I can't work out how to feed my 14 month old

[Lifting]

Try as I might, I can't get my head around feeding my 14 month-old DD.

I have Annabel Karmel's book and I might as well have been reading Mandarin Chinese for all I understood it.

I can't cook and I can't get my head around when/how to make meals, let alone how to meal plan. We also have a small freezer, making it hard to batch cook (although I did manage to make some sweetcorn and feta fritters, thank you Joe Wicks for that, and they're small enough to freeze).

Can anybody recommend a simple meal planner and easy recipes please? And also, how and when do you cook everything?

We keep kosher so no seafood, pig or combined milk/meat recipes but any other suggestions would be most welcome. She loves potatoes but not pasta, oddly. Also DD has suddenly become fussy and learned how to shake NO with her head instead of eating. Mind you, looking at the concoction I tried her with last night, I can't blame her.

All help appreciated, thank you in advance, this is driving me nuts.

[Matilda1981]

What do you normally eat? Your 14 month old can eat whatever you have?

[Lifting]

Unfortunately @Matilda1981 that won't work for various reasons, so I'm looking for tips as above. Thank you anyway.

[Mumof1andacat]

Breakfast - porridge or weetabix. Maybe toast. Could try some scrambled egg. Lunch - pieces of cheese, ham, chopped up fruit, raw veg (carrot,cucumber) yogurt, wotsits or quavers crisps. Dinner - as long as it's chopped up a bit let babe it it. My son just has what we had. Meat, veg, pasta and sauce, curry and rice (what the spice!)

[Mumof1andacat]

Watch the spice*

[BeeBum]

Ah it sucks you arent able to just feed what you have, would make it so much easier for you both.

Breakfast (7am): weetabix/cheerios, toast/bagel, piece of fruit
Snack time (10am): fruit / raw veg sticks / yoghurt
Lunch (12pm): Omlette, some baby snacks (like rice crackers)
Snack time (2pm): fruit / raw veg sticks / yoghurt
Dinner (4.30pm): Curry & Rice / Cottage Pie / Casserole / Pie / Roast / Stir Fry
Bed time Snack (6pm - if needed): Porridge / Baby biscuits / Banana

Ensure you are offering water too with each meal

[BeeBum]

If you type into google "Baby Led Weaning recipes" you will find so many useful recipes and you can even eat them yourself too

[mindutopia]

It is really stressful to cook multiple meals, so I would do whatever you can to adjust your meals to being baby friendly (or risk losing your mind eventually). Unless you’re on a liquid diet or something, it’s totally doable.

Breakfast - toast with nut butter, avocado, cream cheese, weetabix with milk, bagels, porridge, eggs, veg sausages.

Lunch - sandwiches or pasta salad with tomatoes, cucumber, olives, or hummus and pita, cheese and crackers, omelette.

Dinner - mini pizzas with veg, beef stew with new potatoes and broccoli, spaghetti and sauce, salmon with new potatoes and broccoli, quiche and a veg side, dish fingers and sweet potato chips.

[April45]

If you're short on freezer space, cook with core ingredients, such as mince.. first day it's cottage pie, then spag bol, then chilli. You could cook them all at the same time or split up the raw mince to eat later.

Like others have said try to adapt what you have, if you put up what you eat I'm sure people will help with how to adapt.

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

I found that having a baby really was the time I realised I had to start cooking properly OP, you might find that once you start it’ll get easier. If you come across a technique in a recipe book you’re not sure about, there are tonnes of videos on YouTube.

The Caroline Walker Trust have produced a good guide called Eating Well, 1 to 4 year olds which has some sample menus and portion sizes. I’m not sure how many will be Kosher though but you should be able to figure that bit out [smile[

Are you able to do fairly simple things for breakfast like smooth nut butter on toast, porridge fingers or Blueberry Pancakes. Mine liked things likes Ready Brek with berries or chopped bananas too.

Lunch can be eggy bread with berries. Tuna sandwich with raw veg on the side.

