A Cheat’s Guide to Feeding Your Toddler

Weaning was one of the most stressful parts of parenthood for me. I’m a pretty good cook but it became apparent fairly early that our mostly paleo diet wasn’t going to work with BLW, as an added challenge Alfie hated quinoa, sweet potatoes, wild rice and basically everything else we ate at dinner time. 

These are the recipes I fought back with! Alfie seems to have a inate awareness of my natural tendency towards lazy parenting and responds accordingly by refusing to eat anything out of a packet. Since his fist mouthful of food he has rejected all baby food as well as jarred sauces or convenience products. Which isn’t too surprising as everything his dad and I eat is made from scratch. 

I keep a supply of these dishes in the freezer at all times, they’re a great way to add an extra portion of veg into his diet without much prep. 
7 Veg Pasta Sauce

This sauce is really healthy, really delicious and freezes so well. It gives me great peace of mind to know that Alfie can have a balanced meal ready in minutes. 

I usually add either chicken, fish or cheese and always use wholewheat pasta. Get the recipe here.

Flavoured Butter

Having a block of flavoured butter in your freezer is a very handy way to add instant taste to pretty much anything. Sure you can get super fancy (Salted Anchovy Butter anyone? Didn’t think so!) Or you can keep it simple and delicious. These are best grated straight from the freezer either onto hot vegetable or directly into cooking pans or roasting tins for fish and meat. 

My favourites are Dill and Lemon for fish and on steamed greens or Sun-dried Tomato and Basil for chicken and roasted veg. Recipe is the same for all butter really, just add the flavouring until you have a taste you like and freeze it!

Vegetable Patties

Baby snacks were an area I ALWAYS struggled with until I discovered the beauty of the Vegetable Patty! 

I make up a load of veggie burgers and put them into the freezer before cooking them, then whenever Alfie starts to get hangry I pop one in the oven to defrost and bake and voila, he’s had an extra portion of veg…without a crudite in sight (because really, what child eats them?!). My favourites are Cauliflower and Cheese Cakes, Carrot and Courgette Fritters and these Veg and Egg Muffins. 

Toast/Your child’s favourite food

A revolutionary one! What I mean by this is finding the ‘magic’ food your child can’t get enough of and then make it as healthy as you can! In our house this food is toast!

We use multigrain loaves and spread them with everything from peanut butter/banana to ricotta/pear to guacamole and egg – which is hilarious because Alfie normally wouldn’t touch an avocado! I honestly think he’s eat anything once it was on toast!