little foodie blog

Jackson eats chicken drumstick

Hello little foodies!

Jackson loves chicken!

I mean what’s not to love? Everyone loves chicken. It’s so versatile and we have it all the time in our house. So I’m super happy that Jackson loves it. It will be easy for him to join us for meals and I wont have to make a separate meal for him.

His first taste was puréed steamed chicken, and although that doesn’t sound appealing at all, it actually tasted pretty good. Since then I have given him shredded chicken and chicken drumsticks, as well as chicken purée and vegetable combinations.

For the drumstick I roasted it in the oven at 180 degrees for about one hour (turning it over at 30 minutes). I seasoned it with some onion powder and olive oil beforehand.

Before serving it, let it cool and make sure to remove all the skin and any loose pieces of fat or cartilage. Also, there is a separate sharp bone that is hidden in the drumstick. You can feel it from the top of the drumstick (the fatter part of the drumstick) and once you find it, it can be pulled out easily from the top. If you pull it from the bottom, all the meat comes off. That happened to me the first time, and I ended up serving Jackson just the meat.

Chicken will definitely be a regular on this little foodie’s table.

How have you given chicken to your baby and did they love it as much as Jackson did?

Jackson eats berry and banana baked oats

Hello little foodies!

Previously, I only gave Jackson solids at lunch and dinnertime, but I have decided to offer him breakfast as well since he seems more eager to try eating after his morning breastmilk feed as well.

I found this recipe online and decided to give it a go since it contained different food groups in one convenient little package.

Ingredients:

2 ripe bananas

2 cups rolled oats

1 egg (beaten)

3/4 cup milk

1 1/2 cup frozen or fresh berries

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees

1. Mash the bananas in a bowl

2. Add rolled oats and mix until combined (doesn’t work with steel cut oats)

3 Add milk (I used full cream cows milk) and egg into the bowl and mix

4. Add berries and slightly squish them in the batter so they break

5. Spoon mixture into muffin trays

6. Bake for roughly 18 minutes for mini muffins or until cooked through

These made around 12 mini muffins and 8 finger slices.

I only have one mini muffins tray, so for half of the batch I baked it in a rectangle tart baking pan and then cut into slices once cooled.

They are perfect to make ahead and keep in the fridge for 3 days or in the freezer for 3 months. Just pop them into the microwave to heat up.

They were also very easy to hold and perfect size for Jackson. He took a few bites but the rest got cleaned up by Opie (and I had a few bites too, so yummy).

I thought these would be relatively mess free but I was so so wrong. The berries went everywhere and left marks all over the place. Luckily, you can replace the berries with any other fruit, so I’ll do that next time.

Jackson eats oatmeal with banana

Hello little foodies!

If you saw my previous post, you would have seen that I had just received the NumNum pre-spoon GOOtensil in the mail and I could not wait to ~~use it~~ watch Jackson use it.

There are so many options to try with it but I decided on good ol’ oatmeal. It seemed like a pretty safe food to try with it.

The first time I gave Jackson oatmeal, I used a store bought variety that I received as a freebie from a new mum pack that I got. He did not really like it at the time.

Maybe because it was earlier on when we first started solids so Jackson wasn’t interested. It was an apricot flavoured porridge mix and I used my breastmilk to make it so he would have a familiar flavour when he tried it, but he still didn’t like it.

This time I decided to make my own oatmeal.

To make baby oatmeal, I first blended some dry traditional rolled oats. Then I added water and microwaved for 20 seconds, stir, then I put it back for another 20 seconds in the microwave. You can also use milk instead of water (breastmilk, formula, cows milk, almond milk, soy milk, etc).

You want the oats-to-liquid ratio to be 1:3. I used 1TBS blended oats and 3TBS water. After it was heated and ready, I added 1/2 a mashed banana into the oatmeal and mixed it.

Jackson sure got a surprise this time when I handed him the NumNum spoon.

After he had done with what was on the spoon I dipped it into the oatmeal again before handing it back to him. It was a very slow process compared to spoon feeding him purées, but he still consumed more oatmeal than last time. Maybe because he’s older now or because the spoon made it fun.

I do plan on leaving the bowl on the highchair tray for him to help himself next time, but I will do that when I get some bowls that stick on the tray so there’s less mess.

Now all I need is some recommendations on which sticky bowls to get.

NumNum pre-spoon GOOtensil

Hello little foodies!

