Ok, Internet. We have a bit of a situation around here and I’m requesting your help.
I don’t know what to feed my kid.
That’s right. I’m stumped. At almost 11 months old, she’s down to one or two bottles a day, so that leaves me with three meals and at least one (sometimes two) snacks to give her. The jarred baby foods are OK, but she’d much rather have something she can feed herself or better yet, she wants what we’re eating.
Here are some further details:
- She loves cheese.
- She eats meat if it’s done in the crock pot or otherwise cooked really soft.
- She likes bananas, watermelon and applesauce, but other fruits are promptly thrown off of her tray.
- She eats about nine peas, lima beans or kidney beans before she throws them off her tray.
- (She does a lot of throwing things off of her tray. I’m thinking about getting a dog to save me a few minutes of clean up time.)
- She ate pancakes like it was her job once. Now, she eats a few bites, then she’s done.
- Snacks are usually pudding, yogurt, crackers or those Gerber cookie things.
- Macaroni and cheese is probably her favorite food. But really? How often can I, in good conscience, feed my child Easy Mac?
Also? It’s football season which means that Craig is still at practice when I get home from work. Therefore, I have 45 minutes to change clothes and cook dinner while keeping C from destroying the house, pounding on the door because she wants to go outside or in some way inflicting harm upon herself. Personally, I’d be happy with peanut butter and jelly, or some classic Ramen noodles for myself, but I can’t feed that to C.
You can see why McDonalds happy meals are looking better and better, right?
So, I’m turning to you, Internet for ideas. I need meals that can be eaten by grown ups and the wee one that are both quick and easy or can be thrown in the crock pot in the morning or on my lunch hour. And, yes. I could just Google this or go buy a book, I suppose. But really, I’m lazy. And also? I don’t know where to start. So if you have a book you liked, give me the title. If you have a website that saved your life, link it up. If you have a favorite go to recipe, do share.
Please? And thank you.
{ 12 comments }
I’ve found that the easiest way for me to feed my little girl is to premake her food and freeze it. I have several recipes that I fix ahead of time (meatballs, turkey balls, a chicken dish and a fish dish) and then freeze it in small portions (I use a ice cube tray for the chicken and fish) so that I just have to throw some in the microwave and dinner is ready! If you want me to send you these recipes send me a email and let me know. The chicken and fish dishes are nice because you can make them at any consistency. As for other snacks/foods… I usually give my little girl (1 year old) goldfish, string cheese, Cheerios, mini wheat bagels with cream cheese, yogurt, puffs, yogurt melts, graduates crunchies, any fruit (just buying the fruit cups is so convenient) and sliced turkey. I’ve slowly found things she can eat just by going to the store and looking for things that are bite size (or can be broken down) and that are soft enough for her to chew. Hope this helps!
I have a bunch of easy, baby friendly recipes on mommas munchies. Ryann prefers sweet potato or blueberry pancakes over regular pancakes. Ry also loves meatloaf, recipe on MM’s. I can shoot you an email with links to her favorites and easy crockpot recipes.
http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/ is pretty much my baby food making bible.
bella especially loves sweet potato fries:
-scrub or peel sweet potatoes
-cut into pieces (like french fries)
-toss in 1 tbs olive oit and cinnamon
-spread on parchment paper on cookie sheet
-bake 35 mins at 400
-let cool completely.
you can put brown sugar on them too and they are super good. (no real sugar though, obviously) and that makes a good side dish for grown ups.
We give our son (14 months)cheese cubes, turkey bites, pasta w/ butter or olive oil, toast, waffles, cut up fruit. I’m a little worried about his veggie intake sometimes!
My daughter loved veggie burgers when she was little. I’d microwave them & cut them up in tiny bites & it was a good source of veggies too. She also loved pasta & green beans … I’ve also seen some great recipes for “muffin cups” where you mix together rice or pasta, cheese and a veggie and then portion it into a muffin tin & bake it. I think I first heard of it from Giada DiLaurentiis on the food network. She would me them for her kittle girl.
My little guy is still on bottles so I don’t have to worry about kid friendly food yet. However I too HATE having to cook a big meal when I get home from work. I started planning weekly menus and doing my grocery shopping on the weekends. Then I take an hour over the weekend to do as much prep work as possible. Chopping, assembling, ect. Then when the weekdays roll around all I have to do for dinner is throw everything together and heat it up. When little man goes to bed I can actually put my feet up instead of slaving in the kitchen!
