Today is also the last day of week four and I am hesitant to say it but the end of our fish allergen introduction. Malina’s eaten enough of the fish the last few times and not had a reaction. I’m going to still find other ways to work different fish in and hopefully we find something that we can use often enough to keep an eye on her exposure, since fish is not a regular part of our diet, yet.
That being said, today’s breakfast was a repeat of our previous success, trout cakes. I served it along side frozen strawberries (because teething), lime yogurt, and potato latkes.
Malina’s breakfast
Malina was really irritable this morning though and being extra clingy. These have been good indicators that she might be teething again, as we’ve been able to see a second tooth poking up under the gums, and so I set her up with her frozen strawberries right away.
“I love berries, berry much.”
She loved them. By the time I got the rest of her breakfast in front of her the two strawberries inside the feeder were almost completely gone.
If only she liked the frozen blueberries I have an entire bag of 😭
With her meal set down she grabbed a latke right away. It’s been awhile, but I think she remembered them.
“Papas are my valentine.”
Yeah, she loves these still too. Smashing them in her mouth and tearing them apart with her tooth. That tooth is scary by the way and it’s not even halfway out. I can’t begin to imagine how it will be when she has two.
She took a break from the potato latkes to eat a trout cake next.
“Someone said something about plenty of fish, but I like my trout well enough.”
She was a little hesitant but she still was willing to eat the trout cakes. Which makes me happy and hopeful as trout isn’t too hard to get.
Last we had the lime yogurt. I gave Malina her spoon with some on it and let her set the pace.
“This is the type of bittersweet I like.”
She liked it. I wasn’t too surprised as she’s been gravitating towards sour and bitter foods. It also gives me an idea for future vegetables to try that kids normally don’t like because they are bitter. (Hint: bell-peppers)
She ate a couple spoonfuls and smashed, tore, and nibbled on the rest of her food until she was done and started to play with what was left. so I chalk this up to a good food day and a nice completion of the month.
I’ll be posting the summary shortly, but until then- Remember, you are doing great and you’ve got this!
So last night we had sockeye salmon for dinner. I had the great idea to cut a small part of the fillet from the cooked meal and put it away for today’s breakfast for Malina.
What I did not think to do was cut myself a small fillet and so this morning she gets salmon while I sit back and have my own separate breakfast.
That’s one of those BLW ‘rules’ that I think get taken too seriously. “You eat what baby eats and baby eats what you eat”.
Everyone doesn’t always eat the same thing at every meal. There are diet restrictions, food limitations, and other things that get in the way. What I think is important is taking the time to sit and eat together.
But I totally would have eaten salmon this morning if there was some for me.
The salmon was steam baked with olive oil, parsley, and fennel. It reheated fine at a low temp in our toaster oven and the herbs smelled just as good as last night.
I blanked on making a veggie as I peeled some mandarins to go with the salmon and so Malina only had the fish and mandarins for her meal. I’d be more worried about something like this if she was relying on solids completely, but she isn’t and she doesn’t even eat most of her food anyways.
Malina’s breakfast
Baby girl knows what she likes and went for the mandarins right away.
“The last of the mandarins, so bitter sweet.”
She actually did what she did yesterday and focused on the mandarins until the salmon was the only thing left.
She even went through the same behaviors, picking up the salmon and smashing it before trying some of it.
“Oh, you wanted me to eat this salmon stuff. Okay.”
The salmon did not elicit a reaction from her like the trout, but she did eat two bites before deciding that the salmon was more fun to play with than to eat.
Can’t win them all.
She still liked the salmon more than the tuna and that is a place to start. So I’m going to mess with my preparations of it and we’ll see what Malina ends up liking.
So remember, even if you decide to eat something separate from baby, you are doing great and you’ve got this!
Today is our fourth day trying the fish allergen. Malina hasn’t really eaten enough of any of the fish presented so far for me to rule out anything, but I had high hopes it would change today as we tried the trout cakes I mentioned yesterday.
The trout cakes utilize the same mix of ingredients as the tuna cakes except they have trout instead of tuna. This recipe is actually from one of my BLW cookbooks (—) and I altered the recipe to allow for the tuna cakes (halving all ingredients between two bowls and adding 1 egg). I also baked everything (350F for 30 minutes) instead of pan frying. I have to say though that these things have kept well in the fridge, reheated well, and taste good. Especially the trout ones.
I also served mandarin oranges today and lemon yogurt (being mindful of sugar and sodium).
Malina’s breakfast.
I think Malina might be teething again, though not as bad and hard as when she cut her last tooth. It would explain her reluctance to eat that she’s displayed recently.
