Feeding at 11 months

More new foods at 11 months! Alicia tried the following:

• Heinz beef casserole
• Heinz Creamy pasta and tuna mornay
• Only’s lamb and mediterranean vegetables
• French toast
• Scrambled egg yolk with breast milk

• Organic Green Lentils
• Earth’s Best instant oatmeal

• Organic Baby Oats
• Healthy Times Teddy Puffs
• Petit Miam yogurt

• Pasta with vegetables, meat and tomato sauce
• Baked macaroni with chicken, cheese and vegetables
• Meat and Vegetable stock
• Eggless apple muffins

Note: Read on for some recipes and tips regarding the above foods


I started to give Alicia some bottled food which contains meat this month because she started rejecting pork and chicken which she used to eat. I was concerned that she was not getting her usual dose of protein and iron from the meat so I decided to let her try a little beef and lamb. She loved the beef and lamb but simply hated the tuna. Well, I tasted all of it and felt the same way too. I think the capsicum taste in the tuna bottle was too strong and made it taste strange. She probably felt that way too. Hahaha…

Cereals

Since the fussiness began in the 9th month, she had not agreed to eat any cereal up to this point. To try to get her back on eating some cereal, I tried out Earth’s Best instant oatmeal. It has a cute Elmo on the packaging and smells like popcorn. I must admit that this is rather high in sugar but I thought giving her a little bit of sugar when she’s almost one shouldn’t be too much of an issue. In any case, she loved it though she took the first mouth warily. This oatmeal became a trusty companion when we needed to go out in a hurry and had no time to feed her at home because the oatmeal was instant and in my opinion, despite the sugar content, still nutritious.

Alicia's fond of this cereal in this month!

She tried organic baby oats this month too because I thought since she's begun to accept cereal again I could try to get her back on eating healthily (instead of relying on the high sugar instant oatmeal). I cooked the oatmeal and mixed it with mango puree and mango cubes when I first introduced it to her. She ate most of it and she ate it again the next day and a few more times before she decided she'd had enough of baby oats. Fortunately, I made eggless apple muffins (see below) for her using the baby oats so at least it wasn't wasted. Then again, of course I could eat it myself... but I'm not too fond of oats and unless I've got a sudden craving for oats (which is really rare), I think I'd give them a pass...

Here're a couple of pictures of the oats which my friend requested me to upload:

Ok, I know the photos aren't very clear coz I'm using my HTC phone to take the pictures at night...

I simply love Healthy Times’ products. It seems that Alicia feels that way about it too. The apple cinnamon Teddy Puffs are super versatile – finger food for babies or cereal for toddlers. And the best part about it is that it is made of whole grain so I can give this to her without feeling guilty that I’m feeding her snacks. At this point, I’m giving her the teddies as finger food, especially when we’re out and she needs to be occupied with something.

Alicia's favourite snack (for now)

French toast and scrambled egg
I cooked both the dishes with my breast milk because I refuse to introduce any other type of milk to Alicia for fear that she may reject my milk after that. I checked with the lactation consultant if it’s ok to cook with other types of milk and she encouraged me to stick to breast milk. After all, isn’t breast milk the best milk in the world? Well, we can’t argue with such logic so breast milk was used in cooking. =)

She took some of the French toast, say about a third of a slice of bread, before she rejected it. She didn’t seem keen on it so I only cooked it a couple of times for her.

I thought that perhaps it would be nice to offer egg to her in a different form instead of the usual hard-boiled yolk. But my fussy little one didn’t appreciate my good intentions and spat out the scrambled egg in disgust. Oh well… she’s not called ‘The Fussy One’ for nothing…

Organic Green Lentils
Ok, I gave this to her a bit earlier on but I think it was only once and she didn't like it so I stopped adding this into her porridge. Well, lentils are very nutritious and I'm glad she started to eat them this month! I'd just cook it together with the rice grains and stock in the slow cooker. By the time the porridge's done, the lentils would be nice and soft. But I must say that lentil brown rice porridge on its own doesn't look quite appetitising... but as usual, for Alicia, porridge is just the staple and she has other side dishes to spice up the look of her food!


