Only Organic Kumara, Sweetcorn, and Baby rice

Unfortunately sickness has hit our household over the past few days, with child number one (Luke, he of the train nappy) coming down with what's turned out to be a fairly nasty case of the old hand foot and mouth disease. Sleepless nights have been spent being kicked by small, febrile legs, and days at work downing coffee to get through to home time. Baby food has remained untasted, a small collection of mostly-eaten jars piling up in the refrigerator. Still, things could be worse: I'm still in my job, unlike the once Honorable Tony Abbott, immediate past prime minister of the commonwealth of Australia, who lost his last night. A man who liked to remind the press at every opportunity how he had managed to stop the boats, last night Tone was simply powerless in his attempt to stop the votes as they piled up for his opponent, Malcolm Turnbull. As a man with so many public gaffes, who had managed to alienate almost every single loving and dead Australian (as demonstrated by the great John Oliver), undoubtedly  the final nail in the coffin came when Tone bit into a raw onion on a visit to a vegetable processing plant. As a man who's job primarily depends on his kissability to babies, his days were numbered by chosing to chow down on the one vegetable I have yet to find as an ingredient in ANY stage one or two purée or mash. Why not the sweetcorn the kumara, or the baby rice, Mr A (wow, what a segue this is turning in to!) and so, though he tried to cling on to a Prime Ministerial job that is clearly comparable to an onion (layered, and he wasn't willing to let anyone else have a bite), his caucus colleagues declared, 'Tony AbbOut!!!'

Anyway, on to what Tony should've eaten at that factory.

Contains: Vegetables (Sweet potato (20%), Sweetcorn (17%), Pumpkin (unspecified percent)), Water, Ground rice (6%), Brown rice (1%).

Firstly, NO ONION, see Tony? The inclusion of pumpkin, despite it not being in the puree's name is vaguely interesting, in the same way that there's a drummer in U2, but everybody ignores the fact that he's there and he's probably forgotten his own name. And brown rice... This is verging on a superfood, and Only Organic are the company who trumpeted the presence of 1.6% quinoa in their food... Why not put this on huge front of the jar in large neon letters?

Emily's reaction: To be honest Emily had this for tea two nights ago, whilst I was trying to wrangle with a febrile toddler. The fact that there was easily half a small jar left probably means she didn't take too favourably to it though.

First impressions: The packaging comes in standard by now Only organic hues, with a picture of a cob of corn, a sliced kumara, and a little serving of white rice in front of a larger bowl containing the puréed mix of the three. No mention of the brown rice, and I won't be drawing any further parallels here. Nor the pumpkin. Again, like Irish purveyors of faux-political activism whilst pertaining massive wealth-mongers U2, there's a staple ingredient within which the music would be bland and soulless without in this, but they'll be damned if it's going on the album cover (please don't @ me with cover art depicting Larry Mullen Jr now, I don't care to take this analogy any further anyway).

What I will discuss further, is the presence of a 'Good Night' brand, with a little motif containing a moon and two stars in the upper Right hand corner of the label. What does this mean? Is the food good at night? If you want a pleasant evening, should you eat this? Will it send your baby into a sound sleep leaving the night ahead free for 'adult parent time'? (Spoiler alert: no).

The food itself is a congealed yellow mess. It even LOOKS like canned pumpkin soup. Some weird vegetable cleansing is going on here, and I do not care for it one bit.

Bouquet: Straight to the nose wafts strong elements of sweetcorn. Not just sweetcorn, though, sweetcorn and PUMPKIN. I can't detect much in the way of kumara and rice. Rice I can forgive: unless it is Jasmine (hardly likely in a stage one baby purée), rice is hardly the most fragrant of the carbohydrates. Kumara though, as a headlining act in this food, should surely be much less underwhelming?

Taste test: first hint past the lips is of sweetcorn, strong, flavoursome, and yes, sweet. Both the pumpkin and kumara hit you next, travelling over the palate towards the back of the tongue, and lingering strongly. The rice does make itself known: whether brown or standard white is unclear, as it is mashed beyond recognition, but certainly it does give the food a slightly intriguing texture on its journey oesophagus-bound. All round, quite pleasant, and I've been quite happily snacking on the rest of the jar over the course of tonight. 

Overall: 6/10. Not too bad an evening option. Could rebrand as a risotto on the go and sell in a larger quantity. Not sure why Only Organic are so loathe to advertise the pumpkin content though.

Enjoy: When a leadership spill threatens to end your Prime Ministerial term in office. With the advertised promise of a Good Night, there'll be no stopping your vote! Best to take a litre bottle of gin, however, just in case you do lose your job.

Only Organic: Cauliflower, Broccoli and Cheddar

Firstly: a week in and I'm still going! The novelty hasn't quite worn off yet, not just for me, but for you, the loyal reader, too! Thanks everyone who's kept on reading my inane blabber, I feel I've only scraped the surface of the underrated world of baby purée so far, and there are many high peaks and probable low troughs to go, so stay tuned! The quinoa post was an early highlight, and I hope to have several more for you over the coming weeks!