I coaxed her into starting breakfast by offering her a spoon of yogurt though and she was quick to take it and chewed on the spoon between bites.
“I love you-gurt.”
She liked the lemon yogurt it seems. She ate about half of what I offered and even saved the spoon from an accidental fall all by herself.
Now that she was interested and eating she moved on to the mandarins herself.
“Mandarins are my favorite.”
She still loves those too. She chewed on them and ate the insides before discarding the pulp. I’m starting to feel like I should offer her more slices because the juices are not as filling, but I’m holding back until she’s eating more of everything on her plate.
She went through all her mandarin slices and then went back to the yogurt. Only when she’d eaten or dropped most of those did she turn her attention to the trout cakes.
Personally, I think she’s avoiding the fish on purpose. Probably because of the smell. I’m going to have to figure out another way of approaching this now that I think I know what’s going on.
“This fish is good. I only want good fish now.”
Malina was hesitant to bite into the trout cake even after she picked it up. She started to pull it apart first and smash it on her tray. But she did get curious enough to put a piece in her mouth.
Then there was a change.
She ate a bite and then put more of the cake in her mouth. She was eating it. Finally, she was actually eating fish! She then spent some time shoving pieces in her mouth, spitting out some of it, dropping other pieces, but still chewing and eating enough of it up for me to count this as a success.
Tuna, bad. Sardines, bad. Trout, good. Very good.
I’m so thrilled she ate the fish, but I’m also worried now because she has all day to have a reaction and to get through. I’m almost certain she’ll be fine though. She hasn’t had a reaction so far and breakfast is two hours behind us as I write this.
So remember, even if you have to try something over and over again to get a success, you are doing great and you’ve got this!
Meal prep is amazing. I knew it was. I still remember how happy I was when Malina was born that I’d done enough meal prep while still pregnant to cover dinner for the first three months. Yeah, that was amazing.
I’ll probably do something similar later when I get a better idea of what things Malina likes. Also, I still have these allergens to introduce and make sure nothing surprises us.
So I did meal prep for this week. Yesterday evening I spent about an hour making our fish for this week. We are doing more tuna and trout. I’ll probably give her some sockeye salmon too, but I didn’t get to dealing with that yesterday.
So today we are trying tuna again and this time it’s in these mini cake patties that I made in my mini muffin tin. These things are made with tuna, potatoes, spinach, sour cream, green onion, and egg. So there is a lot of good stuff here.
The second part of breakfast this morning was banana rolled in crusted animal crackers. The crumbs make it easier for baby to grab and hold.
Malina’s breakfast.
Malina wasn’t really into breakfast this morning however.
It too some time and a lot of miming, but she did inevitably try the bananas after about ten minutes.
“These bananas are strange.”
She ate about two, maybe three, bites of the banana before it devolved into smashing.
The smashing turned into throwing though and that is what ended up happing to the rest of her breakfast. That was one mess I couldn’t use the dog for.
So today was a bad day for food and we still haven’t gotten her to try the fish we’ve offered. I’m still hopeful and hope that persistence will win out.
So just remember, even when baby destroys the kitchen redecorating, you’re doing great and you’ve got this!
Our fish today is sardines. I love fish, but it wasn’t until I was in college that I got to try sardines and anchovies (probably will introduce time Malina in the future, just not this week). I found out I liked them both and wondered why my family acted like they were bad.
I hope by introducing them to Malina that she will make her own decisions about it and have a more open mind to food as she grows up.
The rest of breakfast is as follows: sardines in water, steamed broccoli, blackberries, and cinnamon bread.
Malina’s breakfast
Eric made us cinnamon rolls and before we iced them I tore off two of the tails of the buns to offer to Malina. The sardines were from a can. The rest is fairly straight forward.
Malina touched everything on her plate when I set it down. Toying with me about what she would try first. Looking more for my reaction than caring about the food.
What she decided on though was her broccoli. But she had a hard time grabbing it at first and attempted to get it directly to her mouth in what she thought would be an easier way.
“Pluto does it like this all the time.”
She had little luck though and tried again with her hands, finally getting one of the green trees with a little help.
She liked her broccoli. It had been a while but she still liked the tops more than the stalk. Still, she tried to eat them whole as we watched on.
Malina went for her cinnamon bread next. Grabbing one piece and chucking it off the side before grabbing the other and tasting it.
Her enjoyment probably made her regret her first reaction to the pastry but I couldn’t know for sure. She ate about an inch off the end, doing a good job of chewing and softening one end as she ate it.
The next thing she tried was her blackberries.
She did not seem to like them as much today or even be too interested in them. She popped two in her mouth and that was the end of that.
