The Veggie Baby

Adding grains

Have you noticed Plum Organic baby food in the frozen aisle? I have been eying it for a while and finally decided to give it a try. I should start with the down side of this food to be done with it: It's very expensive and you don't get a lot. That is if you have a six month old it might be enough, but for a one year old it just wets their appetite!
Regardless of those drawbacks, the vegetable and fruit mixes are original, tasty and many of them vegetarian. I have found that the web page lists ingredients, which is very convenient if you want some inspiration on how to make your own melanges. I have really wanted to add more grains to Finn's diet, especially lentils which I keep reading good things about. I must admit that I am ignorant of the concept of "complete protein". As I keep reading conflicting information about it's importance.
Plum foods contain a lot of different grains, and I just gave them a go.

On Sunday, which is baby food cooking day, I made three different meals for Finn. He sampled them all and approved. It is a good idea to prepare a few dishes at ones, this way you peel all the carrots, potatoes, onions you need at once. I also had cooked some red beans prior to starting.

The three meals were the following:

(I am not giving exact recipes here but the list of ingredients used)

Tomato and Carrots meal: chopped carrots, diced tomatoes, TVP and garlic.

Lentils and vegetable meal: potatoes, carrots, corn, red lentils, onions, garlic, bay leaves, celery seeds.

Red Beans, lentil, quinoa and vegetables: Red beans, diced tomatoes, carrots, corn, onion, garlic,red lentils, quinoa, coriander, paprika.

Today I am cooking apples, which I will mix with frozen raspberries and cooked quinoa.

I hope those experiments of mine will give you something to chew on yourself, and please share ideas of your own, we can all use it!

Books and more books!

When Finn was still in my belly, Helen told me about this book ( see below). Another friend also mentioned that she knew a Vegan woman who hand drew a picture book for her children, she called it :
" We don't eat our friends". I have never seen this book and therefore it's become a bit of my personal Holy Grail... But I realize now, they are out there, the published ones:

I was looking for it again tonight in the back of the sieve-brain, the search gave me more ideas...

This one has great illustrations:

and this one sends a clear message:

If you know of any veggie books for children that you can't live without please share!

Coconut milk can fatten you up!

picture found here.

My pediatrician suggested I feed Finn some added fat content in order to slow down his over enthusiastic bowel. I tried cheese at first with very moderate success, it's always hard to decide how much was eaten versus how much ended up on the floor. He then suggested cooked coconut milk. Adding it to the frozen cubes of fruits and veggies before zapping them in the microwave yielded good results. I wonder now if it would be possible to make it part of his morning oatmeal... I bet it would work great. Weird to be adding more fat everywhere though!

Stuffed Bell Peppers with Quinoa

I made this recipe to suit both Finn (11 month old) and his parents (30 years old). It consists in stuffed bell pepper for the ancients and a blended mix for the baby.

Ingredients:

Six bell peppers, tops removed but kept aside chopped.
1/2 cup red quinoa cooked and drained.
5 Roma tomatoes chopped.
1 small onion chopped.
2 garlic cloves chopped.
3 larges carrots chopped.
salt and pepper, thyme.

Saute the onion and garlic in a large pan, add the chopped pepper top; cook until tender. Add carrots, tomatoes, salt, pepper and spices . Cook the vegetable covered until the carrots are soft. Add quinoa and mix well.

For the adults:
Fill the bell peppers with stuffing; You can add diced fresh mozzarella or Gouda at this point. Place the pepper in a dish in a 375F oven until the outside of the peppers look soft.

For the baby:
Blend the left over stuffing and serve with a spoon.

Frozen Peaches

when asked what fruits make the best finger food, my dietitian mentioned ripe pears and frozen peaches (which when thawed are rather soft). What a good idea I think this is, since we can't buy those in the winter. I wonder if other fruits could do the trick, strawberries for example...

Choice of Pasta

We tried pieces of Penne this week, even in tiny pieces, swallowing was near impossible. But today we went for "coquillettes":

 

I resisted the idea because as I a child I had to eat those at school every other day in what was called a refectory not a "cafeteria' as in cool American schools. They were drenched in butter although it could have been oil or margarine. Now I won't eat them to save my life. But Finn felt they were finger lickin" good:

He was so happy, his face radiating gratitude:

I felt like a fraud...

Finger Food

As Finn experiments with covering his environment and himself with all kind of new tastes, I am looking for some variety. The perfect finger food, besides Oreos, what is it?

Today, a combination of corn kernel and completely peeled clementine slices...

What is your perfect finger food?

Linky Baby

Kirstin, of Trying to be Greener, has directed me to her excellent blog. She write about green issues and has lots good posts on BPA. Did you know regular tin cans have PBA? I didn't...

Mango-Yogurt smoothie

As Finn approaches 10 month old, my breast milk supply is almost gone. This wouldn't be so bad if he was receptive to bottles, sippy cups etc.. but he wants none of those. My recent trip to the dietitian was in large part motivated by this issue. She had the best advice for me, and pretty good success followed. 

She told me that Finn would probably never drink from a bottle, and especially not yucky formula. She mentioned using regular cups and bingo! we have a drinker again. Because he is a bit young for real cow milk, the dietitian told me to offer him liquid yogurt, and Finn couldn't agree more. I am currently trying Kefir, because it comes in much larger bottle than Yo Baby, and is offered in plain.

When I asked about Mango, she reminded me to offer Finn some pieces as finger food, very tiny pieces. He loves it. So keep the mango's short sides for this purpose.

Recipe:

One mango

One whole milk yogurt ( can be flavored)

Cut the mango away from it's pit. Keep one half for yourself!

The second half is to be blended well in a food processor with a yogurt. Serve immediately or refrigerate for a mid-afternoon snack.

The pit will still have some fruit attached. Use it to give the baby some tiny pieces as finger food. While he plays with this new yellow slimly thing, eat your half!

A call for links, recipes and more

If you would like to contribute recipes, links or book suggestions to be posted here, fell free to email me or leave a comment.

I'll start by recommending this book::

This book is quite simply wonderful, from the very first month of life. You will find lots of recipes, some with an ethnic flare. The author is British, which means a much more varied diet sooner. I was a bit surprised at first, but after talking with a dietician I learned to relax.

This has been my favorite read so far, and how could you resist that outfit on the cover!