A friend and I recently met to walk through beautiful Olbrich Botatnical Gardens with our children. Her baby is about 4 months younger than Sprout and they're just starting to think about solid food. Since my kids are pretty decent eaters, she asked me what I do.
One of the things I told her about was blending the less palatable foods - like beans and broccoli - with more accepted foods like apples and sweet potatoes. It really helped Sprout have a positive feeling about broccoli which many children don't care for. My friend told me in her online research she's encountered many people saying that you should never mix foods so children get the chance to taste and appreciate foods individually.
Well, first of all, I have an issue with absolutes - always, never, etc. I can definitely see the benefit in getting a child to know that this is what broccoli tastes like on its own, why not make the first experience a good one? I think about my dad, a great guy, but kind of a picky eater. Seriously, if I had to deal with cooking for some of his food issues I'd have gone crazy long ago. (Then again, it's been long established that I don't have anywhere near the saintly levels of patience my mom has.) I think part of Dad's problem is that vegetables weren't always prepared in the most flavorful way and that he had to eat it, as is, no matter what.
I've decided that I would rather have my children eat food paired up with other foods if that's what it will take to get them to eat. I don't mean frying the heck out of it or smothering it in cheese sauce (although those are good, too), but what's wrong with combining one healthy food with another healthy food? Then when you present the broccoli or green beans or whatever to the child on it's own you can say "remember, you like it when it's with applesauce or pears" or whatever else you've mixed with it.
Ironically, Sprout would rather eat small bits of steamed broccoli on their own than when the pureed broccoli is mixed in with other food. She will eat it when it's mixed, but it's not the voracious "I can't get enough!" that she has when it's little trees. Whether it's because she's eating big girl food like her sister or she really likes the taste/texture/whatever more in whole broccoli, I don't care. She's eating a healthy vegetable prepared in a healthy way and she knows what it is she's eating.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Yum Watermelon!
Bug loves watermelon, or as she called it all last summer, waterlemon. It was with great joy and excitement that the first watermelon of the season was spotted at the farmer's market. They were the cute little personal sized ones and Bug wanted to get two of them. Since neither my husband nor I are really crazy about watermelon, I only got one. BIG mistake!
I cut a thick slice for Bug and decided to send another slice through the food mill to see what would happen. I chose the food mill because most of the seeds would get trapped in the grate, which would save me from having to pick every last one out. I did cut it off the rind - I'm not *that* lazy!
When you send a watermelon through the food mill an interesting thing happens. There is only juice coming out on the other side. Well, there was a little bit of pulp and a few ground seeds, but mostly it was water. (Go figure!) While it's hard to spoon liquid into your kid's mouth - at least my kid - it is great to mix with cereal.
Sprout really loves watermelon cereal. It's one of the few things she'll eat cold with minimal fussing, which is good because I just can't bring myself to heat up watermelon. It defeats the whole purpose of eating it. The little bit of ground up seed I figure are just some extra roughage and easily masked by the texture of the cereal.
Since watermelon cereal was so popular, I cut tiny pieces off of my leftover rind to give to Sprout while I finished my lunch. It pretty much dissolved in her hand, so I popped a bit in her mouth. Actual pieces of watermelon are not one of Sprout's favorite things. In fact, I think she spit out every piece I fed her. I know she's a bit sensitive to texture and I guess watermelon is one of those textures she just doesn't care for. I can understand that because I think it's one of my problems with the fruit, too.
So I'll keep buying personal sized watermelons as long as they're in season and keep some cut up for Bug. The rest I'll juice up for cereal to enjoy during the winter. (It's easy to get into the ice cube tray!) I am going to try the same thing with cantaloupe and cucumbers to see how those go down.
I cut a thick slice for Bug and decided to send another slice through the food mill to see what would happen. I chose the food mill because most of the seeds would get trapped in the grate, which would save me from having to pick every last one out. I did cut it off the rind - I'm not *that* lazy!
When you send a watermelon through the food mill an interesting thing happens. There is only juice coming out on the other side. Well, there was a little bit of pulp and a few ground seeds, but mostly it was water. (Go figure!) While it's hard to spoon liquid into your kid's mouth - at least my kid - it is great to mix with cereal.
Sprout really loves watermelon cereal. It's one of the few things she'll eat cold with minimal fussing, which is good because I just can't bring myself to heat up watermelon. It defeats the whole purpose of eating it. The little bit of ground up seed I figure are just some extra roughage and easily masked by the texture of the cereal.