Malina does a lot of touching her food. She runs her hands through it, rips it apart, and tosses pieces to Pluto. She did this with the sardines throughout breakfast. I figured she wasn’t going to even try the fish today and started to look for signs that she was finished eating as we came up on 30 minutes since we started breakfast. Then Malina surprised me. She grabbed a piece of the fish and ate it.
She did not hate it but I’m not sure she liked it either. She ate the small piece though and soon after we called breakfast as being done.
So remember, even when baby doesn’t eat what you want them too, you are doing great and you’ve got this!
Week four and we are doin Fish as our allergen introduction. We love fish here, so we are both excited to share fish with Malina as well as see what preferences she has as we go along.
As you might know, cooked fish is very flaky for the most part. This makes it harder to eat for a baby like Malina who is still developing her pincer grasp. So my solution was to make fish cakes.
The rules for making any type of meatball or patty are simple. You have your meat, a breading, and a binding agent. I found a ton of recipes but they all require more prep than I had time for. So instead I improvised a recipe and got lucky that it turned out.
Today we had tuna cakes, plain goat cheese, and blackberries.
Malina’s plate.
To make the tuna cakes I drained a can of tuna, mixed in some japanese mayonnaise, and then mixed in panko until I got the right consistency.
Next, I heated a bit of olive oil in a pan and added my patties once heated. These don’t really need to be cooked as much as warmed and when they were ready after about 3 minutes per side I severed them up.
Malina took in her spread and decided to start with her tuna cake.
“Why way when I can play?”
I wish I could say it didn’t fall apart quickly, but Malina is skilled in tearing her food to bits. I also wish I could say she ate some of the tuna, but she avoided actually eating a single bite as she tore it apart and tossed pieces to Pluto.
There will be plenty of time later to try tuna again, and there are still other fish to get her to try as well. So I just accepted this one as not working and waited for Malina to try the next food.
She decided to go for the plain goat cheese.
“Creamy and just the right mix of tart and sweet.”
We are also big cheese fans here. We also haven’t found a second cheese Malina likes, so we went with the next one on our list. Goat cheese. It’s a lightly sour with hints of sweet creamy cheese. Sometimes it can be more crumbly light gets as well, but the one we got was a slightly creamier texture than cream cheese.
Malina loved it.
My bet is that the sour was her favorite part and then the consistency was next. She ate it well enough with her fingers and enjoyed it though.
Riding the success of the cheese, Malina went for her blackberries last.
Again, she enjoyed it. I cut them into quarters lengthwise and she has just a small amount of difficulty picking them up. Just not enough to stop her from enjoying the berries.
It’s unfortunate that the tuna didn’t work out but honestly just seeing her handle it and eat the rest of her breakfast was good enough for me. Like I said, there is plenty of time to try again.
So remember, even if baby doesn’t eat what they are supposed to, you are still doing great and you’ve got this!
So I hadn’t decided which of our remaining allergens to test this week before I made breakfast this morning so I decided to just make something nice with what we had on hand. Sometimes I look at our pantry and fridge and see nothing. Other times I see opportunity and get plenty of food ideas. Today was a big idea day.
Last weekend my husband made a soup that needed buttermilk as an ingredient. After he opened and used what he needed from the carton it got pushed to the back of the fridge. Luckily, I remembered it last night as I though about today and started planning for breakfast.
Buttermilk pancakes!
The recipe I decided to use is from one of my BLW apps (Annabel Karmel Recipes) that I have on my phone. But be warned, the recipes from here are in metric so you will need a scale and appropriate measuring equipment. I’ve been cooking a long time though so switching between different measuring systems I can handle.
These pancakes came out amazing too, by the way. I added about a teaspoon of vanilla extract to the batter but followed the rest of it to the ‘T’.
I also made my own mixed berry compote. I just tossed about a cup of frozen mixed berries into a sauce pan and heated on high until bubbly. Then I mashed up the berries to make a smoother texture and let it simmer on low until it thickened some. In the future I’ll probably play with this some. Add in some spices and what not to see what Malina likes, but spoiler alert: she loved the berries as is.
Then I served up some more homemade whipped cream without sugar and our leftover cucumbers from the other day. And somehow I managed to get this all done in 45 minutes.
Okay, it was planning and Eric holding Malina, but still I felt really good about this performance on my part.
Malina’s plate.
And of course the first thing she went for was the pancakes as her other hand discovered the whipped cream. She was tentative at first, since this is the softest pancake she’s had yet (crepes are in our future) but she soon discovers that it tasted good.
“We should have started with these pancakes.”