Is there a reason that she can’t have the same as you for dinner? Could you all have something like Spag Bol, shepherds pie, fish pie, homemade pizza?

[NannyR]

Some lunch options that the 14 month old I look after enjoys;

• baked potatoes - she loves these! I top them with baked beans, cheese or tuna mayo with chopped peppers and sweetcorn added. She likes a baked sweet potato too, a bit more nutritious and only takes about four minutes in the microwave.
  

• omelettes - either plain or with some chopped veg added
  

• peanut butter and banana sandwiches
  

• houmous and toasted pitta bread fingers, cucumber sticks and grated raw carrot (she can't quite manage raw carrot sticks yet)
  

• soup - I get tomato or carrot and coriander (the fresh type from the chiller). Chunks of toasted bagel go well, as they don't disintegrate like toast and she dips it in and suck the soup off (I help her with a spoon and she has a go with one herself too)
  

I always do a few cherry tomatoes, bits of pepper, bits of cucumber etc to go with these meals.

For tea she just eats what her brothers are having - so far this week she's had pasta with chickpeas, chorizo, peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes etc, chicken and veg curry with rice, salmon, new potatoes and veg, and tonight its going to be meatballs, gravy, mashed potatoes and veg. No desserts through the week but yoghurt after lunch and fruit after tea.

[April2020mom]

We’re vegetarian.
When my two children were being weaned I tried a number of foods. We buy a lot of Quorn alternatives and fruit and vegetables. So far this week I’ve given them half a jacket potato and a healthy salad for dinner.
On Tuesday night we had vegetarian lasagna for dinner and yesterday it was leftover tomato and cheese quiche. DD loves mashed potato. And pumpkin.

[Chocolateandcarbs]

Eggy bread (I just put the yoke of an egg onto the plate, add some milk, stir, pop bread onto plate until soaked through on both sides, quickly fry)
Boiled egg and soldiers
Pasta/couscous with a lentil sauce or bolognaise (base for both is leek, carrot, courgette and red pepper - fry gently in a little butter for about 4mins, then add meat or lentils, stir, add tin of tomatoes and cook on low heat until cooked through. Sometimes add cheddar, cream cheese, paprika or herbs) - I use these as a base for shepherd’s pie etc too.
Salmon and veg (you can buy little fillets in the freezer section and just bung in the oven)
Fish cakes (I just buy them and serve with veg)
Cheese/beans etc on toast
Baked potatoes with cheese/beans/leftovers
Stir fry is really easy and you can always just buy ready made sauces or add a small amount of teriyaki sauce
Meatballs, couscous and tomato sauce (fry onion, add tin of tomatoes and basil)
Fish fingers, potato waffles, etc if the kids are feeling fussy or I’m just tired!

If all else fails then the M&S kids range is quite good as a freezer tea.

I’ve just bought my son the Gruffalo Crumble cookery book and everything is really easy in that.

[Chocolateandcarbs]

They are both keen on chicken drumsticks, roast dinner type meals and roasted veg. Good luck!!

[Lifting]

Thanks everyone, some good ideas here. Too long to go into why she won't be eating the same as us but at least there are some relatively quick suggestions here. Wish me luck!

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

Let us know how you get on Lifting

[BeautifulPossibilities]

Can you explain why she can't eat what you do? We really found it best to just let them get on with what we were eating. If we were having a take-away or eating later on a Friday night with friends then having a freezer stick of meals like spaghetti, pies, etc was helpful.

[Lwmommy]

Breakfast is always something like

Yoghurt, toast with Jam/PB/dairylea, scrambled egg or rice crispies/weetabix

Lunch is usually veg like cherry tomatoes, cucumber/pepper/carrot sticks or frozen peas/sweetcorn/greenbeans/brocolli then served with a ricecqke or bread and butter and some cheese or cold cut meats.

Dinner, she has what we do which would usually be meat and veg or something like enchiladas, nachos, shepherds pie, spaghetti bolognese.

Snacks are fruit or veg, cheese strings or rice cakes.