BLW Lunch and Pasta

[liamsdaddy]

two foodie questions here We have a 10 month old DS with 3 teeth so far. He likes his food and generally isn't too fussy. However...

1. We are getting to the point where it might be nice to start introducing some little sandwiches for lunchtime or similar.

I've had suggestions of Nutella, Cheese spread, jam, marmite, tuna mayo (ugh) and egg mayo for fillings.

Is there any other favorite fillings that work well? I know of someone that does peanut butter but we want to leave that a bit longer.

2. Although we can get a few carbo foods into him, we struggle. He likes roasted parsnip and sweet potato and will eat toast. However, we can't get pasta into him.

He used to like pasta in the HiPP jars, but when we cook some and put it on his tray he either ignores it or spits it out.

Does anyone have any suggestions to the best way of getting pasta in as a finger food?

Btw, these preparations need to be male proof for various reasons I do much of the cooking in the house.

lunchtime sandwiches suggestions: mashed fruit like banana or avocado, unprocessed meats like plain chicken, grated cheese, tuna & sweetcorn and use natural yogurt instead of mayo, tinned crab or salmon are also good & you can finely chop some cucumber for texture & extra veg portion. I'd try & keep things like jam, marmite, nutella etc for the odd occasion/empty cupboard emergency rather than an everyday staple.

When you give him pasta do you add your sauce too if not I'd definitely give this a go as some children just don't like plain food & prefer stronger flavours such as garlic & spice. Try some different shapes & types (spinach pasta?) too - I know my DS1 at this age would happily chomp on a portion of spaghetti bolognese but reject plain penne or small shapes! Failing that, just accept that maybe for now at least he doesn't like pasta & don't fret about it.

There's numerous bread products you can offer: pitta pockets, beans/egg/spreads/sardines etc on toast, any type of sandwich plus potatoes many ways (don't forget gnocchi, potato or fish & potato cakes, homemade oven chips, hash brown etc plus there's rice, wholegrain cereals & porridge, peas & beans and many more that are included in the carb food lists.
HTH
LCN (who is happy giving out advice but struggling to feed DS2 )

Waitrose do a fresh mini-gnocci (a potato based pasta) - a favourite of my DS! the packet lasts for over a month in the fridge.

I have always found fusilli to be a winnr (interestingly, my DS will only eat it plain!) - I vary it between wheat, buckweat and rice varieties!

Good luck

Hummous, cream cheese, grated cheese mixed with creme fresh to hold it in are good.

My DD is 14 months and has never eaten pasta or noodles. Plain, sauced, spaghetti, penne, whatever, it all goes over the high chair. I'm getting the message now that she just dones't like it . She does like rice though especially risotto - just use a low salt stock cube.

For sandwiches, DD looooved Philadelphia cream cheese either by itself or with berries blitzed in (strawberry or blueberry cream cheese - yum) or with cooked chopped spinach or broccoli stirred in... It's amazing the number of fruit and veg items that you can sneak into a cream cheese sandwich - and it holds together very well!

For pasta, DD was always more interested in odd shapes - like fusilli, macaroni, etc - or colors (think the tri-color bags of pasta) but only plain or in a butter, white, or cheese sauce. She has always loved macaroni (or any pasta shape) and cheese - and I often throw peas or spinach in to get some veggies in her too. At 2.2 she's just been eating red sauce on her pasta since Christmas, but still prefers butter or cheese sauce. Ooh and in a pinch, you can just melt cream cheese over hot pasta noodles and toss...

I second the Waitrose baby gnocchi - brilliant stuff and cooks in 2 mins. Mix with a sauce which you've precooked and frozen and then reheated (bolognese, tomato, cheese sauce, whatever) or just mix it with pesto - one of the quickest dinners ever!

Thanks for the suggestions!

We did try him on bread with some dairylea, but he rejected that pretty quickly. However, the next day we tried toast with dairylea and also jam (just raiding what we had in the cupboard), he gobbled that down.

I'm thinking that maybe he finds bread too doughy to like it right now. It might also be why he isn't keen on muffin pizza's and homemade puff-pasty quiches.

Maybe I need to try some different bread types and textures.

gnocchi is one of those food items that he has always spat back out!