She ate at least two strips. She loved her pancakes. Pluto was also given his tribute, though most of that was the cucumber. Malina was not feeling the savory cucumber as an accompaniment and was quick to discard them and go back to her pancakes.
She did however seem interested in the berry compote and whipped cream but unable to get any. I had the idea that she’d mix the pancake pieces in it, but that’s a skill she hasn’t developed yet. So instead I gave her a spoon and she then made a huge mess as she ate it.
“Berry sauce is good. Can I have more?”
As you can see, she liked it and promptly demolished it.
I feel good about this meal though. It might look sugar heavy but the only added sugar was 20g in the batter mix and she didn’t get all of that. Then whatever natural sugars that were in the berries. So I say it’s fine.
Starting tomorrow we will he going into fish as our allergen. I am planning to do some meal prep for the week with my time this weekend as well. And I’ll try to get my master post for the resources I use together.
So remember, even if you do offer sugar to baby, you are still doing great and you’ve got this!
And today marks the end of week 3! One more week and then we are officially a month into this.
So today our schedule was a bit off but somehow everything worked out for once. Breakfast was easy enough to figure out and when we got things going it was smooth sailing.
The last of the veggie nests, fried eggs, and mandarin oranges.
Malina and mama’s breakfast.
Nothing new today and everything served were things Malina has eaten and liked in the past. Still, repetition is good for taste development as well as continued exposure.
Not going to stand on ceremony, Malina went for her food right away and shoved a veggie nest into her face. Like she smashed it against her face and then realized “wait I need to open my mouth.” This was the second attempt and already she was doing better since her mouth was open.
“Yummy veggie nest. I like the onions.”
It’s nice to see her enjoy her food and I am reminded of another reason that it’s good to repeat foods. When she likes something she’s more likely to eat it and more of it each time it’s offered. Including her fried eggs.
“The egg had to come first, I think.”
Malina also enjoyed her mandarin oranges. She’s been on and off with them recently but today was a good day and she ate two slices. Or at least she ate the juices of two slices, still not liking the pulp.
“Mandarin oranges make a good dessert.”
All in all a great breakfast and a nice finish to week three of Malina’s food adventure.
So remember, there are good days where things work out and even if today isn’t one you are still doing great and you’ve got this!
Almost through another week! Soon we will be starting week 4 and then I’ll have to make the compilation summary post for Malina’s first month. We’ve also successfully introduced four (Eggs, Dairy, Wheat, and Soy) of the eight major allergens and kept them in rotation for continued exposure. Honestly, I’m getting kinda exhausted but the excitement is keeping me going as well as how well Malina has been doing with this.
She’s the real MPV of this whole thing as I just document and dispense anecdotes and observations.
Despite all of that though, today’s breakfast is a bit bare bones and does not have any soy present.
It’s not the best excuse but I haven’t had the chance to do the meal prep I’ve wanted. For more than just Malina too. Does anyone else ever buy a bunch of stuff to make a specific recipe and then not use some of it for one reason or another?
No? It can’t just be me.
Well, I had big plans to make greek meatballs and homemade taziki last week. I bought everything. I checked the recipe multiple times and somehow missed the part where it takes 3 hours to make taziki.
Oops.
So we had the meatballs and I had several ingredients that went unused.
Skipping to today, I didn’t know what I was going to make Malina. I had zero plans as I opened the fridge. Oven preheating and water starting to boil so I had options when I was ready.
Then I saw them. The cucumbers and fresh dill. I have good experiences mixing these two, from back when I’d make cucumber sandwiches for my tea parties as a kid and later with my sister as adults. British Tea is an interesting thing that I wish we had in the states, but then again it makes it kinda unique and special to do it occasionally here and there, but I digress.
I’ve never cooked a cucumber before outside of stir frys and I didn’t feel like doing anything heavy with it. I looked to the dill again and made up my mind. Baked cucumber with dill it was.
So I cut the cucumber into small pinky wedges after peeling it and cutting out the seeds (mixed into about why you can’t give that to baby, so I’m erring in the side of the unknown) and tossed half of them with dill before tossing them in the oven for twenty minutes. In the mean time I tried to figure out the rest of our meal.
The thought of sandwiches did not leave me though so I turned to the deli drawer and pulled out roast beef (nitrate free) and considered my cheeses. We have four right now and all I could think of was cream cheese which we had none of. I settled for the cottage cheese, hoping Malina liked it more this second time.
So I prepared everything and soon we had breakfast ready.
