Annabel Karmel disaster!

I know, I know, I caved in and bought the Annabel Karmel baby and toddler book.  If you read my posts regularly (not sure if anyone does!?) you'll know that one of my confessions stated that I wasn't going to start feeding my kids gourmet Annabel Karmel meals... But the mother in me has kicked in and in search of anything that will help me feed my kids healthy food that they eat, I bought it.  It's pretty good, there has been some big hits, the chicken and apple balls and the toddlers burgers, but today has been an epic disaster!

I thought I'd try to make the sole fingers rather than rely on Jamie Oliver to feed my toddler, and this way the baby can have some too. So off I went to buy some sole...I remembered that the recipe said boneless and skinless fillets, so I asked the woman at the fish counter in Sainsburys, Beaconsfield (I'm being specific so you can boycott the counter with me!) if she can take the skin off the fish, she grunted "no", I bought it anyway, not knowing what a mistake this was.

The time came this afternoon to make the fish fingers! I'd bigged it up to Harrison, and he was very excited to make them with me after pre-school.  We started at 3pm, plenty of time, as they normally eat about 4:30pm.  Got all the ingredients out.  Read the first step.  Leave fish in marinade for 30 mins, no time, skip that step.  Read second step, cut fish into strips... But first I'd have to take the skin off. How hard could it be?

The answer is: VERY HARD!

3:30pm came and the skin was still firmly on the fish.  The YouTube video was not helping one bit.  The husband was worse at it than me and the toddler had totally lost interest by now; preferring to blow bubbles at the blind cat instead. This was after he'd crushed the cornflakes (step 3) and mixed the egg and milk together (step 4) and then mixed it all together (not a step) and tipped it all over the kitchen in the process (definitely not a step!).

In desperation, the husband grabbed a sharpe knife and hacked the fish off the skin while I stomped off upstairs to put the baby in bed.

We ended up with small chunks of fish, which I manged to roll into balls and coat in flour, egg/ milk and crushed cornflakes (step 5).

I then went on to burn the broccoli and carrots.... At this point I reached for the wine, washed a glass, realised it was 4pm and I was in charge of two children and decided a large cup of tea and several cookies would have to do until after kiddies bedtime.  How restrained am I? (Or not, as the case maybe!)

To be fair to Annabel Karmel, none of these issues were her fault. And she's got no hope if the person using her book can't even boil carrots!

I guess it was a happy ending, they ended up with fish balls, but they were edible, and they both liked them.  I just wish the getting there bit wasn't so stressful!

It's all ok now though, as both kiddies are in bed and it's wine time! 

Happy cooking!