Petit Miam Yogurt
I introduced Petit Miam yogurt this month because I thought that since she was almost 1, it wouldn’t hurt to give her yogurt with a little added sugar. She simply detested Baby Yoplait (which was introduced to her last month), and I can totally understand why… it’s super sour and I really take my hat off to babies that can accept such yogurt. You can understand how Alicia appreciated Petit Miam’s yogurt after tasting Baby Yoplait. She wolfed down the whole tub of yogurt (60ml) after her food happily and eagerly (of course it took her awhile to get accustomed to eating cold food). But this was again short-lived. It wasn’t long before we started throwing away tubs of yogurt that she (and I) refused to eat…

Pasta with vegetables, meat and tomato sauce
This dish is pretty simple to make.
For this dish, I used alphabet pasta with Hunt’s No-Salt added Tomato sauce. Here’s the recipe (again, the quantity’s up to your discretion):
Ingredients

• Alphabet pasta
• A bit of onion
• Minced chicken/ pork/ beef (your choice)
• Peas
• Diced carrots (add any other vegetables that you wish to)
• Hunt’s No-Salt Tomato sauce (bought it at Cold Storage)
• McCormick's All-Purpose Herbs (unsalted)

Method

1. Cook the alphabet pasta till it’s soft, drain and set aside (not for too long!)
2. Steam the peas and carrots till tender
3. Sauté the onion in a bit of olive oil, add the meat and cook thoroughly
4. Mix in the peas and carrots and sauté a little more
5. Pour in the tomato sauce and cook till the mixture bubbles
6. Pour the ingredients and the sauce into the pasta and mix well
7. Add a dash of all-purpose herbs (unsalted)
8. Cool and serve

You must be wondering why I always add peas and carrots into her food… That’s because she hardly wants to eat these vegetables on their own so I have to hide it in her food somehow… :)

Baked Macaroni with Chicken, Cheese and Vegetables
Here's the recipe for this dish (the quantity of each ingredient is omitted as I can't really remember how much of each item I put in - just do as you deem fit):

Ingredients

• Peas
• Diced carrots
• Chicken fillet
• Alphabet pasta
• Shredded mozzarella/ parmesan cheese
• Breast milk (if breast milk is not available, you can use other types of milk)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180degC
2. Steam the peas and carrots till they are tender
3. Steam/ pan-fry the chicken the puree it
4. Cook the pasta till soft, drain and set aside (not for too long though!)
5. Add some cheese to the cooked pasta and mix well
6. Heat the milk over medium heat until hot then add the milk to the pasta and hceese mixture. Simmer over low heat, stirring constantly until the sauce thickens
7. Add the peas, carrots and chicken to the pasta and cheese. Mix well.
8. Pour the mixture into a baking dish. Sprinkle some cheese over the top and bake for 15 minutes or until the top is golden brown.
9. Cool and serve

Alicia was quite ok with this dish but I think I didn't really try this again as it took quite long to prepare. Maybe I will try again when I'm in the mood...

Meat and Vegetable Stock
Ingredients

• 1 soup pot of water
• 2 chicken breast bones (washed clean, fat removed)
• About 6-7 pieces of pork ribs (more if you like; washed clean, fat removed)
• 2 corn cobs
• 1-2 carrots (depending on the size of the carrot)
• 2-3 pieces of garlic (to 'remove' the smell of the meat)

Method

1. Put the chicken bones and pork ribs in a small pot of water (just enough to cover them). After the water starts boiling, turn off the fire. This is to remove the dirt and possibly some blood from the meat and bones. Remove the chicken and pork from the water and discard the water.
2. Clean the corn and chop it into a few pieces.
3. Peel the carrot(s) and cut into cubes.
4. Put in all the ingredients into a fresh batch of water in a deep soup pot.
5. Once the soup starts to boil, you can turn down the fire and simmer for at least 2 hours. Normally I will simmer till I have about half a pot of soup left so that the stock is sweeter. The longer duration you boil your stock, the sweeter it will be.
6. Let the stock cool and portion into small servings to be frozen for future use.

Eggless Apple Muffins
Another new item I tried this month was eggless apple muffins. This recipe's available in the Super Baby Food book by Ruth Yaron and due to copyright reasons I will not reproduce it here. But here's a picture of the book:

This book is a comprehensive guide to feeding baby and is useful for first-time mummies who want their little ones to grow up eating right! It has recipes from 6 months to toddlerhood. A wonderful investment. 

I highly recommend that mummies purchase this book and start reading up about feeding prior to actual feeding. There's loads of information in the book and since it has recipes from 6mths through toddlerhood, it's really a wise investment! The only drawback of this book is probably the lack of pictures. Other than that, it's got tons of recipes! And honestly, there isn't a real need for pictures of the food because I find the instructions on how to prepare the food clear and easy to follow.

Here are some pictures and a video of Alicia eating the muffin. Through this experience, she learned to take bite-sized pieces of food instead of stuffing the whole muffin into her mouth!

Look at how smug she is! haha...

Taking food apart is part of the process of learning the art of self-feeding

Ok great, finally got a shot of her putting the muffin into her mouth to bite!