Rotini with Tuna and Garlic baby led weaning recipe

I decided that Mae should eat more pasta. I haven't hardly given her any, despite the fact that pasta shapes are very grabbable, and it's a pretty easy thing to whip up.  So here's the first pasta we tried, sort of a cross between the classic olive-oil-and-garlic-tossed-with-spaghetti and, I don't know, tuna noodle casserole.  (Ok, the only resemblance to tuna noodle casserole is that it's got tuna in it. And noodles.) Simple yet tasty in the way that things with only three or four high-quality ingredients can be. No picture for this one. I'll admit I'm an amateur photographer, and I'd need more food styling experience than I've got to make this one look good. But it does taste good! And Mae loved it. I think Mae loves anything with garlic in it.

1 1/2 c. tricolor rotini
1 can tuna in olive oil
1 tsp additional olive oil (optional)
3 cloves garlic, minced
black pepper

Cook your rotini in unsalted water until tender and drain (unsalted for the sake of the infant in question; you can add salt to yours later if you want, it'll be fine. Really.)

Drain the oil off the tuna into a small skillet, add the additional olive oil to it if you've decided to go with that, and heat the skillet up over medium-high heat. Watch out for spattering if any juicy tuna bits get into it. Toss in the minced garlic and saute until fragrant and just starting to brown; pull it off immediately before the garlic burns. Toss in the tuna and rotini in with the garlic and oil.  Black pepper to taste.

Messiness rating: 2 (2-3 wipes)

Muffin Monday-- Pesto Muffins-- Savory muffin recipe for infants

Deconstructed pesto, in muffin form.  These are nice and moist on the inside, slightly crisp on the outside.  If you happen to have some roasted garlic (you know, the thing where you wrap a head of garlic in foil and roast it in the oven till it's caramelized and spreadable), that would be the thing to put on them, in my opinion.

Mae's dad took some of these in to distribute to his workplace (because if I make 3 dozen muffins every week for Muffin Monday and we don't give some away, we'll soon have no room left for anything else in the freezer). He was wearing Mae in the BabyBjorn, and when he opened the container she somehow managed to scoop up a muffin, took a bite out of it, and then reached down with the other hand and snagged another one. I am not making that up. She liked the bran muffins fine, but she loves these.

Pesto Muffins

3/4 c. spelt flour

1 1/2 c. All Purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

3 eggs

3/4 c. olive oil

3/4 c. whole milk

4 large cloves garlic, minced

1/2 c. basil, minced

3/4 c. grated parmesan cheese

1/2 c. pine nuts, toasted for about 5 minutes in a 350 degree oven and then chopped

Preheat your oven to 350 and prepare your mini-muffin (fairy cake) pan with a quick greasing or spraying of Pam.

In a medium bowl, mix together the flours and baking powder. In another bowl, lightly beat your eggs, then whisk in the olive oil and milk. Stir the liquids into the dry ingredients until just combined, then fold in the garlic, pine nuts, cheese, and basil. Fill your mini-muffin tins about 3/4 full, and bake for 12-15 minutes. Makes 3 dozen.

Just thinking aloud

(...or whatever the written bloggy equivalent of thinking aloud is.)  One of the things I want to do is introduce Mae to all sorts of things-- especially vegetables-- so she'll hopefully retain some familiarity and fondness for them as she grows.  I have three vegetables I just haven't learned to like: brussels sprouts, beets, and cauliflower. I hereby publicly declare my intention to find preparations of these that I can tolerate enjoy so that I can share them with Mae and not pass along my vegetable biases. If I haven't done that by the end of the year, please come kick me.

Burgers for babies-- baby-led weaning hamburger recipe

Burgers! Mae's dad makes up a big batch of these and separates out a portion for Mae-- no salt, tiny little patties. Regular sized, salted ones for us. We freeze the extras (individually wrapped in Press n Seal)for quick dinners on days when we lack initiative.  They're almost like little, grilled meatloaves-- moist and tender inside, and a finer texture that plain meat patties, so it's less likely that a big chunk will break off and give Mae trouble.  Even though the ones we make for her are small and baby-hand-sized, I end up breaking them into smaller, bite-sized chunks for Mae.  She handled 'em like a champ when we had them last weekend.

2 lbs lean ground sirloin
12 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp pepper
2 Tbs dried oregano
¼ c. matzo meal
¼ c. skim milk

Just mush it all up together, form into patties, and grill till done. Or fry. Or whatever. It's a hamburger; I trust you have your preferred methods.

Yeah, Mae's dad puts cheddar and pepperoni on his. I'm a pickle, ketchup, and mustard kind of gal, myself.

Crispy watermelon and apple salad infant fingerfood recipe

I haven't had good luck giving Mae raw apples or watermelon-- they're kind of hard, and when a chunk breaks off, it gives her trouble (usually ending with me freaking out and initiating rescue procedures).  Yesterday morning I had more success with the watermelon by cutting it into very thin, small slices. Then we went for a 2 hour long walk in the heat, and I started thinking about cool, crisp fruit for some reason. In particular, it dawned on me that raw apple could be treated in the same way, perhaps...and I started fantasizing about a crispy, cool salad of apples and watermelon until it officially became an obsession. This is the result. 

