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I am looking for finger food ideas for my 13 month old DD for dinner. She eats fish, but no other meat (my choice not to give it) so she is pretty much veg and is shying away from spoon feeds in the evening. So other than steamed vegetable pieces, veg patties etc what else can I give her for dinner? I am a bit stuck as she needs a protein food (eggs, legumes or fish etc) with her meals to get her through to breakfast. Any ideas?
Scrambled eggs have always been a big hit with both my children :)
A quiche is also good, you can put heaps of veggies in that, and make mini quiches if you have a muffin pan. Or just cut the cold quiche into little bite sized pieces for her.
How about crunchy veggie strips (capsicum, cucumber, celery, lightly steamed carrot sticks, quarters of mushrooms, halved cherry tomatoes) with some kind of dip? Hommos, or tzatziki for example.
Home-made pizza? Cut into easy sizes for her to handle.
Chick pea patties or legumes added to the vege mix.
Cous cous with pumpkin and chick peas.
Salmon patties (made with a base of mashed potato / sweet potato) and add veges.
Risotto cakes / balls - you can make them with tuna / salmon / mushroom and veges added.
Home made fish fingers / pieces
Any of the patties / rissoles can be crumbed in multigrain crumbs and dry fried or oven baked. Use an oil spray to keep it healthier - although the shallow frying of some of the options adds flavour.
My house is full of meat-eaters (I don't eat very much personally as I prefer the taste of chicken or fish to red meat, but I will eat whatever I'm cooking for everyone else if I'm feeling too lazy to make a separate meal for myself), so I can't help much with vegetarian ideas, but I've found the best way to get DD to eat is to simply serve her up whatever we're having and let her make a huge mess if that's what needs doing.
She's very independent so she doesn't like being fed by me, but she picked up how to use a fork very quickly just from watching DH and I, and me helping her once or twice - now I just sit her at the table with us, plunk a small plate of food in front of her and hand her a fork and she's set.
I know that's not much help at all, but as long as you are eating meals that are nutritious and tasty, you shouldn't have to worry about her nutritional requirements, and the kids seem to eat better when they can see they're having the same thing as the grow-ups (makes them feel included). Good luck, sorry I'm not very much help... it's magic when they start eating 'adult' food on their own, I always swell with ridiculous pride when I see DD sitting up at the table using her fork to tuck into whatever DH and I are eating :) And it makes it easier on you because then you're not having to prepare separate meals every night!
Avocado or ricotta on bread?
Salmon mushed with avocado on bread - messy, smelly, but it seems to work here!
One thing we do is if we are having a salad or something our girls won't eat much of, I add some plain pasta for them to munch on as well. That way they fill up a bit, you could boil an egg and make egg slices on the side, or I make a 1/2 red lentil, 1/2 chick pea hommous as a dip to get more protein in.
Lovely ideas, thank you. A few questions- DD hasn't really had salads yet as I was afraid to give her things that may choke her. She's not much of a chewer, so was reluctant to go past tomato at this stage and leave cucumber, snow peas, capsi etc to later. Wouldn't these be too had for a 13 month old to chew?
Also, are risotto balls made by making risotta as per usual and balling and frying the balls?
Lastly, I have been blending cooked white fish with veg up until now. At what stage could I crumb small pieces and give it to her?
Many thanks for you help.
^ There is a difference between 'gagging' and 'choking'. One is a typical response in babies to teach them their limits, the other is something much more serious.
My advice would be to just give things a go, obviously don't leave her unsupervised while she's trying out bigger chunks of food, and if she splutters and gags a bit, she will know next time to give chewing a go! I suppose I try to push this kind of stuff because I pretty much just allowed DD big pieces of food or whole pieces of food (eg handed her a whole cheese-stick and let her figure it out, gave her a whole slice of bread with Vegemite and let her work out she had to bite and chew) and she worked out how to eat it by herself with no incident... whereas a friend of mine has a 3-year-old and she still has to sit with him for every single meal and hand-feed him tiny, tiny little pieces of food because he 'choked' once (I was there, he gagged for two seconds and spat it out, she's way overprotective of him) and she's convinced that he cannot be allowed to teach himself how to eat properly.
I can just imagine him in high school, still having to mash his sandwich into puree lest he choke on a lump of bread!! Sad, really.
Babies are pretty smart, if you let them have an attempt at something it will only take a few goes for them to get the gist of it. If you restrict them, they never learn to do anything on their own. Obviously do whatever feels right for you, but I personally would have no qualms about trying a 13-month-old on different kinds of foods for fear of them choking - it's pretty easy to stick a finger in their gob and yank it out of them if they run into serious trouble!! And while some things might look far too hard for a bub of that age to mung on, trust me, they can chew some insane things :)
HTH :D
I give flaked fish to my 10 month old, one flake at a time. THis is so I can be very sure that there are no bones. He will happily attack large pieces of bread or cheese or softish fruit (like melons or nectarine or peach or banana or pear but not apple) or cooked vegie pieces. And whole asparagus spears are a fave.
i think you can def do crumbed fish now, di check for bones though
how about pasta? pasta bake cut up is good or bit of pasta with a cheesy sauce (i add tuna and vegies)
also vege lasagne is good - i cut it up and he eats it with his fingers
i make lots of patties - salmon, tuna and i also do chicken
my ds likes meat balls - you could do with tofu or somethinglike that
jaffles cut up (watch out of hot spots)
mini pizza on pita bread
french toast
vege fritters
pikelets with added fruit
hope that helps