You are hysterical! I remember feeling the same way. Here are some of the items Gianni loved -
avocado (still one of his top favs!)
mac & cheese
pasta figoli
canilini beans
chicken noodle soup (less liquid, more noodles/veggies)
pancakes
scrambled eggs
oatmeal
cheese sticks (cut up w/goldfish crackers)
peaches
mandarin oranges (drained BIG time)
pb&j (I wasn’t afraid to give him peanut butter because both the hubs and I aren’t allergic)
smoothies
yogurt, yogurt, yogurt
any type of pasta
mashed potatoes
zucchini
Does that give you some ideas?!
I was addicted to this website http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/solidfood10to12montholdbaby.htm
when C started eating solids and all the way through. Really, anything you make for yourself, she can eat. We found that C would get sick of things after a few bites so I made a lot of mixed veggies for variety, lots of selection helped too. We would put some cheese, potatoes, veggies, meat, eggs, etc. on his plate at every meal to ensure that he had a good selection and got a bit of everything. His favorites were and still are:
Pasta
Boiled Eggs
Hummus
Cheese
Chicken
Pasta with White Sauce
Also, seeing as your are limited for time. Put a Baby Einstein movie on (not too long and educational!)for her while you prepare supper. Make extra chicken breasts (or any meat) at the beginning of the week and then use throughout the week to save time. Switch it up by adding cheese or tomatos sauce or white pasta sauce. Grilled cheese with a side of hummus and veggies, pizza cut into tiny pieces.
Another thing that helped once I went back to work was a meal plan for C for the week. Knowing what I was going to feed him made it so much easier and I knew what I had to do when I got in the door and this way I had everything I needed on hand.
If any of this is helpful and you want further suggestions please don’t be shy to e-mail me ashleysmith_82{at}hotmail{dot}com
Definitely check out wholesomebabyfood.com
At your daughter’s age, I would feed Abbey:
quesadillas (she also loved cheese, and I would smear a little pureed squash or peas on the inside for some extra veggies) – these were good, because I like having taco night, and this is easy to modify for little ones
English muffin pizzas
pre-made ravioli or tortellini (like Bertoli)
veggie burgers (her favorite were Amy’s Organic California burgers)
sweet potato fries
breakfast for dinner – she can have waffles, fruit, turkey sausage, eggs if you are giving them yet
crepes filled with fruit or nutella
Good luck!
I can’t speak much to dinners since my daughter still won’t always eat what we eat and I’m not going to just eat what she eats. She refuses to eat meat here, but apparently eats everything at daycare. Whatever. If it’s green, she won’t touch it. But she will eat pasta with pesto sauce. I try really hard to give her a lot of protein throughout the day (when she’s not in daycare). Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (I usually buy a cheap organic peanut butter from Trader Joes or Whole foods. They have less sugar). I cook a lot of scrambled eggs and chop up (really fine) mushrooms or zucchini (I peel off the green part before I cut it up to saute). I would ditto the sweet potato fries, but that seems to have stopped working recently. Also, frozen waffles are great. Another go to for us is instant grits. Add hot water. There’s supposedly a lot of iron in there so I count it as a good thing
I struggle with feeling like I feed my little guy the same food ALL the time. I also feel like he has a serious shortage of veggies. It drives me a little crazy. Also, when I try to mix things up a bit he usually doesn’t like it but I’ve learned that if I keep giving it to him over and over he eventually will eat it or at least try it. Here’s things that he loves..
- yes cheese, string cheese, really any kind of cheese
- Hormel natural turkey, it doesn’t have any of the nitrates in it and it doesn’t look as nasty some other cold cut turkey
- I wish he would eat avocados but they are a great snack
- black beans, chickpeas
- gold fish and he eats tons of fruit. His favorites are bananas and blueberries
- I also give him peanut butter on wheat bread
- and yes sometimes mac and cheese
-sesame seed sticks. He like those too.
My mom thinks I’m going to give him a food aversion because of all the turkey I give him. He hasn’t developed any allergies yet.
We just fed Finn a small portion of what we were eating. If you serve a good variety it will lesson the chance of being picky later on. Things like stews in the crock pot were easy to freeze into small portions for quick lunches or dinners for him if we were in a rush. He was a big fan of avacados, yogurt, black beans, cheeses, scrambled eggs, spaghetti (cut up), spinach and cheese raviolis with red sauce, potstickers, and edammame at that age.
Comments on this entry are closed.