meal ideas for a 9.5 month old

[cupcakelover1983]

My DS is 9.5 months and loves his food. Up until now we have been doing a mix of purees and finger foods. I am now running out of inspiration for new recipe ideas and was wondering if any of you had any ideas?

TIA

I have exactly the same query so rather than starting a new thread on the matter would love to hear what everyone has to say. Thanks in advance!

I've been adapting the Annabel Karmel recipes for my dd, with nack all success a lot of the time but I think that's more a my dd thing.

Ideas I've used- bubble and squeak with spinach rather than cabbage (the frozen spinach comes in baby ready portions); omelettes with various fillings cut to baby size (cheese, more spinach, tiny bits of ham, etc); Spanish omelette strips; sausage and mashed potato - with sausage pieces deskinned and cut up small; chicken strips with couscous; beef stew; french toast with maple syrup; scotch pancakes and scrambled eggs (last two as breakfasts)...the list goes on and my dog has loved them all. As I say though I think that's more my dd than my cooking. Hope these ideas are some use!

Just give him what you are having within reason. Saves having to cook separate things. You can always freeze portions for him.

My ds used to eat a lot of stew - big chunks of meat, parsnip, swede, carrot etc to pick up and eat, and then I'd mash the gravy into some potato and spoon that in as well.

Risotto and cauliflower cheese have both gone down well with my 8mo. He also likes baked beans with mash. I make the beans myself so that there's no salt - very easy and cheap!

My ds loves fish cakes. Mashed potato mixed with some cooked fish or tinned tuna, a bit of flour to stiffen it then fried in little finger sized fish cakes. I've used trout and salmon left over (or extra cooked) when DH has had fish or tinned tuna. We also often whizz up peas or sweetcorn and add that as DS prefers to finger feed but doesn't seem to like picking up cooked veg so adding the veg to the fish cakes mean he has a complete meal all in one.

He also loves omlette cut into fingers. I usually add spinich or peas to it. Loads of other things you could add.

I also do big batches of roasted vegetables and freeze them so I can get a combination out whenever and just chop some of DHs left over meat in, or add some pulses, or DSs favourite is roast veg xhoped into humous. We do sweet potatos, butternut squash, peppers, aubergine, corgette, parsnip.

BR44 how do you make your own baked beans?

I am on this thread looking for inspiration myself as most of our "meals" are based on toast or biscuit. the dts love baked beans on toast, but I worry about too much salt, what with all the bread etc. I need quick, easy, low mess ideas :)

Think seasonal. Usually stops me getting in a rut (also cheaper).

Asda do low salt low sugar baked beans

oh I buy the low salt variety, but realistically it's just low(er) salt, it's not actually a low salt food, iyswim. if I made my own they could be "no salt" :)

'Baked beans'
Fry an onion (I chop it really small) until soft then add ground coriander, cumin and paprika and almost straight away tinned cannellini or kidney beans or chick peas, either a tin of tomatoes (chopped) or a heaped dessertspoonful of tom puree and a little water. Simmer for quite a while. i also put in veg like aubergine and courgette when I fry the onion if they are in season or need using up but this can make it very expensive in the winter.
Chickpeas are my dc's favourite.

sounds fantastic MM, we shall definitely try it :) thanks

Mine are a bit different. Lightly fry finely chopped red onion, add tinned tomatoes that have been blitzed with a hand processor so they are lump free, add about a pint of chicken stock (Boots baby stock cube), add a couple of tins of flageolet beans and a tiny squirt of ketchup (okay, both salty and sugary I know, but I really do mean a tiiiiiiiny squirt - even such a small amount adds a pleasing sweetness) then cook down until you have a nice thick sauce.

MooMOO - I like the idea of adding cumin and will give this a go in my next batch!

FloweryBoots - how do you get your fishcakes to hold their shape? I made some tuna cakes yesterday, adding flour as you suggest, but they collapsed in the pan and refused to brown nicely?

Hmm, not sure. Maybe just more flower. You could put a bit of egg in. I think I've probably addapted my 'recipie' from fish cakes my mum used to make but I think she probably did put egg in.

I do find they brown best if you get the oil fairly hot beofre putting the fish cakes in and then cooking on a medium-high heat. After all, everything is already cooked so you don't need to worry about them cooking through to the middle.

Just to share, we made chickpea burgers yesterday and they went down a treat so I have tried to remember what I put in them (I'm not a recipie folowing sort of person so this was just an invention)

3 medium new potatos (prob about 1 normal potato, which would have been better but I didn't have any!).

1/2 small tin of chickpeas
2 spring onions
2 'portions' of frozen spinich (fab stuff, really handy, comes in baby portion sized lumps!) defrosted
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon gram massala
1 egg
2 heaped teaspoons of plain flour

I microwaved the potatoes like baked potatoes then scoooped out and mashed up the middles. Whizzed the chickpeas in the chopper thingy (could probably mash with a fork) and then mixed all of the above together. Fry in hot oil in little minni burg shapes.

It looked pretty sloppy so I droped little bits into the pan from a spoon and they did solidify in cooking because of the egg. Made 2 -3 portions depending on how many get eaten (or thrown to the floor). DS ate almost half- far more than I expected.

Spices wise I was looking for anything vaguly curry related and if you mix everything together except the egg you could try a bit and add more or less depending on how flavoured your LO would like, and add the egg at the end