Fish Pie

With the weather turning cold I begin to crave ‘proper’ warming food. This fish pie ticks all the boxes for me – it’s really comforting, can be made early and popped in the oven half an hour so so before you want to eat, and fish is great for little brains!
If your Picky Pickers aren’t great fish fans, just serve a very small amount the first time you make this and fill up their plate with other things they like so they don’t feel too overwhelmed. Hopefully it won’t be long before they’re enjoying a full portion and begging for more!
Serves 4-6
Ingredients:
1kg potatoes for mashing
a knob of butter
a splash of milk
75g grated cheddar cheese – maybe start off with mild and build up to mature for Picky Pickers
a pinch of salt
400g mixed fish – I use a frozen fish mix, there’s no need to defrost, you can just pop the fish straight from the freezer into the pie dish. Smoked fish might be a little strong for Picky Pickers so perhaps stick to white fish at least to begin with.
25g butter
25g plain flour
400ml milk
1 teaspoon of English mustard
Optional: a handful of frozen petit pois and/or sweetcorn, chives
Method:
1: Peel and chop the potatoes into small pieces. Boil until soft (about 20 minutes depending on size).
2: Mash the potatoes until smooth and add the knob of butter, the splash of milk and about a third of the cheddar cheese and a pinch of salt. Mix together until creamy.
3: Make a white sauce by melting 25g of butter over a low heat then adding the flour. Mix and cook gently for 2 minutes. Slowly add the milk, little by little, and stirring constantly to avoid lumps! Bring to the boil and cook for a further 3-4 minutes. Mix in another third of the cheese, a teaspoon of mustard and the chives, sweetcorn and/petis pois if using. Take off the heat.
4: Place the fish in a large oven proof dish and pour over the white sauce.
5: Next spoon on the mashed potato and smooth with a fork. Sprinkle over the remaining cheese.
6: The dish can be put in the fridge overnight if you like or popped straight in the oven at 200 degrees celsius until bubbling and golden on the top (about 30 mins, or 40 from chilled).

Howdy!

If anyone knows about dealing with picky or fussy eaters it’s me! I was one myself, and still am in many ways.

Until about the age of 8, my diet mainly consistedof marmite toast or marmite sandwiches, with the occasional pack of ready salted Hula Hoops, apple, smooth apricot yogurt or McDonalds burger and chips thrown in. When I hit my teens, and finally started enjoying such delicacies as roast chicken and lasagne, I decided to become vegetarian! My poor parents must have despaired!

Now, I eat a varied, interesting diet and absolutely love cooking. I’m no longer vegetarian (the lure of bacon was too strong to resist!), but I am careful about the welfare of the animals I eat, and will only buy free-range or organic meat. An outsider would never believe I still have problems with certain foods (‘slimy’ ones in particular).

When I had my children, I saw fussy eating from a whole new perspective! Part of  one of my children’s autism meant that he was extremely finicky about what he’d eat. He would tolerate pasta with either tomato sauce or pesto, but the only hot food he really enjoyed was a margherita pizza. The child wouldn’t even eat chips! It took a long time, and a lot of hard work, to help him to accept the foods in the far more interesting, and balanced, diet he now enjoys.

With another son we faced further difficulties. He may not have loved everything we put on his plate, but he ate it all and had quite broad tastes for a little chap. However, when he was 5 he became ill and was diagnosed with a form of Irritable Bowel Disease. This meant a complete overhaul of his diet until medication could get his symptoms under control: no raw vegetables, no fruit or vegetable skins, no brown bread, very little dairy, and no chocolate or sweet! Add a nut allergy which he developed at the same time, and a trial with him gluten-free, and it was a bit of a nightmare!

As you can see, I really do know first hand how hard it is to help a child accept a new food, especially when unhealthy habits have already been formed, and how tough it can be to be inventive when certain foods have to be restricted or stopped completely. What I hope to do on this blog is provide a wide variety of recipes, which I hope will appeal to children, and which progressively allow for the introduction of new foods into their diet. Often the methods I suggest will involve introducing a taste very gradually, perhaps by adding more ingredients and flavours into a simple recipe over time (plain mashed potato can have cheddar cheese – first mild, building up to mature – grainy mustard and spring onions added to make what I call ‘grown-up mash’ for example). But most of all, the blog is about having fun with food, getting a bit messy and trying out new tastes and cooking styles to find what appeals to your child.

I hope that my recipes, tips and advice will help you to encourage your child, and maybe even yourself, to try cooking and eating lots of lovely new foods together.

Happy munching!!

p.s. Look out at the bottom of my recipes for printable pdf versions of those I think are particularly fun to make with little hands helping!