Has anyone got a recipe for cauliflower cheese?

[emmatmg]

I am already stuggling with a fussy eater and he's only 5 months!

Everything I cook myself for him he just clamps he's mouth shut.....and I mean everything. The only way I can get my food into him is to trick him to open his mouth by laughing or a teething toy BUT if it's something out of a jar he'll eat it no problem at all.....Grrrrrrrr

He has just eaten 3/4 of a jar of cauliflower cheese without a single grumble so I want to try making it myself in the hope that he'll like something I cook!

Thanks in advance ladies

I would just steam cauliflower florets, mash and add a cheese sauce (make a white sauce and add grated cheese) but I'm not sure if it's OK to give flour to a 5 month old?

thanks prufrock........now how do you make white sauce

is the flour thing more about gluten? he regulary attacks my toast in the morning with no ill effects so I think he's ok to have it. His 2 big brothers were fine with it too so hopefully he'll grow up being okay with it too.

I use cornflour to make a white sauce, if that makes a difference. Blob of butter melted in pan, stir in a teaspoon or two of cornflour, cook a bit then gradually add milk. As it starts to simmer it should thicken and add cheese at the last minute - dessert spoon or 2 should be enough - but this will thicken it too. Add cooked cauliflower.

I also used to add broccoli, cooked veg such as sweetcorn and maccaroni/chunks of cooked potato for a bit of variation.

Melt some butter in a pan, add flour to make a paste and cook for a min or two. Slowly add milk, a bit at a time, and thicken to the consistency required. Add grated cheese.

You can also add a dash of mustard to make the taste sharper.

And when he's a little older you can add other ingredients. My mother's cauliflower cheese always included hard-boiled egg and crispy bacon. Macaroni cheese was similarly fiddled with. As a result, it never tastes the same without it. All down to personal taste. My MIL always used to add peanuts to macaroni cheese, apparently. YUK

oo pook, my mum used to do the same - i'd completely forgotten until i read your post. It was yummy!

Yum yummmmmmmm

Try sprinkling some cayenne pepper over it at the end. Perks it up quite a bit.

oh, sorry, didn't see the 5 months old bit! I meant for adults.

If you want to avoid the flour, I used to cook the cauliflower in milk then add grated cheese and puree

We always had pink cauliflower cheese when I was little as my dad hated white looking sauce (weirdo!) As a result we loved it. Just squeeze in some tomato puree

Why don't you try keeping an empty jar and putting your own food in it. He will probably eat it then

Magnum, it's strange as I make sure he never see's where the food comes from ie Jar or freezer and he will only eat a jar. How wierd is that!

I'm going to cook some tomorrow and hope your lovely recipes work. I've been putting a dollop of jarred Cauli cheese with home coooked food and that seems to be working too, well at least it did yesterday. It just smells soooooooooo bad!

Baby food is always so weak in flavour so it might be that your own food tastes too strong. Make sure you do the cauliflower cheese with mild cheese and you should be in with more of a chance!

I make cauliflower cheese with creme fraiche rather than white sauce for my 16 month old and us as its easier and my white sauce always turns out like horrific lumpy wallpaper paste. Got a feeling that this might be a bit extravagent and also not sure its ok for little babies (sure someone on mumsnet will know!) but its yummy, and in Delia, so mustn't be completely far fetched

Don't have any tips on how to get him to prefer your food to jars (ds has always loved a nice jar of slop too but despite excessive creme fraiche consumption I am pretty tight and refuse to buy them unless we're going out ) but its very early days so don't worry. Ds didn't start solids till 6 months and it still took ages till he liked anything but baby rice with a very little fruit or carrot added in. He was very conservative and seemed to only like things that tasted of milk. At around 7 1/2 months he completely changed, actually seemed hungry for food for the first time and started scoffing everything in sight. I think it coincided with him getting more mobile but was a big shock at the time. Hope this rambling is of some help