Seeking New Recipes for Toddler

http://www.recipezaar.com/cookbook.php?bookid=93092

I put this cookbook together of the stuff my kids like. Some might be a little older for her, but there is some fun stuff on the site too that will be very helpful.

BTW that's my son hugging Elmo :) And all the recipes by Smilyn is me... I had to give myself some credit LOL!!!

Good Luck!

A long time ago when mine where small, I gave them what we ate, just grinding/mashing it well until they could handle 'lumps' better. Good luck and enjoy her now, all too soon she will be grown & gone!

Here is a great web site. I use it for my grandchildren.
www.wholesometoddlerfood.com
T. M

I know what you mean! I personally am lucky to get my daughter to eat much of anything (other than gold fish). She absolutely will not eat veggies so I have started buying either boca brand which makes burgers made of bean or morning star makes some breaded things that hide the veggies in them or just broccoli bites (all in the frozen section) and I give her a side of red. calorie ranch for dipping. But for us the absolute BEST thing is V8 Fushion it has a serving of fruit and vegetables (love that stuff). I try to give her 4-8oz a day and since I only give her water and milk throughout the rest of the day she really thinks she's getting a treat.

Also, try what Kimberly said w/the hummus. I get triscuits or toasted wheat bread and spread it on. I of course eat it w/her and she loves it. I personally have found that Sabra hummus w/roasted pine nuts is the best.

Hello,
I too have a 16 month old little girl, and too have to come up with a little change in her diet. Not that she eats poorly or unnutritously but that i know she gets bored with the same ol same ol. So I know that Gerber makes some really great things called "meat sticks" they have turkey, chicken and carrots, and meat. They look like little viena sausages but are 100 percent more healthy. They are in the baby aisle. They are also really easy to chew for those with few teeth. My daughter also doesn't have alot of teeth yet but I think they are all starting to come in at the same time. AAAH haha. She also loves whole grain pasta with marinara. I have to cut the penne pasta a bit but she loves it. Also yogurt, and sugar free pudding is wonderful because she can use the spoon herself and is so proud of her self (the thickness of the yogurt and pudding stays on the spoon so she can make it to her mouth) it is a bit messy and takes a little longer than if i was to feed it to her but it is worth it. She also loves Edamamme. I heat them up but pop the soy beans out of the shells and she absolutely loves them. I also use whole grain eggo waffles and put sugar free jelly instead of syrup on top and she absolutely loves that for breakfast. I feel you though it is hard to change it up and keep it interesting. I feel the same way as you at times. So if you have any new ideas I welcome them.

Hope I helped a little
thank you
A.

Here's a couple ideas:
Bake then cut these into bite size chunks
1. sweet potatoes (peeling before baking makes them easier to cut)
2. butternut squash
3. acorn squash

boiled carrots
steamed green beans (aka snap beans)

Could she handle soft beans or peas? Or are those too round and might be a choking hazard?

My child likes hummus (ground up beans) and it is easy to make, although it is not so good for self-feeding. All you need is canned beans and a blender. There's recipes out there for regular chick pea/garbanzo bean hummus as well as black bean hummus.

I haven't tried to feed my child this yet, but tofu might be an easy source of protein that is soft enough to be easily chewed and capable of being cut into self-feedable cubes.

If I were you, I would try to squelch the spitting behavior. Maybe cut up the spit out food more and put it back in her mouth. Good luck.

Take some of your regular dinner and put it in a blender

I have a book Simply Natural Baby food by Cathe Olson that is helpful. Avacado is higly nutritious. you can mke a high protein grain called quinoa (pronounced keen-wah) and mix it into the avo. You can grind up green pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds in a clean coffee grinder and mix it into applesauce. I don't eat meat and have no meat suggestions. Scrambled eggs are easy. My daughter ate kidney beans from acan. they and cannelini beans are especially soft. Sometimes I'd kinda break the bean open like you have to do with raisins when your child is small. Raw firm tofu is good and easy. there's word out that too much soy is not good so don't feed it to her daily...That's all i can think of right now.

roasted squash, sweet potatoes, oatmeal, yogurt, bananas, mashed potatoes with cauliflower mixed in, small soft pasta, beans, soups, cook things in the crockpot for long periods of time and it gets softer (meats). fish fillets. not shellfish yet. scrambled eggs. rice. with or without sauce. meatloaf or meatballs cut up. have fun with it... plenty of resources out there for you to find out more.

