How long do you spend time on cooking

[Vitka]

Hi
I've got a 7 months old who has been on solid food for just over a month. She has 3 meals a day at the moment: cereal/porridge in the morning and veggies for lunch and dinner. I've been using Anabel Karmel's book for recipes which are great. So far I've been freezing veg in small pots and then mixing different combination of them.
AK's plan for 7-9 months old babies suggests either meat or fish meal every day plus veggie meal as well. She also does not repeat her meals twice in a week. Also the recipes are getting much more involved with taking a long time to prepare.

I'm afraid that I won't be able to provide this much variety to my little one but I want her to have the best start in food so she's not fussy when she's older.
Can someone tell me how do you cope with all the cooking and ensuring that the variety is there.
many thanks

Is there variety is your own meals? I don't know anything about AK, but think that giving her what you eat should make things easier, and it has the added bonus of making you eat healthily too!

I was like this for ds1 and tbh it was a pita and I ended up with quite a fussy eater - really particular about textures.

With ds2, he's had pretty much whatever the rest of us are having - blitzed for a few seconds in the blender when necessary and now at 10 months tucks into whatever. His favourite atm is mackerel in tomato sauce on toast!

AK recipes are lovely, but to be economical on your time then I would start to incorporate more of your usual family foods into your dd's diet.

Can you not just give whatever you are having? (as long as it's suitable obviously)
That way your DD will have the same variety of foods that you are eating plus the added bonus of getting used to eating the same food as the rest of the family.
It also cuts out the fiddly recipes.

TBH AK sounds like a pita without much benefit to the baby after all the hard work.

Ha! you sound like me, with a fridge full of frozen steamed veg cubes that the baby won't eat. Currently, he is actually only interested in what we're eating, so after refusing his sweet potato and veg puree yesterday, he happily tucked into some steamed asparagus and penne pasta... I've decided to keep it simple, to be honest.

"She also does not repeat her meals twice in a week"

Well that's probably easy to do when you have a nanny, cleaner etc. But really in real life?

Erm I am starting to do just big batches of what we eat but leaving out the salt, I then freeze it in those cheap plastic cups you can buy and just defrost when needed.

DS is nearly 8 months and I probably spend up to 30 mins per day cooking for him (but often less).

I go a combination of

• freezing batches of meals prepared especially for him
• freezing small portions of our meals )such as a pot roast chicken with barley and veg cooked in the same pot but freezing the meat and veg separately so I can mix and match) or sometimes we have meals from his weaning books (sweetcorn chowder with or without chicken or fish being my current favourite)!
• mixing and matching puree/mash cubes from the freezer to make different meals
• preparing quick-cook meals from scratch (which, again, we all eat) such as cous cous with various veggies, polenta (which I then chill and use as finger food the following day), scrambled eggs on toastl, chopping (preservative-free) semi dried fruit into finger food or small enough to mix into yoghurt.

So basically we end up repeating meal components but not whole meals.
Re-reading this it sounds a bit complicated but I guess I'm just saying I do a variety of things to give me flexibility.

thanks for the replies. I think i need to start planning our family meals around my DD more so she can have what we are having.

LibrasJusticeLeagueofBiscuits - what pots are you using? I'm currently freezing in Avent's pots that i used for freezing my milk as they are big enough for one portion. I only got 10 which is not going to be enough soon.

On a different note - does anyone has a slow cooker? I'm currently looking for one but the price range is vast and I'm not sure what do expensive models do that a cheapy won't?

This is what I use:
www.choiceful.com/choiceful-id-8705-18cl-White-Plastic-Cups-Pack-of-20.html

and then cover with tinfoil.

You can buy them very cheaply in Tesco/Asda/Sainsbury.

However my mum sent me home with some apple crumble in a small white plastic bowl which would be even better. When I talk to her next I will find out where she got them from.

Vitka, a slow cooker might be the kind of thing you can get on freecycle

My SIL swears by hers for cooking for her family. I've been a bit resistant and just stick slow cook things in a low oven (just because I don't have much room for gadgets in my small kitchen)

I used to have a morning making half a dozen different dishes and then putting them in ice cube trays. I did a lot of casserole type meals so the meat/fish/veg etc were all in one.

I didn't stress if she had the same things twice - I tried to look on it that over the course of a couple of weeks was she getting a good balance of all things.

I didn't find AK the best books to follow either - I found her recipes really fiddly. The one I used (and will try to remember who it was) was literally everything in one pot, cook then blitz and as someone who loathes and detests cooking, even I could do it.

I now decided to spend a couple of days a week on cooking 3-4 different recipes and freeze them. I found that afternoon nap is enough for me to get on with it.
Got the pots from Tesco which are very reasonable priced so the freezer is filling up.
Got a slow cooker from there too - will try my first dinner in it today.