pet peeves

Ah crap. I'm gonna have to turn in my membership to the Tyler Florence Sprout food fan club since I read this blog post. His theory on avoiding picky eaters makes it sounds like parents have a choice to introduce their kids to new foods, at least until the age of 3. So I guess his kids never went through the terrible twos?! Lemme tell you Tyler, it's hard to introduce new food when the kid stopped opening his mouth to anything he didn't like at 18-months-old. I hate it when people take all the credit for their kids' eating or sleep habits. Luck has as much to do with it as parental effort.
Oh, and another thing that bugs me. Husbands who borrow their friend's scooter, crash and break both arms. Feeding a grown man Cheerios is nowhere near as endearing as feeding them to a 2-year-old. Yeah, so maybe I'm a little grouchy this week. But, either way, Tyler's theory still bugs me.

whatever works

B.: "Mmmm, banana bread. Yummy."

Me: "No, it's carrot...eh, yeah, banana bread. Yummy."

i am a stealth master

Operation Produce is in effect. Pureed sweet potatoes went into the egg mix for B.'s French toast this morning. Carrot puree in the mac and cheese last night. Except I got busted by a 5-year-old. B. had his first friend over for dinner, our little neighbor. So cute. I don't think he cared but it seemed like a milestone to me. Anyway, she's a mac and cheese fan but wouldn't eat my doctored version, she could totally tell I tampered with the fresh-from-the-box recipe. Luckily B. seemed totally oblivious. Ditto when he saw me dump 3 cups of shredded carrots into a mixing bowl this afternoon and then serve him a slice of cake an hour later. Mommy is the stealth master!

what worked, what didn't

Stepped up my hidden fruit & veggie efforts this week. Spinach brownies from Deceptively Delicious were a win. Oatmeal with a hidden spoonful of applesauce worked too. Green eggs were a big fat fail. Two out of three ain't bad, right? Tho I'm gonna keep refining the brownie recipe because the texture is a little too rubbery for me. As I make this stuff (like last week's carrot cake) I realize I'm not interested in making health food. I just want to make food that's healthy. So I'm all for incorporating good stuff in my recipes but I don't want to cut out all the fat and sugar. I think if B. has brownies, they should be rich and special. Not just a casual snack. And that's my 2 cents.

Spinach Brownies

3 ounces semisweet chocolate
1/2 cup apple sauce (the cookbook called for carrot puree but I didn't have any)
1/2 cup spinach puree
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tablespoons margarine (I swapped and used butter)
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 large egg whites
3/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350. Coat an 8x8 inch baking pan with cooking spray (I used parchment paper instead). Melt the chocolate with the butter over very low heat. In a large bowl combine the melted chocolate & butter with the spinach and apple puree, sugar, cocoa powder and vanilla, whisk until smooth and creamy, about 1 to 2 minutes. Whisk in the egg whites. Stir in the flour, baking powder and salt with a spoon. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 35 to 40 minutes. Seinfeld has a great tip, saying not to serve the brownies warm because the spinach flavor disappears once they're cool.

is it just a california thing?

I assumed everybody was feeding their kids quesedillas until I talked to friends elsewhere and found out that wasn't the case. So maybe it's just a Southern California thing? Lucky for us. I like it so much better than a grilled cheese sandwich. For some reason the pickiest kid in the world doesn't mind having his quesedilla stuffed with beans, chicken and cheese and topped with mashed avocado. It's pretty much a perfect meal (minus any "real" vegetables). I don't think I even had Mexican food until I was a teenager so I'm fascinated that B. enjoys this stuff. He is a California kid through and through. It also makes me wonder what people in other parts of the world feed their toddlers. If anyone is reading from outside L.A., let me know your local specialty?!

what did our parents do without iPhones?!

While parentally questionable, I let B. watch my iPhone during lunch today and managed to get a well balanced meal of chicken and zucchini pasta into him. Literally fed him every bite while he focused on watching videos of himself playing. Oh and I even used the phone as a bargaining ploy to get the first bite of pasta into his mouth (he used to love it but now seems resistant to anything green except avocado). So his mind might rot a little but the rest of him will be in great shape! All in all been a good food day so far - sweet potato pancakes for breakfast and 3 fruit pouches (mango, banana, orange) for a snack!

foodie burnout

I get so wrapped up in what B. eats that it really bums me out when he won't eat stuff. Like Tuesday, when I made lowfat/lowsugar carrot cupcakes and from-scratch fish sticks per Jessica Seinfeld's cookbook. My first mistake was overcooking. It just raised the stakes too high. So when B. insisted on a bagel and cream cheese for lunch I was fuming that he wouldn't eat the fish or, later, the cupcakes. I got so annoyed I had to make myself a drink once he was down for a nap. Vodka and lemonade. The worst part is B. seemed to enjoy hanging out with tipsy mommy when he got up way more than he enjoys sober, no TV, eat your vegetables mommy. I am absolutely on my way to acceptance that he is a picky kid but in the meantime I will only try one new thing per week (at most) because I am way too emotionally tied to the food I make and take each rejection personally.
On the plus side, I have figured out he enjoys beef burgers way more than turkey burgers. I made sliders Wednesday night and had to coax him into eating the turkey with a TON of ketchup but he ate a leftover beef burger for lunch Thursday without bribing. Of course I wasn't here to see it happen but the babysitter swears it happened.
Oh and it was a quiet work week so I cracked open B.'s baby book for the first time in 9 months to try and record some recent memories and found this entry from when he was 8-months-old: "apples, pears, bananas, carrots, peas, broccoli, yams, butternut squash, parsnips, sweet potatoes." Yeah, that probably didn't help the frustration level.

breakfast is king

For some reason, breakfast is the one meal of the day that isn't a battle in our house. I consider this a total fluke since I put in the same amount of effort all day long and have come to accept that B. is a picky eater no matter what I do. But breakfast is a breeze. Oatmeal with cinnamon and brown sugar (to which I'm considering covertly adding apple sauce), scrambled eggs with cheese, sweet potato pancakes, bananas (on a good day), cinnamon French toast. And he eats a lot of whatever I put on his highchair tray. The only thing I have to take off the list is yogurt since he now only wants to eat the peach puree that gets mixed with his Greek yogurt. Oh and on a parallel note we just started reading Green Eggs and Ham this week. I'm gonna give it another week before I try serving up spinach infused scrambled eggs! The wheels are always turning in my head!

mother's day

My baby loves Bay Cities bread. Yay! (But no interest in the accompanying picnic of prosciutto di Parma, caprese salad or steamed asparagus. LOL. Also ignored breakfast pastries from Amandine but liked the fancy pizza from Stella Rossa for dinner. Either way, great food day for me!)

pea battle

Depending on which astrological calendar you follow, B.'s an Aries or maybe a Taurus. Either way, the otherwise perfect kid can be one stubborn toddler. So last week we had our first vegetable standoff. It seemed like the right time to start since he now understands the fine art of negotiation. Sleep doesn't come without at least one Gabba episode and multiple books. So I held him hostage in the highchair for 3 peas. Then I cut it down to 2 peas. Then I offered a choice of 2 peas or 1 bite of carrot or 1 bite of zucchini. He lasted 40 minutes without blinking an eye before I decided it was time to get on with our day. So I explained that I would be wrapping those two peas in mac and cheese and he could get down after eating the noodles. Done deal. I've had the best intentions of repeating the same steps every day since. Hasn't happened yet but I swear it will the next time I have a spare 40 minutes.