Monday, September 13, 2010

Daily grind

I normally post when Mae has had something quite delicious or a bit of a breakthrough, but I don't want you to think it's all saganaki and organic muffins in this house. Most meals are significantly more mundane. Although you probably weren't thinking Mae's diet was particularly gourmet given the likes of the tuna tempter or the cauliflower cheese episodes!

Either way, I thought I'd share a typical day:

Breakfast, 8am

Amuse bouche
1/2 banana, served chopped onto the highchair tray

Main
5-10 Sultana buds, Blackcurrant Wheats OR Weetbix Bites, soaked in just enough full fat milk so that they are soft yet still pickupable

Dessert
Baby yoghurt, flavour variable

Palate cleanser
A strawberry or some watermelon


Mid morning snack, 10.30am

Mini packet of sultanas
Two mini rice cakes with mashed avocado, served on her play mat so they can be spread across the floor and/or wiped across the DVD player


Sultana grazing

Lunch, 12:15pm

Cream cheese & cucumber sandwich, crusts removed, bread squashed down and cut into three fingers

A Mandarin. This does not vary, for the kicky legs and squeals of excitement upon sighting the mandarin are amongst the highlights of my day. Yesterday she broke the world speed record for mandarin eating, downing the whole thing in less than two minutes flat


Mid afternoon snack, 3:30pm

Two bits of steamed apple
Two mini rice cakes with humous (see morning snack for serving suggestion)


Dinner, 5:30pm

Entree
Two florets of brocolli, steamed

Main
Pasta bows with the veggie mince bolognese sauce Chris made last night, topped with parmesan

Dessert
1/2 kiwi fruit


The only remarkable thing about that menu is perhaps the sheer quantities, it looks enough for a fully grown man! Well, one on Weight Watchers at least.

Has anyone got any suggestions for fail-safe stalwarts, especially snacks? Those rice cakes are boring me...



4 comments:

  1. At the moment Ruby is really enjoying little cubes of tempeh as a snack on the run. There's some fairly nasty tempeh on the market. The one I prefer is the Tallyho Farm premarinated one (available at the tofu store at the queen vic mkts). Not bad for a protein-rich snackety.

    Another recent snack hit was banana and sultana pikelets. For this I just bastardised my standard pancake recipe. Improvements welcome:
    1/2 cup wholemeal SR flour
    1/2 cup milk
    1 egg
    1 smallish ripe banana
    splash of vanilla
    sultanas
    I just go industrial style on all the ingredients (apart the sultanas) and blend them together with a bar mix. Add in the sultanas and pan fry in a little butter. Serve with a splodge of cream cheese.

    One final idea if you're willing to move beyond the reign of sultanas is to try other dried fruits. Ruby is a big fan of slivers of fig and date. Very sticky but sweet and tasty.

    Hope this helps to bust the rice cake boredom!

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  2. Ahhh thanks Rosie, I love the pikelets idea. I am going to give them a whirl tomorrow, will let you know how it goes. And I looked at dates in the supermarket the other day but for some reason thought they might be too hard, but now I'm going to give them a go. Hurrah! Down the loo with the rice cakes!

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  3. I just wanted to say hi, I have found your blog and love it, it's really encouraging and especially the photos help so much as I've been a bit nervous starting with BLW! I haven't been doing any snacks yet, just breakfast lunch and dinner, and it struck me that with the snacks included your whole day must be filled with feeding or cleaning up?? How do you do it?! Also, I noticed you mention sultanas, I've been very nervous about giving those to my daughter, has yours coped with them ok? I was worried about possible choking hazard. Thanks and I look forward to reading more!

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  4. Hi sewing-lady, I was a bit worried about sultanas too for the same reason, and I only tried them around 9 months when I knew she was capable of chewing and swallowing. They serve as a great snack (I know they are really sugary but she doesn't eat any actual sugar so I think they are OK). Try your little one with one or two small ones - you'll probably find she just sucks them and swallows. I think they are too soft and small to actually choke on but I know what you mean! I'm glad you like the blog. I start back at work next week so might be a more infrequent poster but happy to answer any questions as I know what it's like to need people to ask things.

    And yes, the cleaning up is rather a trial, I'm not sure what country you are in (summer here in Oz) but if there's any way you can have lunch outside, or even in a cafe or something it can save one clean of the floor/highchair a day!

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