate (I eat way, way too much) and to make healthier food choices when I’m eating away from home. There’s still a lot to consider, of course . . .

What’s your favourite healthy recipe? What goals are you setting for 2013?