Hits & Misses - Feb. 26

Breakfast - HIT!

With the introduction of yogurt into her diet a few months ago, Evelyn has demanded it for breakfast ever since, shunning other options I have presented to her.  Because she eats essentially the same breakfast every day, breakfast is always a smashing success:

Ingredients
Two or three big spoonfuls of whole milk plain yogurt
A generous portion of baby oatmeal cereal
A tablespoon or two of fruit puree (today, it was prunes)
Half a banana mashed up

Technique
Just mush it all together.  It's pretty simple.

If you get the ratio of Oatmeal to Everything Else just right, it creates an almost fluffy mousse that my daughter can't resist, and I'll fully admit to giving her too much sometimes simply so I can eat her leftovers.

Lunch - HIT!

Today for lunch, I prepared Green Pea Pesto sans the basil as I didn't have any in my fridge. (You can find the recipe at the bottom of this blog post.)  I mixed it in with leftover plain brown rice I had in my fridge.  It left my daughter with a bit of garlic breath, but fully satisfied.  Usually at lunch, she doesn't eat a whole lot, but she left nothing in the bowl but two tiny bites that she just couldn't stuff in.

Dinner - HIT!

Whole wheat pasta, chunks of fresh tomato, bits of green pepper and onion and chewy beef all come together with a little tomato sauce to create what I call Baby Marzetti.  Don't forget the sprinkle of Parmesan at the end!

Not shown:  Ground beef, tomato sauce

Ingredients

Whole wheat spaghetti, broken in half

Small bit of diced green pepper*

Even smaller bit of diced onion*

One fresh tomato

Meatball-sized serving of ground beef

Commercial or homemade tomato sauce

Parmesan cheese for sprinkling

Technique

1)  First, you'll want to boil water and get your noodles going.  Whole wheat pasta takes a little longer to get tender.  Don't worry about the size, you'll dice it later.

2)  While your noodles are cooking, brown the beef in a small bit of olive oil (if you get anything with a higher fat content than 80/20 ground beef, you probably won't need oil - or if you have a really good non-stick skillet, which I completely lack).  When it's almost done, throw your peppers and onions in until they are soft. Drain the meat mixture and set aside.

3)  Wash your tomato, cut the stem end off, and then throw it in the water with your pasta for about 30 seconds to a minute to loosen the skin so you can peel it.  When you take it out and peel it, cut out the core (basically, get rid of the seeds).  

Skinned, seeded tomato and browned beef with peppers and onion.

4)  Now is the time to dice, rice or food process.  I prefer dicing with a nice sharp blade.  Start with the beef and peppers/onion mix and dice it finely into tiny pieces.  Then, start dicing the tomato.  The chunks can be a little bigger for the tomato, because it will soften up when you warm it with the sauce and will add a more stimulating texture to the finished meal.

5)  Put the tomato and beef mixture back into the skillet (wipe the oil and fat out first, though!) and add a small amount of commercial low-sodium tomato sauce or homemade tomato sauce just to moisten the mixture and tie it all together.  You shouldn't need too much, but use your judgment.  Warm it over medium heat for a few minutes to cook the tomato, and then set to low heat while you're taking care of your noodles.

6)  Drain your noodles, then dice them.  It can be hard to find whole-wheat pasta in small baby-friendly shapes and sizes, and even then, you seem to pay a little more for that fun star shape than you do for the old spaghetti standby.  Look how easy it is to turn a mess of spaghetti into tiny pieces with a quick turn of a knife:

Before:  Basic spaghetti.  After:  Adorable tiny bites.

7)  Put your noodle bites in a bowl, spoon your beefy sauce over the top and stir it around to coat every noodle.  Sprinkle with some Parmesan cheese, and, after checking the temp to make sure nothing's still boiling hot, serve up!

Enjoy!

Evelyn eagerly ate this dinner, and giggled after the first few bites she was so excited.  When I wasn't shoveling it in her little mouth fast enough, she was pointing at the bowl and grunting.  With it's comforting whole-wheat noodles and fresh tomato and pepper taste, I can safely call this dinner a hit.

*These ingredients can be purchased pre-diced in the freezer section.  Since you only use such a small amount when preparing any baby food, they make a great addition to your freezer.  You can pop open the bag, take out what little amount you need, and cook with them immediately.