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.
Double posts because I forgot to publish the previous post yesterday. Meh, I was tired and busy. Today we’re continuing with soy and I am proud to announce that there have been no negative reactions to any of our allergens we’ve introduced so far. I think when that rash happened it was because of something not food related, because Malina has not gotten it again since.
So, moving on to breakfast. Today we are trying a combo food. It’s not technically the first we’ve tried but it is the first that is very obviously more than one ingredient. Our food is…
Another Trader Joe’s find.
Korean scallion pancake (Pa Jeon). These have onion, leek, garlic, carrot, oyster mushrooms, and scallions in them. They are so good and honestly I should try making them at home since these packages only come with four. They are also made with soy sauce, eggs, and wheat flour. So there are three allergens in these as well.
The remainder of our breakfast was fried eggs and navel orange slices. Malina’s egg was cooked until the yoke was solid and cooked through.
Mama and Malina’s breakfast.
When we sat down to eat, Malina surveyed her options and then stared at me. She’s gotten into a habit of wanting to eat what I have so I took a bite out of my scallion pancake and then handed it to her. Little thief.
“What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is mine.”
At least she liked it. She gnawed and chewed on the pancake for most of breakfast. She ate a few bites as well and again I was impressed by her.
She took a break from the pancake long enough to try her fried eggs, but she wasn’t that into them today and went right back to the pancake. So I turned her plate so she had easier access to them and her orange slices.
“What’s this supposed to be?”“Scallion pancakes are better.”
She did not attempt to eat the eggs at all again. Then the next time she tried something besides her new favorite thing it was the sliced orange. I’ll admit, the mandarins are sweeter and easier to eat and that might be what the problem here was, but Malina was not impressed with her orange. She ate two bites and then discarded it to the dog.
“Oranges are not mandarins.”
She went back to her scallion pancakes again and only munched on them until breakfast was over.
The point of introducing so many different textures, flavors, and foods is to help prevent picky-ness. Though after today I have to wonder if there is a difference between being picky and having a preference. Malina loves mandarin oranges but hasn’t seemed to care for the navel oranges. Is this a preference or is she being picky? Why did she refuse the fried egg today? We found she liked them better than eggs any other way but what was off today?
I guess there are really no answers until she can speak, but I can’t help wondering. In the meantime I’ll just have to keep trying and hope for the best.
So remember, even if babies tastes are hard to predict, you are doing great and you’ve got this!
The tofu expired! Oops. I call this mom fail time, but we are going to keep pushing on with the soy. Just not obvious soy. It’s times like this that it freaks me out how many things you wouldn’t expect certain allergens in that have them. And that makes me grateful that I don’t have that concern but also feel empathetic towards those who do. So today our soy is hidden again.
Breakfast today was potato hash browns, baked pork bacon, mixed berry yogurt, and mandarin oranges.
Guess where the soy is?
The hash browns! There is soy flour used in these according to the ingredient list. Not sure how much but enough to have the allergy warning and to count I would think.
So I served this up and waited for Malina to strike. And our first item was bacon. This was my first time baking bacon. I baked the bacon because I was worried about the grease and how her stomach would handle it. I laid the strips on a grate over a drip pan and tossed them in the oven. It also made making breakfast easier.
“I hear good things about bacon.”
Malina has a lot of fun breaking and ripping the bacon apart, but she did eat a couple pieces and enjoyed chewing on it. Overall, I think she likes bacon.
The next thing she went for was the hash browns.
“This keeps falling apart.”
The hash browns were harder for her to hold onto without breaking and as a result she also had a hard time eating them. She did manage to get a couple bites of each piece but that was all. She seemed to really like it and was upset when they fell apart on her.
The next thing that Malina decided to eat were her mandarin oranges. She’s been enjoying snacking on them and having them with her breakfasts so far. Plus, I have a ton of them so when I need quick fruit right now I’m giving her these. She still chews on them to get the juice and discards the pulp though.
“I’m juicing the orange with my gums.”
The last thing Malina tried was the mixed berry yogurt. I forgot to grab her more plain Greek yogurt and decided to give her some of my fruit yogurt. The sugar level was low and she wasn’t going to eat much of it anyways.
“Yummy yogurt.”
Of course she liked it and ate two spoons of it before tossing the spoon off the side. The second spoon met the same fate without her eating any of it so we called breakfast as being over.
So today, everything went over well with Malina. She tried bacon and hash browns for the first time. She seems to like crunchy things as well and that was good to learn. This whole thing is an adventure for Malina but a learning process for me and so far I feel like it’s gone well.
So remember, even as you learn new things, you are doing great and you’ve got this!
Today we didn’t have soy. I got the tofu and meant to prep it but I didn’t get around to it. But as I mentioned previously we’ve accidentally introduced soy before, in our bread. Yup. The whole wheat bread I buy also has soy flour in it. Go figure. So I guess we did have soy, just not the way I had originally planned.
So today we did pumpkin french toast, homemade unsweetened whipped cream, and mandarin slices.
Malina’s breakfast.
The french toast is actually a recipe from one of my BLW cookbooks. It uses pumpkin purée, eggs, milk, and a few spices. I just want to say it tasted amazing. Like pumpkin pie and the whipped cream was a great addition.
The whipped cream is pretty straight forward. I had heavy cream and I decided to take my electric whisk to it for a few minutes until stiff peaks formed. I’ve made it before, usually with sugar and vanilla extract, but since this was for Malina just the cream did fine.
So once our decadent breakfast was served Malina dove straight for the mandarin oranges.
“I love these, but no pulp please.”
We’ve offered oranges and mandarin oranges before with mixed results. But me and my husband snack on them during the day and Malina has shown a lot of interest when we are eating it and we’ve been sharing. She loves them. She gnaws on them, extracting all the juices, and then discards the chewed up pulp. So citrus is good here.
The next thing she went for was the pumpkin french toast sticks. I made sure to cut them real thin for easy handling and watched as Malina tried them.
“This toast isn’t very toasty.”
She liked it! Two for two so far. Malina picked up the sticks and tore off chunks and ate them. She is getting better at chewing and swallowing the foods. She is also getting better at spitting things out, so when she’s done chewing and extracting the flavors there really is a 50/50 chance of either happening. Still, I’m happy that we’ve crossed from trying foods to eating them. I didn’t realize there was a real difference until she started to eat more of a thing and not just move from one thing to the next.
She did try the french toast with the whipped cream, on accident, but she also tried it on its own. She seemed to like the texture as she put her fingers in it and played with it. She ate some of it as well and seemed to like it like everything else.
“This fluffy stuff tastes good.”
So all in all today was a major success. Malina liked everything and ate a good amount of all of it. She’s improving her ability to handle foods as well as her palate for different foods and textures.
So even when things are going really well, it’s a good idea to remind yourself that that you are doing great and you’ve got this!
Malina’s BLW Food Adventures 