Pumpkin French Toast

How do you get a picky toddler to eat more vegetables?

A few weeks ago I stumbled across a cookbook about how to hide vegetables inside kids' food so that they will consume more of them without realizing it. I do not agree with this philosophy at all, because I think that children have a right to know what they are eating, and because I don't believe it actually encourages kids to "like" eating vegetables! Parenting has to include building trust between the parent and the child, and I don't ever want my daughter to think that she can't trust me to tell her the truth about what I am giving her.

Instead, I prefer to capitalize on what N. does like and build from there. I continue to serve her a variety of foods each day that she has both liked and disliked in the past, and every once in a while she will decide to like a new food. (Recently: honeydew melon and grapes.) I also regularly serve her favorite nutritious foods so that I can be sure she's getting the vitamins she needs.

The cookbook did have some ideas I found intriguing, though; in particular, inserting vegetable purees into common everyday foods. I decided to try this myself, but WITHOUT HIDING! N. watches, and even helps, as I spread her quesadilla with pureed carrot or her grilled cheese sandwich with butternut squash. And one of her new favorite breakfasts is pumpkin french toast!

1/4 cup canned pureed pumpkin
1 egg
1 slice whole grain bread
a pinch of cinnamon
cooking spray or oil/margarine

1. Mix together the pumpkin, egg, and cinnamon in a bowl.
2. Soak the bread in the mixture, about 30 seconds each side.
3. Heat a pan that has been sprayed and/or dotted with oil or margarine.
4. When the pan is ready, place the bread in it. Pour any excess pumpkin-egg mixture on top of the bread (there will probably be a lot). Lower heat, cover, and cook for about two minutes.
5. Flip the slice of bread and cook the other side for about two minutes, or until it appears that the egg is all cooked. Continue flipping and cooking as needed until you are sure it is thoroughly cooked.
6. Cut, cool, and serve! Can be topped with maple syrup or powdered sugar if desired. Personally, I think it needs a little sweetener, but I try to serve it to her without much extra sugar.

Harvest Meal with Soymilk

Fall is such a great season for vegetarian cooking, with all the squash and other harvest-y foods. A couple of weeks ago I made wild rice casserole (complete with low-sodium cream of mushroom soup), which was a big hit.

She ate it with squash and applesauce. The applesauce, not usually served at dinner, was very popular. (Incidentally, I usually add wheat germ to applesauce to boost its nutrition content.)

Off to the left you can see her straw cup with soymilk. While I cook with cow's milk, I don't serve it for drinking. N. has only ever had soymilk to drink and she assumes it's the norm. When she sees a picture of someone drinking milk, she calls it "so-milk!" It took a while for her to like drinking it, and even now she doesn't drink very much - maybe an ounce or two at best. But since we're still nursing twice a day, my pediatrician says we don't need to worry.

Porridge!

Life has been very busy lately, with little time for blogging. But I will try to do some more baby food entries before Nora becomes a toddler! She's now a very busy 9 1/2-month-old. Crawling, climbing, and dancing are some of her favorite activities!

There have been many new foods over the past couple of months, and a daily staple is "porridge." Porridge takes many forms, but always includes one or two grains*, a protein, and at least one fruit or vegetable. I mix it all together and serve it warm, and she usually loves it.

Some common combos include:

oatmeal - egg yolk - squash
oatmeal - egg yolk - banana
barley - tofu - broccoli - squash
millet - tofu - pumpkin
barley - tofu - broccoli - sweet potato
millet - garbanzo bean - green bean - peach (yes, really, she ate it!)
barley - lentil - green pea
barley - lentil - carrot

As long as you've got the basic ingredients on hand, you can make a quick, healthy meal in a short amount of time!

* I usually sprinkle a tablespoon or two of Earth's Best organic iron-fortified cereal into the porridge to increase its iron content.

A Typical Meal

At 7 1/2 months, we have at least two and sometimes three solid meals per day, depending on naps. Each meal includes a serving of grain and 2-4 vegetable and fruit servings. I try to rotate the different fruits and vegetables so that she gets a variety every day. She has one serving of avocado every day for healthy fats.

Shown in this photo, clockwise from top-left, are: homemade oatmeal, peaches, avocado, butternut squash, and green beans. Other foods regularly on the menu are commercial rice cereal (for iron), sweet potatoes and yams, green peas, mango, carrots, prunes, bananas, and occasionally applesauce and plums. She has also had commercial baby barley cereal at a friend's house but we haven't been able to find any of our own yet.

I located BPA-free ice cube trays and bowls with lids at BabiesRUs and prepare most of her food in those. It's really a lot of fun!

Butternut Squash Cubes

What does it take to make your own baby food? I've been asked this by several people lately. It's really quite simple. And, I think, it's kind of fun, too.

To be fair, I'm not making all her food myself. As mentioned earlier, she's having commercially prepared oatmeal because it's fortified with iron. Also, when she came down with a virus last week, the nurse recommended rice cereal and bananas, so I went ahead and got commercial rice cereal (Earth's Best Organic) as well. I also use jarred organic applesauce and frozen organic peach slices. But so far I have made everything else myself.

Shown in the photo is a tray of butternut squash. I purchased one squash -- organic -- for just under $3. It made a total of 35 cubes. I figure that if you account for the water that's added to the jars, one of my cubes is equal to 1 - 1.5 jars of food. That means my $3 got me the equivalent of more than 23 jars of food, depending on how you count it. Not a bad investment! Even if you aren't concerned about the price of jarred food, though, preparing your own baby food when you can is also environmentally friendly. I saved at least 23 glass jars from being used!

1. Slice a butternut squash in half. Scoop out the seeds and pulp. (Save the seeds for roasting, described below.)
2. Place the two halves face down in a baking dish with about 1/2 inch of water.
3. Cook in a pre-heated, 400 degree oven for about 40 minutes, until soft. (You can check by stabbing it with a fork.)
4. Peel the squash and let it cool for a few minutes.
5. On a large plate, smash the squash with a fork. Make it very smooth.
6. Press blobs of squash into a clean ice cube tray. Freeze overnight. If you have more squash than fits into your tray, the extra can be placed in a tupperware in the refrigerator until there is room to freeze it the next day.
7. Pop the squash cubes out and store them in a plastic freezer bag. Be sure to label and date the squash. It's good for up to two months in the freezer.

Roasting squash seeds:
Rinse the seeds. Toss with a little olive oil and salt. Roast in an oven with something else you're cooking until the oil is all soaked in, stirring occasionally.

Feeding the squash to your baby:
Take a frozen cube from the plastic bag. Heat over low heat in a small saucepan with a few spoonfuls of water. Stir frequently until all the squash is thawed and warm, adding water as necessary.