1 apple
1 slice watermelon (a 1 inch slice off a 8th of a watermelon)
1 tsp. minced fresh spearmint
1 lemon half

Squeeze the juice of your half lemon into 2 cups water in a small bowl.  Peel, core, and slice your apple into long thin matchstick-size pieces, about 1/8 inch thick. Put the apples at each stage of slicing into your bowl of lemon-juicy water to prevent browning. Slice off thin pieces of watermelon, and slice them into matchstick-size pieces as well.  Drain the apple slices well, and toss them together with the watermelon and minced mint. Discard the leftover lemon juice water, or save it and make it into lemonade. :)

This was so good, it was all we could do not to eat it all before even giving any to Mae. The recipe makes enough for one baby and one adult, and I think that if you doubled it, it would still make only enough for one baby and one adult.

As for Mae, she enjoyed it, although I have to admit that she might enjoy it more in a month or so when her pincer grip is more fully online. She was able to pick up the pieces, but they'd often break and she'd end up with a little piece in the palm of her hand that she couldn't get into her mouth. But if I held a piece for her, she'd lean forward and eat it out of my hand enthusiastically. So I'm going to call this a recipe for 8 month olds rather than 7, but she didn't have any trouble getting the fruit down once it made it into her mouth.

Messiness rating: 1 (one or 2 wipes'll do it)

Roasted eggplant, tomatoes, and peppers-- baby finger food recipe

It wasn't until adulthood that I really started to like eggplant. I chalk that up to our never having it in our house, very nearly continuing the the cycle of no-eggplant. At some point all that changed, and now it's one of my favorite things about summer. Eggplant, tomatoes, red peppers, tossed in olive oil and-- if the whim takes me-- some sliced basil, minced garlic, and mozzarella sprinked on toward the end-- I could eat it every day. The only thing that stops me is that I don't want to heat my oven up every day during the summer.

Eggplant, tomatoes, and red peppers are all things that cook up nice and soft-- perfect for Mae to nosh on. She tried it first a couple of weeks ago after being very receptive to some green peppers my aunt had roasted for Italian beef sandwiches. 'Receptive' is an understatement. She slurped those suckers down. So when we got home from our visit, I roasted up some peppers and eggplant and let her have a go at them. She loved them. Now they're part of the regular rotation. I make up a batch once a week and store the extras in the fridge for a few days-- they're pretty good to bring along for her when we're going out to eat.

I like these tiny little eggplant I get at the farmer's market, but any eggplant cut into appropriate size and shape will do. Sweet peppers of any color. Tomatoes, if you like. Basil and garlic if you've got them, would not be out of place. Add them in the last 10 minutes so they don't just burn.

2 pints small eggplant

6 or 8 Roma tomatoes

2-3 small bell peppers

It wasn't until adulthood that I really started to like eggplant. I chalk that up to our never having it in our house, very nearly continuing the the cycle of no-eggplant. At some point all that changed, and now it's one of my favorite things about summer. Eggplant, tomatoes, red peppers, tossed in olive oil and-- if the whim takes me-- some sliced basil, minced garlic, and mozzarella sprinked on toward the end-- I could eat it every day. The only thing that stops me is that I don't want to heat my oven up every day during the summer.

Halve the eggplants and tomatoes, cut the peppers into strips, and toss it all with a generous dose of olive oil. Pop it into a 400 degree oven for 30-40 minutes, giving them a good stir once or twice partway through. The skins will loosen up nicely by the time everythings done-- slip the skins off the veggies before you hand them over to the little one. (They don't get digested anyway. Trust me on this.)

Chronic annoyance with "for kids" recipes

I was annoyed by this long before Mae arrived-- I have this old candy cookbook from the 60s that was always chuntering on about how the kids would love the recipe at hand. My thought was always, "Of course they will! It's candy! But what about the adults? Adults like candy, too!".  More recently, I was poking around on Epicurious, exploring their "Cooking For Kids" info and "Recipes for kids" tags.  Don't get me wrong, I love Epicurious*, but get this: Of the recipes featured with pictures in their "Cooking For Kids" group page, fully half of the 24 recipes pictured are for sweets. And if you click on the 'recipes for kids' tag, 9 out of 10 recipes on the first two pages of results are for sweets.  Now, I'm no anti-sweet harridan, and on her future birthdays, Mae will be eating her share of cupcakes or pie, not sardine-and-alfalfa-sprout-on-whole-wheat sandwiches.   I'll note again that it's overdetermined that kids are going to like sweets, and there's nothing wrong with that in moderation (a moderation that I readily confess I myself have never  achieved).  But it's not like they're any better for kids to eat  than for adults.  They may be able to burn the calories off quicker, but they may be worse for children in the long run, if you consider the long-term effects of reinforcing those sorts of eating habits.  *Also gestures in the direction of childhood obesity and diabetes*. 

In the end, I think adults use kids as an excuse to make sweets for themselves. Why not just admit it? And how about featuring recipes for kids that don't teach children to turn primarily to high-calorie foods for reward or comfort?  Or that keep sending the message that these kinds of foods are fine for kids to eat, that they are in fact prototypical "kid food"?

I want my daughter to like sweets, sure. I want her to love pie, ice cream, and our family's Christmas cookies. I also want her to be able to find comfort and indulgence in well-prepared asparagus, a plate of oven-roasted tomatoes. Or to continue to love eating fresh summer peaches and sweet corn every bit as much as she does right now.


* Though not as much as I did when Gourmet magazine was still a going concern.