14 month food update

Fork use is proceeding apace. There was an unfortunate incident in the first couple of days where she was all excited and showing off at a restaurant and nearly stabbed herself in the eye, but other than that, she's getting the hang of it.

No new recipes of my own at this point, but this lentil soup from 101Cookbooks was a huge hit with everyone, including Mae. It's the best lentil soup I've ever had-- usually lentil soup makes me feel at best virtuous and satisfied, but this one actually manages to seem indulgent. Without actually being so. Amazing. Go try it. (Browned butter, I'm telling you! Browned butter.)

Also made Ma Po Tofu last night. I was worried it would be a little too spicy for her, but she tucked into it, yogurt on the side just in case she needed a cool down. Even ate some of the tofu, which she has so far mostly given a pass despite its surface resemblance to cheese. She is not to be fooled.

In the last couple of months we've discovered Trader Joe's freeze dried fruit, it's our go-to portable snack now. In order of preference: strawberries, banana, mango. Blueberries were briefly a hit, but now get set out onto the floor. If we go to the park (which we have every day for a week or so, until today when the temperature cruelly plummeted again), snacks are a must, otherwise she starts trying to confiscate other people's snacks.

Now that she's a bit older, I don't feel the need to be quite so strict about her sodium intake. Sugars I still try to avoid, though I do share anything I've got so she doesn't feel excluded. I'm not quite sure yet what the right approach to take is with sweets. On one hand, I don't want it to seem special or like a "treat" (which implies that there's something wrong with the other food she usually gets), yet I do want it to be enjoyed infrequently and in moderation. I guess maybe those aren't really at cross-purposes-- after all, I enjoy, say, Thai food infrequently and in moderation, but that doesn't make it A Big Treat. Not like cupcakes. Sweets occupy a certain place in landscape of desire, and I'd like them to have a different role in hers-- but I'm so bound by the way the system works for me that it's hard to imagine it really going any other way.

But what I was going to say was that now that the sodium thing isn't such a big deal, I'm going to frame my preferences for her in terms of avoiding processed food. And if you do that, the sodium and the sugar tend to be minimized automatically.

She's waking up from a nap now, more on this later (maybe).

Ployes-- Buckwheat griddlecake recipe

(Quick, while she's asleep-- post a recipe!)

These pancakes are great-- quick to whip up, they cook quickly (no flipping involved!), and store and reheat well. They feature buckwheat flour (good stuff!) and some AP flour to hold them together (what with buckwheat having no gluten). They're thin and flexible like crepes, but no egg is involved-- a great multipurpose wrap. They remind me a bit of Ethiopian injera. I like them as a wrap for tuna salad; Mae likes them best with nut butters or nacho cheese spread (not as scary as it might sound-- my own recipe to come soon). Recipe from RecipeSource.

Ployes

1 c. buckwheat flour
1/2 c. AP flour
1/2 tsp salt (optional)
1 c. cold water
1 1/2 c. boiling water
1 tsp baking powder

In a bowl, whisk together the flours, the cold water, and the salt (if you're using it). It'll be pretty thick. You can let it sit there for a while until you're ready to cook. When it's time, preheat your cast iron skillet. You might want to preseason it (I heat up some grease, get the pan good and hot, and wipe out the excess oil quickly with a paper towel), but don't grease the pan like you would for pancakes. While your pan is heating, whisk in the boiling water and then the baking soda. Pour some into the pan and swirl to coat. It should be a very thin layer, and if your pan is hot enough will sizzle and start to bubble immediately. Lots and lots of tiny bubbles will form, and the surface will gradually set. Don't flip it! Just let it set, and when it's done in the middle, slide a knife or fork under the edge to pry it loose. You may have to finesse it a bit, but if it won't come up relatively easily, it may not be done enough on the bottom. Let it cook a little more-- when a nice crust forms, the ploye will come up more easily. Stack it on a plate and repeat.

I used the smallest skillet I have (about 5 inches?), and got 19 of them with this recipe. They're soft enough that even a little one who isn't quite up to regular bread yet should have an easy time gumming them.

Via Food Politics, see this study on health claims on foods marketed to children.  Hey, guess what? If it's marketed to kids as healthy, it probably isn't.

Table manners. Sort of.

1. She went through a phase a couple of months back where she tossed everything over the side if she didn't want it. I would have to try to catch it in my hand to teach her to give it to me, or to put it in the little cup holder area of her tray as a special place for undesirable morsels. It mostly worked, although stuff still goes over, particularly when she REALLY doesn't want it and is tying to be emphatic (No, Mommy, I really don't want any of the orange stuff. Really! *toss*), or when we're at a restaurant and she's all done and bored but the rest of us are still eating.

2. Spoons. No real development on this front. She's always been good with taking a loaded spoon and navigating it into her mouth if she's sufficiently interested in what's on it. Sometimes she gets too excited about having a spoon and wants to wave it about in celebratory fashion before putting it in her mouth. That doesn't work so well. Can't get her to try the whole dipping-and-scooping procedure herself, though she does like to take the handle end and bash things with it pestle-style. I think they should make a kayak-paddle type spoon with scoops at both ends.

