Smoked Mackerel Fishcakes

Being a parent is bloody hard. I mean Begonia hard ( Trying to stop swearing, my late grandmother would always use Flower names rather than swear words – Delphiniums works in most situtions) Everyone tells you  being a parent is  hard, but somehow I didn’t listen.

I was looking forward to feeding Em solids, and to start with it went well. She started sleeping through, finally after months of breastfeeding other people could get involved feeding Em.

I was of course thinking though I will just puree what we eat , turns out though feeding a baby Jerk Pulled Pork is frowned upon and looking through our meals we have a lot of chilli in our food, not suitable for young vulnerable toungues. But it was sort of going OK , had some food she would eat a nice lentil pasta sauce , root vegetable purees some daal , plain yogurt, feeding herself prunes, apple and celery she was eating pints of plain yogurt in a week. In fact the only thing she wouldn’t eat was bananas.

Then it all went to pot, at first I though it was the new surroundings she would only eat porridge and yogurt. Doubting everything I even cracked and bought a pouch of Organic Baby Mush (another thing to tick of the list of things I swore I would never do – probably end up in McDonalds by the end of the year the way my principles are cracking)  I was both sad, glad she screamed at that too. I tasted the food , it was OK but it had that weird artificial tomato burn at the back of my throat, I think it comes from the heat treatment – because the ingredients list is certainly exemplary. I was relieved it wasn’t my cooking but still desperate to get her eating something more than porridge and yogurt.

Finally I noticed two teeth budding and then another two. But things got worse she wouldn’t even eat yogurt and porridge without being held rather than sitting in the highchair, then she wouldn’t eat it at all. Screaming when I carried her into the kitchen. She would still munch on celery or apples.

So mealtimes became a stressful time with neither of us having much fun, and then like all the baby phases it was gone, my nice friendly bouncy baby was back in her highchair grinning like a shark and with 4 new teeth to try some “grown-up” food.

We eat fishcakes a lot , they are a credit to my poor household management I always seem to make too much mashed potato, we always have some dried out bread lurking at the bottom of the breadbin. Once made they reheat really easily from frozen, great with all kinds of tinned or smoked fish you don’t need to get fresh fish.

Smoked Mackerel Fishcakes

Makes 8 large fishcakes

1 whole smoked mackerel or two fillets skinned and flaked
300g of mashed potato
1 tsp of minced garlic
1 tsp of English Mustard
3 handfuls of breadcrumbs
1 egg

1. Add the flaked fish , mustard , garlic to the mashed potato
2. Taste the mix & season with salt and pepper
3. Form into golf ball sized balls then flatten
4. Place the fishcakes in the fridge for 20 minutes
5. Beat an egg on one plate and one another place the breadcrumbs
6. Dip the fishcakes first in the egg , then in the breadcrumbs to coat
7. Place on a baking sheet and return to the fridge ( or freezer ) until you are ready to cook them.
8. Bake at 180degC for 15 minutes until golden brown ( Add 10 minutes if frozen)