Since watermelon cereal was so popular, I cut tiny pieces off of my leftover rind to give to Sprout while I finished my lunch. It pretty much dissolved in her hand, so I popped a bit in her mouth. Actual pieces of watermelon are not one of Sprout's favorite things. In fact, I think she spit out every piece I fed her. I know she's a bit sensitive to texture and I guess watermelon is one of those textures she just doesn't care for. I can understand that because I think it's one of my problems with the fruit, too.
So I'll keep buying personal sized watermelons as long as they're in season and keep some cut up for Bug. The rest I'll juice up for cereal to enjoy during the winter. (It's easy to get into the ice cube tray!) I am going to try the same thing with cantaloupe and cucumbers to see how those go down.
Monday, August 3, 2009
No more pureed meat?
I bought a beef chuck roast at the farmer's market last week for baby food. I can't bring myself to buy the jars of meat. For one thing it's heinously expensive. For another, it smells worse than cat food and I thought canned cat food was one of the worst "food" scents ever.
The first meat I processed for Sprout was a chicken I'd made in the crock pot. I put the frozen chicken in the bottom of the pot, covered it with chicken broth, and set it on high for several hours. When the meat fell off the bones I figured it was ready and I ran some of the dark meat through the food processor with some of the broth. There was probably more broth than chicken, but it was a fairly smooth consistency. A little sandy, but not too bad. I made sure to mix it with the fruit and a little bit of cereal to smooth it all out and we had success.
I'd read something that said veal was a good early meat choice because of it's mild flavor. So I went to Whole Foods and bought the humanely raised veal. It was ground and I wanted it to be tender, so I boiled it. Probably not a good choice. Then I decided to try pureeing the veal in a blender instead of the food processor. The texture was pretty nasty, but I was hopeful. I again mixed it with some fruit and a little bit of cereal, but it wasn't enough. Sprout will eat veal if she's really hungry, but if she's not, she spits it.
So back to the chuck roast. I once again made it in the crock pot with beef bouillon paste, water, and onions. It was extremely tender - the bigger eaters had it with mushroom gravy (or it would have been gravy if I could make it, but it was more au jus than anything) - and Sprout just devoured it. I also served chunks of sauteed zucchini and canned peaches and she started out liking those, but at the end only wanted small shreds of chuck roast. It's truly amazing how strong that little tongue can be when she's launching food out of her mouth.
I was going to puree the chuck roast, but since she likes the pieces so much and she seems to handle them ok, I think I'm just going to freeze 1/2 ounce portions in ice cube trays.
What was frustrating for me was feeding her roast while I was eating more zucchini. I'd devoured my portion of beef and since I'm trying to reduce my meat consumption and increase the veggies, I finished off the zucchini. It was ok, but it wasn't beef roast!
The first meat I processed for Sprout was a chicken I'd made in the crock pot. I put the frozen chicken in the bottom of the pot, covered it with chicken broth, and set it on high for several hours. When the meat fell off the bones I figured it was ready and I ran some of the dark meat through the food processor with some of the broth. There was probably more broth than chicken, but it was a fairly smooth consistency. A little sandy, but not too bad. I made sure to mix it with the fruit and a little bit of cereal to smooth it all out and we had success.
I'd read something that said veal was a good early meat choice because of it's mild flavor. So I went to Whole Foods and bought the humanely raised veal. It was ground and I wanted it to be tender, so I boiled it. Probably not a good choice. Then I decided to try pureeing the veal in a blender instead of the food processor. The texture was pretty nasty, but I was hopeful. I again mixed it with some fruit and a little bit of cereal, but it wasn't enough. Sprout will eat veal if she's really hungry, but if she's not, she spits it.
So back to the chuck roast. I once again made it in the crock pot with beef bouillon paste, water, and onions. It was extremely tender - the bigger eaters had it with mushroom gravy (or it would have been gravy if I could make it, but it was more au jus than anything) - and Sprout just devoured it. I also served chunks of sauteed zucchini and canned peaches and she started out liking those, but at the end only wanted small shreds of chuck roast. It's truly amazing how strong that little tongue can be when she's launching food out of her mouth.
I was going to puree the chuck roast, but since she likes the pieces so much and she seems to handle them ok, I think I'm just going to freeze 1/2 ounce portions in ice cube trays.
What was frustrating for me was feeding her roast while I was eating more zucchini. I'd devoured my portion of beef and since I'm trying to reduce my meat consumption and increase the veggies, I finished off the zucchini. It was ok, but it wasn't beef roast!
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