Ha… using “foodie” to reference my household is very laughable. But Alex has been eating a little more variety lately. In the past few weeks she has eaten: peanut butter sandwich, macaroni and cheese, stir fried tofu, burrito, salad and mini waffles
I checked out the book The Baby and Toddler Cookbook: Fresh, Homemade Foods for a Healthy Start
This week I made zucchini fritters from the book. Alex has always liked zucchini, it was one of her very first foods. When I made the fritters, tasted them and saw how they looked I got the brilliant idea that they would be tastier with a little ketchup on them and that I should show her how to dip them in ketchup.
So I planned this lovely little meal of Tofurky Chick’n Apple Sausages (I’ll get to the Tofurky in a moment), zucchini fritters and apple chunks. I have these little suction cup bowls by Munchkin that I thought would be a good vessel for a little ketchup. (Oh… and BTW, the suction cup base on these sucks. The baby can get them off her tray very quickly.) So I put the food on her tray, stuck the bowl on there, added about a teaspoon of ketchup and showed her how to dip into the ketchup.
She picked up a zucchini fritter and took a small bite. She seemed indifferent. Then she put it in the ketchup. Oh… now this is fun! She started picking up all of the zucchini and apple and placing them in the bowl. She stirred them around in the bowl, smashed them. She had ketchup all up her arms, then she rubbed her forehead. Then the back of her head. Then she twirled some of hair. I purposely gave her a small amount of ketchup thinking it wouldn’t become as messy this way. I don’t think I could get that amount of coverage from such a small amount of ketchup if I tried! Then she picked up one of apple chunks in the bowl and popped it in her mouth. Which she did not like… I mean, who can blame her? There is probably a reason you don’t hear about apples & ketchup snacks ever!
After all that, she ended up eating an applesauce pouch and a mini Larabar.
She would rather play in the dog’s food!
One of her teachers at school asked if she could start eating the school snacks and I said that would be fine. She also asked if she could have school lunch. That seems a bit far to me. I’m not going to pay $4 a day for her to have school lunch when I don’t think she’ll eat it all. I think some days she would eat a good chunk of the meal, but others she would probably just smear it around the tray.
Today’s school lunch menu: organic cheese ravioli, green beans, mandarin oranges and milk
She might pick up the ravioli and eat it. Pasta has been kind of hit or miss; cheesy sauce – yes, tomato sauce – no. She likes green beans, but she usually just sucks on them and peels them apart as opposed to eating the whole thing. She would devour the mandarin oranges though.
Monday’s school lunch menu: Baked salmon, mashed potatoes, broccoli, banana, milk
Haven’t been able to get her to consume salmon yet, she’s never had mashed potatoes and that seems like a very messy finger food for a baby at school. Maybe they would spoonfeed it to her, they do that with her yogurt each day. She has eaten broccoli one time, other times it has been more of a play object. Banana chunks, most of the time she’ll eat those.
Sitting in my desk chair. This photo has nothing to do with food!
I recently read this post titled Pottery Barn Lunches and laughed a lot at it. I’m pretty certain that my daughter’s lunches will not ever look like that. I did entertain the idea of cutting her PB sandwich with a cookie cutter, but realized that a) all I have are some Christmas cookie cutters and b) I have to cut it into tiny little squares for her right now so that exercise would have been futile.
Now, circling back to the Tofurky… like I said, she’s never voluntarily eaten meat. I think she has swallowed a sliver of chicken once, most meat I’ve placed in her mouth has been pulled right back out and if meat is placed on her tray she picks it up and drops it on the floor. So when I got a coupon in my Von’s Just for U app for a free package of Tofurky sausages, I thought… well, I could give those a try. It’s free!
So I cooked it up according to the stove top directions. And the texture grossed me out. NASTY. I cut into it to taste a bit and I hated it. The texture was so vile. So I threw it away without offering it to her. I just couldn’t do it. It seemed so mushy and horrible that it would seemed mean to offer it. Or worse, what if she loved it and then I had to keep buying Tofurky!