Father's Day today seemed like the perfect excuse to take on one of the big challenges I'd been saving for a while: Only Organic stage 2 cauliflower, broccoli and cheddar. So different in formulation was this from almost anything Emily and I had tried so far, I had genuinely no idea how it would come across. It has dairy in it! Not just cheese, but milk too! And cheddar: a family of cheese with such diversity across its spectrum! Would it be a strong, finely aged specimen? A creamier Colby varietal? Or a more delicate mild version? Would the cheddar entice us to gorge ourselves until full? (Geography pun there for all you South-East Englanders!) And how would Emily take the massive change in dietary direction forced upon her?

Contains: Cheese sauce (water, ground rice, whole milk powder, cheese (milk) 3%), Cauliflower (15%), Broccoli (9%), Onion.

Eagle eyes will note that the named ingredients only add up to of  27% of the total content, with presumably water and ground rice making up the balance. Having since tasted it, I can't really say this surprises me.

Actually on second thoughts, eagle eyes probably wouldn't notice that, as they would belong to eagles, which are birds, so can't read. Maybe The Eagles' eyes would, if they were feeding their grandchildren, as I imagine this would be the type of fancy upper class food they would choose in that case.

First impressions: not a huge amount to be honest. It's a pale cream purée in colour, easily the thickest offering so far, with a coarse texture visible to the eye.

The packaging is fairly non descript. A couple of florets of broccoli and cauliflower are scattered next to a red bowl containing some sort of broth-like liquid. A wedge of what appears to be a maturing, crumbly cheddar lies nearby, hinting at a rich, sophisticated taste within. Additional branding assures the consumer that only the finest New Zealand cheddar, mashed with a fork, is included, and that the cheese does not contain something called BPA, I assume from the cheese's rind.

Emily's reaction: I commented yesterday that a picture speaks a thousand words, so without further comment, this was Emily's reaction today.

When presented with an option of the food and a used wet wipe, Emily decided to try her luck eating the wet wipe. There was plenty of food left for me to taste.

Bouquet: Not much of a nose on this one at all. Hints of cauliflower entered the nostrils, but hardly lingered. There was dissapointingly little in the way of a cheesy scent, but sometimes the most delicate of curds have nary a whiff about them.

Taste test: Recall, if you will, the taste of cauliflower, the blandest of vegetables. Now imagine it mushed into a purée, until at the texture of cold vomit (without chunks). Add a hint of onion at the back of the tongue as an afterthought. Served cold. That is what Only Organic cauliflower, broccoli and cheddar offered up here. The cheese flavour was so underwhelming, it would be unsurprising to find the company was in breach of fair trading descriptions to include a picture of the block on the front of the packet. The broccoli was absent in taste, but possibly added to the mildly unpleasant tactile sensation in the mouth. Not truly as offensive as my offspring would have me believe (Luke also passed the left overs up), but hardly the winning taste combination you would expect from the ingredient list.

Overall: 4/10. I'm not angry, just disappointed at the blandness of this meal. Would probably gain from a cheese aged for 24-36 months prior to preparation.

Enjoy with: some actual cheddar, or an aged single malt Scotch, to add some flavour to your evening.

Watties for babies: pumpkin and sweetcorn

Back when I started blogging about baby food, one of the comments I heard a bit was 'why are you doing the fruit based foods, everyone's going to like them anyway. Do more savoury foods!' So today I decided to branch out into the adventurous world of puréed pumpkin and sweetcorn. What an adventure!

Contains: Pumpkin (64%), Sweetcorn (24%), Water

Initial thoughts: Had Warhol decided to paint cans of Watties baby food instead of Campbell's soup, this could've been his Mona Lisa. After plain apple and plain pear, this would be the most ubiquitous of the stage one range, a classic kiwi staple that I imagine would rival only baked beans as one of Watties' top grossing products. On opening the can, a gelatinous ochre mass greets the eye, not dissimilar to a slightly discoloured lemon curd, if you will.

Emily's reaction: I missed Emily's feeding time due to working late. However, I am reliable informed that once she was distracted from the rampaging toddler brother, it went down a treat. A small coating at the bottom of the can is all that is left for my testing.

Bouquet: Not surprisingly given the ingredients, pumpkin features predominantly on the nose. A strong, sweet scent, most likely raw, or lightly cooked and mashed at best, certainly not oven roasted. The sweetcorn remains disappointingly in absentia, hoping to be discovered on tasting.

Taste test: Once spooned out and spread around a plate, the gelatinous glop originally encountered disperses to reveal a slightly coarse purée, with small sinews evident within the substrate. However, the solid elements are not evident within the mouth, and the food glides down the tongue smoothly. Again, the taste is overwhelmingly pumpkin, sweet and strong, with initially dissapointingly little sweetcorn. However, after holding in the mouth for thirty seconds, the maize elements do reveal themselves, but perhaps linger on the taste buds slightly too long for my liking: the flavour remained for ten minutes after my ingestion. Unsurprisingly, the third ingredient, water, does not feature heavily at all on the palate.

Overall, this took me back to the concentrated pumpkin soups of my childhood, which I would enjoy the anticipation of consuming, but then leave long enough that they would go cold. However, because my parents had paid good money for this soup, they were going to be damned if I didn't finish it.

Overall: 5.5/10. I feared the savoury, however the sweetness gifted by the pumpkin makes this a palatable, if slightly in your face offering.

Goes well with: A pinch of black pepper mixed in to season. To drink, water (tap), the size of the pumpkin flavours would overpower the nuances of a more delicate beverage.