Cucumber is a fruit/vegetable. Not based on its actual classification but on how our culture views it. Kinda like tomatoes. Personally, cucumbers have always tasted like a watery melon somewhere between a honeydew and watermelon to me, just less sweet and flavorful. So it actually being a fruit isn’t a big deal to me. Today though I served it two ways, with and without dill, and so I’m counting it as both.
Malina didn’t care though as she reached for her plate as I sat it down for her. The first thing she grabbed was the roast beef.
“Yummy roast beef.”
This was Malina’s first time with beef but not her first time with meat. Don’t know why it surprised me but she’s definitely a little carnivore as she loved this. She picked up slice after slice chewing and sucking on them. It makes me excited to give her more meat in the future, I love meat.
By the end of breakfast she’d demolished the strips and when I looked at what was left and accounted for what I’d seen fall to Pluto she definitely ate at least one of not two strips.
The next thing she went for though was the cottage cheese. I had planned to offer her a spoon but she took matters into her own hands, literally.
“These curds were in the way.”
Again I was surprised as she ate a couple handfuls of the cottage cheese. Done was the grimace at its sourness and the spitting of dislike. Malina actually ate some and liked it.
So when she went for the cucumbers inevitability I figured she’d probably not care for them with having done well with everything else.
“This water stick is yummy. You say it’s called a ‘cucumber’. What kind of name is that?”
But I was wrong. She obviously preferred the ones with dill. Chewing and removing the seasoning as she took bites and gummed it.
For the record, the baked cucumber was crisp on the outside and watery on the inside. The dill ones were savory and the plain ones were sweet. So who knew? I’ll have to play around with this in the future but for now I am both impressed and happy it turned out. Also, I want to say how much of a champion Malina has been the last couple days with her eating. This whole thing could have been harder or easier based off of her and I’m happy she’s been going easy on me so far.
So remember, even when winging it, you are doing great and you’ve got this!
My posts are all off right now as I play catch-up. Yikes do things get in the way when you have a baby. Malina had trouble last week because of teething and now she’s been having trouble sleeping. Which means I am having trouble sleeping. Symbiotic relationships aren’t always great for everyone.
But anyways, I have uploaded the last couple of days posts and am finally back on track. So today, Wednesday, we actually got some rest. I’m not sure if this is a fluke or if something changed or if Malina is back to her older schedule but I’m taking it right now.
So having slept decent I woke up before Malina for the first time in forever and went to preheat the oven for our breakfast today.
Vegetable nests, meatless breakfast patties, and frozen raspberries.
Malina and mama’s breakfast.
So everything today is from Trader Joe’s. I like them, they have low sodium and sugar, and it makes my life easier especially when sleep has not been guaranteed and I haven’t had energy to really cook or do meal prep.
What’s important is baby is eating anyways.
So I served this up and Malina was quick to grab the silicone feeder of raspberries. She probably thought it was bananas as she started to eat.
I wish I’d gotten a picture of her surprise but she was fast and right after discovering it was good she popped it right back in her mouth.
“Gimme all the raspberries.”
I think she’s gotten used to having breakfast and eating because she doesn’t jump from item to item as much anymore and instead focuses on one thing at a time. Today the main focus was her new favorite, frozen raspberries. The picture doesn’t do her justice for how red her mouth and face got from her eating the berries, but she ate almost all of them and it wasn’t until an unfortunate shake of the feeder that she lost the entire thing to the floor.
She was upset a moment but I got her to focus on all the food she hadn’t touched yet. And her next choice was the meatless breakfast patty. The first one was tossed to the floor, tribute for Pluto, though he was put away because of the onions in today’s food. The next patty she started to eat. Watching me for cues. I think it’s adorable that she sometimes won’t eat the food until she sees me take a bite of the same thing.
“If you’re eating it, it can’t be that bad.”
She ate a couple bites but she wasn’t a big fan of the patties today. With nothing else to try, she finally went for the vegetable nests.
“What’s this?”
Malina seemed to like the texture of the nests. She touched them and pulled them apart as she tried to eat it. She also seemed to like the actual vegetables, though I think she only got zucchini and onion in her bites that she took. She was happy as she ate it and I was happy that she liked it.
Today was a good day for her breakfast. She ate some of everything and seemed to really like the raspberries and vegetable nests. I’m going to have to go back over what she’s been offered vs what she’s tried and make sure we repeat what we need to and mark off what she’s eaten. I’ll probably make a summary post when we get to the end of our first month and sometime before then make a post on our goal of 100 foods before one as well as explain what that is. But for now, mama needs to relax.
So remember, even when sleep deprived, you are doing great and you’ve got this!
-Erica
Note: Soy was in everything besides the fruit today and we are still reaction free.
Malina’s BLW Food Adventures 