3. Plates and bowls. I've been giving them to her with a few pieces of this and that on them, hoping that eventually the novelty will wear off and she'll get on with eating off of them. She doesn't knock them onto the floor or anything dramatic like you see in paper towel commercials, but she is far too interested in them as objects and wants to pick them up and turn them over and so on. Still working on this, in other words.

4. Forks.  Haven't tried it yet, but as soon as I see a plausible toddler fork, I'll give it a go. Why not?

5. When she's getting full and/or bored, she tends to pick up pieces of food, get them most of the way to her mouth, and then drop them in her lap. Very little ends up on the floor, lots in her lap and in the chair. And it's harder to tell when she's getting full, because stuff keeps disappearing. I keep telling her she can leave it if she doesn't want it, but I suppose that won't be a useful instruction until she can understand what I'm saying.

Still here!

Did you miss us? We're still here, still eating, if blogging (and reading blogs) a lot less frequently. I haven't quit on you! Mae is turning into a very busy little toddler. She had her first birthday recently, and has started to walk.  She's got a few words now, too-- besides some approximation of 'mama' and 'daddy', she produces 'uh-oh', and 'kitty' (pronunciation may vary, and I have a newfound respect for child language acquisition researchers who have to be able to transcribe this stuff and try to assign it a meaning). She stacks blocks, works on baby puzzles, and puts her toys through the cat door down the steps to the garage.

Foodwise, we're still going strong. She's not quite the chowhound she once was-- she balks a little at carrots, sweet potatoes, and brussels sprouts, and doesn't wolf down a peach the way she used to (maybe it's the out-of-season peaches). Doesn't care for the stewed apples of her youth, either, although she enjoys a slice of fresh apple for an afternoon snack. But she still loves avocado, peas, broccoli, meat of all sorts (still no sausage). Bread, pasta (but not soba, puzzlingly enough), beans, anything garlicky, all sorts of cheese (cheddar, blue, anything really).

My determination to keep exposing her to new foods at home has not waned, although my ability to do so has suffered what with lack of time to think of new dishes to try.  as she gets more active, she eats more, and it's all I can do to keep up with 3 meals and two snacks. Breakfast is usually one or more of the following: eggs (fried or scrambled), banana, avocado, or orange, toast, pancakes, 10-grain cereal with dried fruit, or toasted oatmeal in plain yogurt.  Lunch is leftovers from the last night's dinner, or soup. Yesterday we had roasted veggies-- sweet potatos (which she had about 2 slices of before losing interest), and roasted garlic mushrooms. She surprised me by eating mushroom after mushroom. Sometimes she hasn't the slightest interest in them, then other times...!  Just goes to show, never give up on offering certain foods. You never know when they'll develop a (perhaps temporary) enthusiasm for something.

Snacks: cheese, fresh bread or muffin if I've got it on hand, apple. Still no Goldfish! Still no Cheerios! Though I do understand others giving those out. It's hard to find neat, handy snacks that you can tote around without them going bad or stale on you.

She had a taste of pound cake at New Year's, and on her birthday, an entire mini-cupcake all to herself. Brown sugar, brown butter with orange frosting, thank you very much. Yeah, she liked it. As if there was any doubt? Got it on video, but no still photos, alas, so I can't put one up.

More on how her table manners are developing in the next post.

Food and fun

I came across an interesting article on the notion that food for kids should be different and "fun". 

"...fun food works to clearly carve out and validate the cultural category of childhood by affirming that certain foods are specifically for them, that adult fare does not fulfill children’s particular culinary needs. The culinary “need” here is not about nutrients; it is about fun. Children’s packaged supermarket foods suggest that fun is imperative to the consumption experience. Adult fare (...) bears scant resemblance to the colorful, bizarre and interactive eatertainment found in child-oriented packaged foodstuffs."  -- Charlene Elliot, "Eatertainment and the (re)classification of children's foods" Food, Culture, and Society 13:4.

In other words, the marketers are working hard to sell everyone on the idea that kids' food should be different from adult food, and that the point is entertainment rather than, oh, taste or nutrition. Elliot gives a few reasons to be concerned about this trend; I'm daunted at the task of how to teach Mae to continue to rely on her own hunger cues in the face of such advertising, marketing, and social pressures.

I've always found marketers' promises of "fun" to be often empty-- guess I have to try to help Mae notice this on her own, too, when the time comes.

What? Where did I go? Well you might ask. Just have not had time to update with recipes and photos and so on. I have been cooking, though!

Highlights include: buttermilk crackers (lightest, fluffiest crackers I've made yet, although I think Mae prefers the pumpkin ones), chili, a shepard's pie with leftover pork loin, mushroom gravy, and a mashed roasted yam and pumpkin topping.  Gosh, that was good.  Due to Halloween, which marks the onset of my annual empty-calorie food-preparation extravaganza, aka the holiday season, I've also been busy making all sorts of things I can't share with Mae: marshmallows, caramels, butter 'mints' (not minty). 

I need to get back into my recipe posting groove. I'm not quite there yet, I'm afraid. We're hosting Thanksgiving this year, though, so I promise yumminess before then.