This week's 10 for Tuesday is about cars. As I just earned my license last week, I am not really qualified to write about cars I have owned. Instead, I want to write about baby-led weaning. I cannot remember where I first heard about baby-led weaning, but one of my earlier recollections was the subsite that Smitten Kitchen had where she made her own foods for Jacob.
Do you remember this picture from May?
Our little boy is nearly 1 year old, and has been eating solids since March. At this point he is a seasoned hand at the whole food game, though that doesn't mean it is less messy... or at least not by much.
We started off a little slow. Occasional solid meals, but after a month or two, Q was interested enough that he pretty much ate a solid meal when we were eating a solid meal. Most of those meals were exactly what we were eating, because I don't tend to use a lot of salt in my cooking. He's had Indian, Israeli, Middle Eastern, Japanese, Italian and Chinese, and probably others that I simply cannot recall.
I bought the Baby Led Weaning cookbook as an ebook, and quickly branched away from it as our own adventures in eating progressed. It was great, but the food was bland for our tastes and soon that was true for all of us. While I wouldn't say that Q eats all of his vegetables, he had no problems with the mushroom and spinach lasagna on Friday with carrots. He eats his zucchini muffins like a champ. He loves most fruits, many carbs, and is the king of the lentil patch.
One of my hopes for the upcoming year is that he stays a good eater. I love to cook, and while I don't expect that he will like everything I make it is more fun to cook something that will be eaten with joy and gusto than it is to make something that will be just thrown on the floor.
One of our more recent successes was Shakshuka, specifically the version from Smitten Kitchen. I used jalapenos and a huge bag of cherry tomatoes brought in by one of my coworkers cooked in my giant cast iron skillet. It was hugely flavorful and while I still miss over easy eggs, Q has no problems with the eggs being cooked all the way through.
His face was covered in tomato and the tray was a bit of a mess, but when we lifted him out of the high chair to clean everything up after breakfast there was nothing in the chair and no food dropped on the floor. For a baby, that is a ringing endorsement!
Now, Q's birthday is in 7 days, and over the weekend I made a test cake. I brought in the leftovers on Monday and they were gone by 10. Tasty, but it needs a frosting that is closer to buttercream than what I had (I had whipped cream with apple cider caramel).
I'm hoping that his birthday and his birthday party are a lot of fun. I expect that this like many things is mostly for us at this point. We want to celebrate his life. He'll be happy for food and snuggles and the opportunity to rip some packaging to shreds and put paper in his mouth. That is as it should be. But throughout it all, there will something tasty that can be shared, because food for me is an expression of love, and I love our little boy.
