I spend my mornings reading everyone?s blogs before I even attempt to post to my own. Mainly because this allows me to finish my (mostly cold) cup of coffee prior to writing a cohearant sentence. That would explain some of the comments that I leave. So this morning I read Lauri?s post about snacking and toddler foods. Got me thinkin? a little. And yes, it did hurt. I started thinking about food and what my child eats. Before we became parents my girlfriend Heather told me to take out stock in the Dino Chicken Nugget company. Everyone told me my home would become overrun with toddler foods. Ahhh I say nay! My home is over run with sippy cups, little plastic dishes and other deposits from the plastic overlords. But not toddler food. If you look in my pantry you will find… Gerber fruit puffs and Goldfish Crackers (more for me than him.) This is the extent of our toddler food selection. We have no Teddy Grahms, chicken nuggets or other foods that would be considered “toddler foods.”
To my child cookies are Breton?s wheat crackers. He loves fruits and veg. He eats what we eat for dinner. Some nights I modify what we are eating for him, but for the most part he gets what we eat. At Unexpected Miracles I mentioned some of the foods he has tried and liked. White Chili: Chili made with white beans and chicken served with tortillas, cheese and sour cream. Use canned chilies for spice and not chili powder. Lot?s of cumin is the key. Morrocon Chicken: A great dish Recipe found here.
For the most part the boy still won?t eat meat readily. I use a food chopper to chop the meat into the tiniest little bits and mix it into mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, steamed rice or fried rice. If we are having soup I just chop up the meat and put it back into the soup.
A typical day of food consists of this:
Breakfast : oatmeal, yobaby yogurt &milk for the boy. Tillamook Yogurt with home made granola for me (and coffee)
Morning Snack: a wheat cracker or 1/2 a banana
Lunch: some kind of organic macaroni &cheese or soup for the botho of us. Apple slices for the boy. Milk or juice for him and water for me
Afternoon snack: a yogurt drink and a few wheat crackers or the other 1/2 of the banana.
Dinner: whatever is on the menu and milk. He does get a sugar free pudding if he does not use his mother?s head as food target practice.
For dinner this week? Monday – Peppercorn Chicken, Sweet Potato Casserole and steamed green beans (I cook up the rib meat of the chicken breast for the boy and mix it into the potato) Tuesday – Beef Veg soup. Wednesday – sans CS so I made a little cheese and basil pizza for the both of us. No prepackaged anything on that. Thursday – we are down to have Tandoori chicken. I?ll do the same thing with the rib meat and mix it in the rice. Friday – Nutty Fish. not sure on how to get the fish into the boy yet.
Very rarely will I make something special for the child. If I do it is leftover mac n? cheese so I can have some sort of really spicy Indian food.
So I suppose the next question is how do we have such dinners all the time. First, I love to cook. Second, I don?t work outside of the home. Third, I plan out a week of dinners on Monday morning and shop once a week. And last but not least… Saving Dinner. Jake sent me the link to this a while back and I thought I would give the freezer meals a try. It took a bazillion trips to the various markets I shop at and a week straight of preparing, but in the end I have a freezer full of dinners that I can just whip out and cook. When the lady says you should be able to prepare 20 meals in 2-4 hours she didn?t take into account the toddler factor. The boy does help me with the preparations, but he gets bored easily and comes and goes. The Beef Veg Soup is a Saving Dinner meal as is the Peppercorn Chicken. Loved them both. Nutty Fish is one too. I tried that one out with chicken first and it was great!
I am such a stickler for eating well. And by well I mean no processed foods. You won?t find a single package of Hamburger Helper in my pantry. No Rice a Roni, no Stove Top nada. I make nearly everything from scratch. Spaghetti, home made, rolls, not even the bread machine. Pizza… we order take out on occasion, but I like to make the crust. If I could I would make all of our bread too. I do run out of time for that. Food is such an important thing in our home. I want to make sure it is good and good for us. I?ll try to post a recipe or 2 on occasion if I find something good.