Dinner ideas for 7 month old.

[overjoyedmumma]

My daughter absolutely loves her food, and has a massive appetite. She’s also not fussy, as she has never disliked any food that we’ve given her.

I want to make sure we’re giving her a variety of different foods to try, whilst making sure she’s getting all the right nutrients etc..

I defrosted her last dinner last night, and I’m struggling to come up with some new dinners to make and freeze. I find it’s the dinners I struggle most with, in terms of coming up with new ideas.

Has anybody got any good dinner ideas? Thanks in advance for your help!

My son loved
Roast pepper and tomato sauce I made with onion and mascarpone whizzed on quinoa / pasta

Noodles

In the summer things like white fish grilled or roasted

Potato salad

Oh sorry I thought it said 17 months

At that age he had fruit and vegetable that was it

I used this for weaning, I preferred batch cooking and freezing. DD seemed to enjoy a lot of it!

www.amazon.co.uk/Baby-Child-Vegetarian-Recipes-Delicious/dp/0091853001/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=baby+vegetarian&tag=mumsnetforum-21&ie=UTF8&qid=1551343274&sr=8-2

Ratatouille, blended. If you Google baby ratatouille there is a recipe that DD loves.

I do the same, just struggling to come up with some new ideas. Looks really interesting will definitely get that, thanks!

Ooo! Sounds great, thankyou!

Tuna balls www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1445/tuna-balls-with-pea-and-sweetcorn-pasta
Fish cakes www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes/baby-friendly-tuna-fish-cakes
Fish pie www.dk.com/uk/article/annabel-karmel-baby-weaning-recipe-mini-fish-pies/
Chicken pie www.annabelkarmel.com/recipes/chicken-potato-pie/
Frittatas www.babyledfeeding.com/recipes/easy-peasy-baby-frittatas-perfect-for-blw/
Lentil bake www.healthylittlefoodies.com/curried-lentil-bake/
Shepherds pie www.organix.com/recipes/shepherds-pie
Mediterranean chicken www.organix.com/recipes/mediterranean-chicken

Does she eat finger foods or puree? At 7 months they can have most things tbh. Pasta, rice dishes, meat, etc. What do you eat? Can she share it too?

Dd loved shepherds pie made with half mash half sweet potato topping. I never blended their food and mince was fine

Amazing, Thankyou!!

She mainly has finger foods, if not finger foods she’ll have slightly mashed food. The problem is we tend to have a lot of spice in our food, so I have to make separate dishes, and I worry about what I can and can’t give her as people usually have conflicting opinions. Thanks for all your lovely ideas, there’s a few I’ve not yet tried

NHS Start4life have just started some baby weaning recipes which are pretty good! I don’t follow the age ranges, just cook whatever I think he will fancy really. It’s good for ideas at least, can always tweak them for whatever you have in the house.

I would genuinely offer her some variation of what you eat. We cook with a lot of spice as well - just leave out the chillies until after you take her portion out. All other spices aren't really spicy and should be fine. Or just start to make food that isn't spicy if it doesn't suit her and add more in later as you go. Ultimately, you want her used to family meals so whatever you eat is the best way to go, even if you need to spend a few months modifying your usual meals.

Some really fab looking meals here. I've got an older baby who eats barely anything (😩) so I'm always on the lookout for new ideas.

Thank you.

My partner tends to add spices before cooking meats. Which is why we do separate pans. We usually do just as you’ve suggested, we have the same dinners e.g. fish dishes and cottage pies etc, but are slowly adding more herbs and spices to her portions.

Thankyou! She’s had a wide variety of foods, I’ve just run out of interesting new recipes and ingredients for her to try. Looking for some inspiration! Will defo look at the NHS Start4life!

I got the Sainsbury's Little Ones recipe book for my 44th birthday, just before DS2 was born. I love these recipes:
recipes.sainsburys.co.uk/inspire/summer/recipes-for-little-ones/family-recipes

Great, thanks!! Will definitely be buying a recipe book, thanks for the suggestion

We gave ours a portion of whatever we were having from the start. We swapped honey for maple syrup (on the odd occassion it was in a recipe), used ground and later finely chopped nuts rather than whole, and added the salt and spicy spices (IYKWIM!) after taking their portion out. Non-spicy spices we used from the off, and in fact my go-to lunch/dinner on days they couldn't eat with us would be to chop up a couple of new potatoes with whatever ends of veg we had in the fridge, toss with oil and a random spice from the cupboard, and bake. Cumin, garlic, paprika, Garam Masala, turmeric, 5 spice etc were all well received.
The sooner they are eating your food the better IMO. We slowly introduced chilli and black pepper to gradually build a tolerance to the heat, and they both enjoy milder-heat dishes well now. 4yo DD1 has also developed a love of sweet thai chilli sauce. No point cooking 2 meals if 1 will do with a few small tweaks! (Yes I'm lazy!)

It's amazing to hear how your little ones tolerate (and enjoy!) your spicy food. We like strong flavours too. I've been giving dc such bland food. Maybe this has been the problem all along!

It’s a relief to hear that everybody’s little ones were fine with spices! So far have only introduced a dash of paprika into her food, and have been too worried about what I am and aren’t ‘allowed’ to introduce spice wise. This has been really helpful, Thankyou!!

If you breastfeed and eat spicy foods then your baby will already have experienced some of those flavours through your milk.

Spices are totally fine, I've also given d's get small amounts of chilli too which he tolerated.

I do meat balls a lot, just mince, onion and whatever spice you want (so you can do them different levels of spice) with tomato sauce and pasta which goes down really well! Cook for 35 mins on gas mark 6.

I would also over make stuff like chilli con carne and spag bol and freeze that.

Potatoes and whole boiled eggs are fun finger foods and asparagus also keeps him quiet for ages as all he can really done suck it.

I would also cut steak etc into strips and freeze then one as finger food one as mash. Pork loins and salmon are also easy like this and good to freeze and defrost quickly. I got orzo pasta and often fed DS that.

I also make veggie burgers which are just potato and whatever veg you want, an egg to bind and some bread crumbs. I can then freeze and cook from frozen and tick off a lot of the 5 a day. These are good with paprika, coriander and oregano.

Have introduced her to herbs & spices a lot more since this thread and she’s loving it! She loves egg and salmon and a lot of what you’ve suggested. I haven’t yet tried steak, and the veggie burgers sound great! Thanks 🤗

Unfortunately I was unable to breastfeed. She’s loving the spices though!