Tracey,
re ideas for food. Some of these ideas are for when the girls are a little older but might help spark some ideas. We don't eat meat and only started with fish this year so we eat slightly differently from most.
Maya still prefers an assortment of things vs. a bowl of one item for dinner. Tonight she ate a sliced hard boiled egg, a vegan sausage, a small piece of cheese, baked beans and peas, she then wolfed down a whole pear.
When pushed for time, I used to make toast pizza using pasta sauce as a base, putting whatever finely chopped veggies I could get away with - mushrooms and olives always worked well, topped with grated cheese then grilling it. Very quick and very popular.
I have a fabulous fail-safe that Maya loved and it froze well. It's a US recipe so uses cups.
Yummy Broccoli and cheese nuggets.
Makes - loads! Prep. time 8-10 mins. Cooking time 20-25 mins.
You need:
spray oil /greaseproof paper might work though.
16oz frozen broccoli, cooked, drained and chopped
1 cup fresh breadcrumbs
1.5 cups of grated cheese
2-3 large eggs
Preheat oven to 190 (375 US)
*Spray a baking sheet with vegetable oil and put to one side
*In a large bowl, combine all remaining ingredients and mix well.
*Shape mixture into nuggets and place on baking tray c. 10cm apart. *Bake for 15mins then turn over. Serve warm.
As I said, they freeze well, I microwaved them warm again. I also made it with spinach (which worked) and cauliflower (which didn't!).
Other current fail-safes include Spanish omelette, fish fingers although she's only recently started to like these, she also really likes most vegan 'meat-a-like' products. There was a stage this year when she rejected everything except Weetabix, I rolled with it and gave her Weetabix with raisins mushed into a porrage. The phase only lasted a week or so......thank goodness. I also had a phase of making her microwave souffles (aka. a whisked egg in a small plastic bowl on full power for 60 seconds). I'd put a little grated cheese in and maybe some chopped veg. It puffs up and looks very exciting. She'd eat that with Marmite on toast.
I'll think on but my biggest lesson so far is that everything is a phase and they pass. Right now she's obsessed with dragging her chairs into the kitchen and standing at the workbench then switching on/off the microwave. Seriously annoying but so was pulling out all the plugs and that passed......
gotta love the little buddles of fluff haven't you?
Debra.