Meatloaf For Babies and Toddlers

I've been bumbling around thinking about making the little pumpkin some mini meatloaves for a while.  I'd not found a recipe though I was happy with so I've come up with my own.

The result?  Went down well with pumpkin, he ate maybe two of them which is a decent sized portion (I had offered more and then I realised as I was offering half a mix, it was probably more of an adult sized portion than a child one).  I'm not sure the recipe is perfect yet.  I think there is some room for improvement but certainly an acceptable and well received result.  You could serve for older kids with some tomato ketchup.


I will experiment with different meats etc and let you know the results!

Mini Meatloaves for Babies or Toddlers makes 10 (so 3-5 portions depending on appetite)


Ingredients

1 slice of bread broken into small pieces (think 1cm) and soaked in 4tbsp milk
1/2 an onion chopped finely
1 tsp oil
1/3 courgette, grated
200g lean minced beef
20g grated cheddar
3 garlic chives, chopped
4 sprigs thyme, chopped

Method

Put the bread and milk in the fridge until you're ready to mix.

Saute the onion in the oil until softened and starting to turn golden.  Cool.  Mix all of the ingredients and put into a silicone mini muffin tin or a greased cupcake tin.

Bake at 200 degrees celcius for approx 25 minutes or until cooked through.  Leave to cool in the pan for 5 minutes as it helps ensure they don't fall to pieces when taken out.

Like this recipe?  Why not try my new pepper meatloaf recipe?

I've frozen some so I'll let you know how they reheat.  My investigations into the meatloaf idea though might be curtailed by my son deciding that he wants to use cutlery for everything at the moment (he used a fork to eat these until he got frustrated.  He tried to eat toast with a spoon this morning.)  I have no problem with this, it's cute, it's a step he has to learn but it does make it difficult to make him finger foods, and he's also not quite getting that it's ok to eat some foods with your fingers.  


So you avoid the finger foods and then he struggles to get the food to his mouth on the spoon; so you try to feed him but he doesn't want that...  I think I'm going to have to make lots of sticky meals which will stay on the spoon even if he doesn't quite get it right.  He was surprisingly good with rice krispies though this morning.


Update:  They reheat pretty well!