Not long ago, I ordered the NumNum pre-spoon GOOtensil and I was so excited for these to come in so Jackson can feed himself purées as well as other wet textured foods that he cannot pick up with his hands (ie. yogurt, oatmeal, mash, etc).

Finally, they’re here! I purchased mine off ThePharmacy. It comes in a dual set of two “spoons” for different stages. Stage one and stage two, based on the texture of the food.

The NumNum GOOtensil™ is the revolutionary new first step to self-feeding. Its innovative flat design makes it easier to use than a spoon because there is no scooping, no balancing and no wrong way to hold it!
NumNum

Jackson instantly grabbed the spoon out of my hand and it went straight into his mouth (the right way).

We can’t wait to try it with actual food. Jackson seems to like it as a teether already, so that’s a good sign.

If you have tried the NumNum pre-spoon GOOtensil, what foods have you used it with?

Jackson eats banana

Hello little foodies!

This isn’t the first time jackson has tried banana.

He has had both puréed and whole banana before. But this is the first time he did more exploring than eating.

He brought the banana to his mouth once and then spent the rest of the time scratching and squishing it. Only lasted about 2 minutes before he started yelling at me to get him out of the highchair.

That’s ok. His main food is still breastmilk at the moment, so I am not fussed when he rejects solids.

Opie isn’t complaining either. From one mum to another, be prepared for rounder doggos when your little one starts solids.

Jackson eats corn on the cob

Hello little foodies!

Corn on the cob was a success today. Jackson absolutely loved it – just like his mum.

I can’t believe I didn’t think of giving Jackson corn until another mum from my mother’s group mentioned it today.

Not only is corn super easy to prepare, it was easy for Jackson to handle. It’s also practically mess free, so no clean up crew was needed today. I even had one as well, and it was super juicy and delicious.

The corn was boiled for about 10-15 minutes and cooled before serving. Easy peasy.

Corn cob in one hand, camera in the other. And baby feeding himself without any help from mum. Now that’s living the mum-dream.

Jackson eats sweet potato and egg pancakes

Hello little foodies!

Since introducing finger foods to Jackson, I have only been giving him steamed (and some raw) fruits and veg. However, I wanted to get more creative and found this simple pancake recipe using egg.

This recipe I followed was for banana and egg, but it works with vegetables as well. I had some steamed sweet potato on hand, so I used that instead of banana.

I mashed 1/3 cup of sweet potato with one beaten egg and just panfried it to the size I wanted. Easy as that. (You can add spices to the batter before frying if you like, but I wanted to keep it simple)

*Sweet potato + egg pancake w/ a slice of steamed sweet potato*

Jackson had fun tasting the new food. It didn’t seem like he managed to eat much, and it was hard for me to really tell because the clean up crew wiped the floors clean.

But, his nappy the next day showed that he definitely had some!

I never knew I would be so excited about baby poop. But I find it interesting to see how his foods get digested and affect his poops!

If you guys have any other super easy recipes to share, please comment or link them below. I am always looking for new recipes to try out.

The very beginning: first solids

Hello little foodies!

Although Jackson has already been on solids for over a month now, I thought I’ll share what his very first food was.

Jackson’s first solids was carrot purée. It was something we already had at home and it was super easy to prepare.

To make the purée, I peeled and cut one carrot into 1-2cm sized cubes, then steamed the carrot for 15 minutes, before blending it with some of the steam juices for 2 minutes. It made roughly 4 ice cubes of purée, and I only gave Jackson a few teaspoons to start with.

I used the Tommee Tippee quick cook baby food maker. It is a steamer and blender in one, and it is very easy to use. The only downside is there is a 200g food limit that you can make in one go, so it’s not designed for making large batches to freeze.

Jackson only had a few bites, but he loved it. It definitely was a good starting food and it is really versatile and easy to make. Even now, Jackson loves carrots. He has it on it’s own, mixed with other purées, and more recently, in BLW recipes.

Please comment below to share your baby’s first food and did you start with traditional feeding or baby led weaning?

WELCOME!

Hello little foodies!

I started this blog as a way to share my journey of combo feeding my baby boy, Jackson. You might also find some other mummy content on here later on down the track.

Please note, I am not a professional and should you have any medical questions or concerns, please contact your pediatrician to discuss them.

I am merely a first time mum sharing my motherhood and feeding experience.

I am happy to answer any questions you may have and please feel free to give me feedback by sharing your thoughts and ideas in the comments.

Kabs x