The best foods for a toddler are egg yolk (not hard-cooked), whole milk, cream, yogurt, kefir, butter, and liver. When your child masters these soft foods, you can move to other meats, including chicken, turkey, lamb, beef and seafood.

Vegetables and fruits should be cooked well, and salted with unrefined sea salt in moderation. Canned foods are not nutritious and contain unhealthy residue from the cans. Juices are generally not a healthy food for children. Naturally fermented vegetables that are soft (like some sauerkrauts available in some stores or home-made) are very good for children.

Grains and nuts are the most difficult for children to digest. Introduce them last, and be sure they are properly prepared when you do (see the Nourishing Traditions cookbook by Sally Fallon for instructions).

Animal foods should be from the cleanest, most reliable sources. Industrially processed meats and cheeses (like lunchmeats and processed cheeses) are not appropriate, since they contain many toxins. Raw milk is the most preferable form of milk, either fresh or fermented, but only from a highly reliable source. Ultra-pasturized milk is so indigestible that you cannot even make it into yogurt, so avoid it.

Never feed your child unfermented soy products such as tofu, edamame, soy formula, or soy milk, because soy is a gender-bender, and full of toxins and nutrient-inhibitors.

Bone broths in stews, soups, gravies, tomato sauces, and grain dishes will promote your child's skeletal growth, digestion, and healthy teeth.

Mother's milk is over half fat (by calories). Fats, particularly saturated fats and cholesterol, are critical in a young child's diet. I am talking about natural fats from pastured animals, not the toxic vegetable oils that are so widely promoted.

This is a good time to introduce cod liver oil to your child, as they learn to really enjoy it if introduced to it at an early age. One quarter teaspoon of high-vitamin cod liver oil per day is a good dose, but don't ever force any foods on your child, or they will develop an emotional aversion to that food that will plague them for the rest of their life.

Processed foods like canned baby foods and meat sticks, pasta, canned marinara, and boxed foods, are very bad for children, especially babies, so avoid them scrupulously. Anything with refined sugar or white flour is bad, but even worse are the sugar-free products and anything with MSG, which is often disguised under a variety of names by the food industry, so it's only safe to just avoid processed foods. Sugar substitutes (nutra-sweet, aspartame) and glutamates are excitotoxins that cause brain and nervous system damage. (see Russel Blaylock's book "Excitotoxins, the Taste that Kills).

I'm so sorry you have gotten so much bad advice from so many well-meaning people. Think about it, though. What foods did your healthiest ancestors eat? Traditional foods kept people healthy through difficult living conditions for thousands of generations. Those are the foods that you will want to feed your baby, not the modern industrially processed foods that are causing an international health crisis and promoting learning disabilities, behavioral disorders, low intelligence, and chronic diseases, including asthma, diabetes, heart disease, and allergies.

M. Minno
Mother of 2, Grandmother of 2

Zuccini and squash are two of the best vegetables for young children. You can either boil them or steam them and they get really soft. You can also try cutting tomatoes, (grape or cherry tomatoes). Sprinkle them with some parmesean cheese and even some basil if you'd like! Sweet potatoes are also a great healthy food. They even sell the whole sweet potaoe wrapped in plastic wrap that you can cook in the microwave which comes out really soft and yummy. Just take the potato out of the skin and it doesn't need any butter or seasoning b/c it has plenty of flavor. If she likes broccoli, she probably will like cauliflower as well,just make it the same as you have been making the broccoli. You can buy the bags of baby carrots or crinkle carrots and boil them until they get really soft. I find that if you boil most vegetables for long enough, they will get soft enough to eat without many teeth. Also, to avoid having to use salt or butter, try some parmesean cheese, basil or oregano for flavor. The parmesean is a great way to add flavor as well as calcium.
As far as meats go, it is hard to find a meat that is not too tough. You could sautee ground turkey or ground chicken as a substitute for ground beef (which is very high in fat). Then just add the ground turkey or chicken in with the veggies and put over some elbow macaroni. Just use a little bit of olive oil in addition to the parmesean and basil and oregano (if you want). You could even add the cut up tomatoes as well. This is a meal you baby as well as you could enjoy together!! Another great option for a baby to get protein is fish. It is really soft as well as high in protein and vitamins. Try a light white fish like tilapia or mahi. Simply bake it in the oven and season with the seasonings I have previously mentioned. The earlier you start your child eating a variety of healthy foods, the easier it will be to have them continue to eat healthy as they get older. Good luck!!

