Food diaries

Keeping in mind that my child will pretty much eat anything, I've found a few new things that he is in love with and I thought I'd share. Why you ask? Well, to be honest, when the whole "feeding of finger foods" began I was at a loss as to what I should feed my child. Something so basic, yet I wanted to "do it right." Odd, I know. Anyway, I relied on websites and message boards, and yes, even blogs, to help me out. Now if any of the foods seem odd, please remember that Matthew loves things like veggie burgers, hummus on rice cake, and Annie's mac and cheese bunnies.

So, number 1- and the simplest- Lentils. I wanted something with protein. He eats meats of course, and cheese galore, but decided to give lentils a go. These puppies are also packed with fiber, so beware of that (Matthew had no negative effects; if your babe has regularity issues, the lentils actually may help with that). I did read an article on waiting until 8-10 months to introduce to be sure their little tummies can handle all that protein, so we just tried them this week. All I did was rinse and then cook on the stovetop with some low-sodium organic vegetable broth. The added flavor that the broth gave made these some delicious lentils (also a low-point food if you know the weight watcher world-mommy can eat them too!). Matthew absolutely loved these. Ok, at first he was skeptical because I had to spoon feed them to him, and he prefers being able to feed himself, but in the end he gobbled these up. (Next time I will dice up some veggies and cook together; I've even heard of mixing the lentils with rice).

He loves pancakes! I found a new recipe that I made for him this weekend and he is in love. I made a double batch, cooked them all up on the griddle and now have a freezer bag full of pancakes to heat up one at a time during the week for breakfast! It's perfect. I took a regular recipe and doctored it up to fit his needs- this is what it looks like (this is the doubled version; it made probably about 16-20 pancakes):

Whole Wheat banana pancakes

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3 egg yolks (or use 2 whole eggs- Matthew isn't eating whites yet)
2 cups milk (or formula)
4-6 T unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp (or so, I didn't measure) vanilla extract
some cinnimon (once again, I didn't measure)
1 mashed up ripened banana

Mix the flour, baking powder and salt in one bowl. In another bowl, scramble the egg and then add the milk and the applesauce. Mix in mashed banana. Mix the dry and wet ingredients together, well enough to eliminate dry spots, but no more. Cook as you would any old pancake.
(Use a pizza cutter to easily cut it into bite size pieces.)

Lest you think Matthew is deprived, he did manage to eat a whole chicken leg (grilled, minus the skin), some biscuit, and mac and cheese at KFC this weekend. You gotta make do with what you have!

Tonight I'm making him some chicken nuggets- I'll let you know how that recipe goes! And once again (because this worked so well the last time), if YOU have any great ideas on feeding little ones, comment away! I love to try new foods and I love to give him variety.