Delicious Vegan Dish of the Day:
We used up some cabbage in our Mu-Shu burrito dinner tonight. Super quick and super yummy!
Money Matters:
Today we got ready for a trip to NYC – no money spent!
Friday Tips for Living Vegan and Living Cheap – with kids!:
Starting Solids with a Vegan Baby
Have a bunch on hand: One of the things I despise about this early stage of solid foods is that the baby just can’t have everything we are having for dinner. Now, there are some people who would disagree with me, and I certainly gave IP more “big people” food earlier than I did for LP. But, the bottom line, was that I needed foods that were easy to grab and give a baby at a moments notice. With LP we fed him lots of pureed food. We would puree a whole bunch of baby food (like a greens/blueberry/tofu/banana mix), pour it in ice cube trays, freeze it, and then just zap it in the microwave at dinner time. With IP I would make an extra batch of quinoa and lentils at some point in the week, and then we could always give her that if our dinner wasn’t “baby-friendly.” Lentils might be her favorite thing in the world – she can’t get enough of them!
Talk to your friends: With both kids I took a lot of my cues from my friends with kids, especially if their kids were a few months ahead of mine! I loved going to their houses and watching them feed their kids before I had to worry about solids. I’m someone who needs concrete examples of what to do, and my parent-friends have provided that in spades. There are lots of “solid-food techniques” out there (just like there are dozens of competing parenting trends – seems like there is a new one started every day). What I found worked for us was a) different for each kid and b) a hybrid of different solid-food philosophies. Some days we are baby-led weaners (that sounds wrong!) and some days we go the spoon-it-in and hope for the best.
Starting solid food is an exciting time, especially if eating together is important to your family. As messy and annoying as solid foods can be, I love the fact that now both of our kids are very much part of our family dinners, an important ritual in our home.
*Helloooo sweet potatoes and bananas!
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