By the way, I am certified nutritional counselor!!!

Hi, I too have a little one (14months) with very little teeth. I have been very hesitant to give her a variety of foods since we had a choking incident at 6 months (tin foil she found under my fathers couch), but I do have a few things that I feed her regularly. I used a shredder for apples, carrots, squash, and just about anything I can shove in there (I use the kids with the handle that rotates like Olive Garden.) I also use a pizza cutter to cut up cheese toast, PB&J's (which are healthy if you use wheat bread...be sure to spread the PB very thin), and just about anything with bread. I have found they she loves sweet and white potatoes; baked and mashed, steamed shredded carrots, steamed chopped cabbage, steamed squashes, asparagus tops, shredded cheeses, peas (canned are best because they are mushy), collard greens, all kinds of cooked beans(which could be a meat alternative), and more. I have a great cookbook for babies called "Super Baby Food" by Ruth Yaron. There are tons of developmentaly staged recipes. She has some weird things in there, but the toddler Hors d'œuvre's are wonderful. Just steer clear of the recipes for under 1 year (that is if you used it for future children)since there are so many recipes that have ingredients that have been prover to cause allergic reactions It even shows you how to make homemade wheat crackers. The book is well worth the money once you weed through some of the stuff. You can get it real cheap on ebay or even borrow it from your local library. I hope that this helps and goodluck to you and your little one. ~J.

and books of recipes too.

I used alot of the canned veggies as well since they are very soft. I tried to find low sodium varieties in them but that isn't always possible. With either regular canned veggies or low sodium, rinse them off well to help remove some of the sodium. Also, children do need some form of meat/protein in addition to the milk they drink prior to getting their molars. I always cut my son's meat up very, very tiny (it's good for them to have different textures to work with) and you can also try low-sodium, high quality lunch meats and cheeses. I like the Boar's Head brand since they carry many varieties in low-sodium. The lunch meats such as turkey and chicken are easy to chew in very small bites even without many teeth. The little ones can grind it easily with their gums.

Have you tried any of the squashes (yellow, acorn, spaghetti, butternut)? Canned green beans and canned carrots are usually mushy enough for a cutie with few teeth. Also, try beans (kidney, lima, black, navy) or peas as an alternative to meat. I heard from a friend recently that until children cut molars they don't have to have meat.
Hope this helps.
L.

If you're worried about her protein intake, you can give her beans. Ground beef is fairly easy for them to gnaw on also. My kids loved/love chili with just ground beef and beans. There are a lot of soup-like recipes that have pasta, beans, veggies, etc., that offer good nutrition. And it helps to soften the foods so it's easier for her to chew. You can even make a pot on the weekend and freeze it into individual servings for her. That makes it easier for you to just defrost or warm up in the microwave.

My little girl loved hummus and edamame at that age, both incredible healthy and hummus has lots of protein. I also made scrambled eggs sometimes for dinner and mashed up lots of veggies with a little cheese into her mashed potatoes and put veggies into her mac & cheese. Meatloaf and meatballs are another great choice for meat, as they tend to be much softer than meat off the bone. You can always substitute ground turkey if you don't like red meat. And I used the Gerber Graduates Little Entres for backup, b/c they had great turkey with potatoes dinner, roast chicken, beef ravioli and chicken with noodles, all in pieces that were soft enough for a young toddler to chew and swallow. They got me by in a pinch many times!

Good luck!
K.