From one chicken: Peach Bean Stirfry

Rotisserie chickens stretch 4 dinners at my house.

After our first rotisserie chicken meal, I made a green bean and peach stir fry from 1/3 of the chicken. Alex doesn't like green beans, but I thought if I paired them with something he really liked (peaches) a winner would emerge.

In a large skillet

Heat skillet to medium heat with a few tablespoons of olive oil

To warmed oil add:

1 pepper cut into baby sized bites
1 peach with some of the skin cut off (if you are eating non-organic peaches I'd advise removing the skin or scrubbing them like they have the plague- because like non-organic grapes and apples these have really high pesticide loads)
1 sweet onion cut finely

While these were simmering I pulled the ugly bits from the ~3 c. green beans and washed the pretty parts.

Add

1/3 rotisserie chicken
3 cups of green beans

3 tablespoons of water

Cover and simmer until beans are the texture you prefer.

Leave a 1/4 of the total mixture in the pan and cook an addition 3-4 minutes until beans are softer than you would like, but easier for your little one. Beans will need to be cut into smaller pieces to serve.


For adult version:

Add soy sauce or ginger and soy sauce to taste

For baby version:

Add butter or additional olive oil. This meal is pretty light, so I added olive oil to give Alex a few more calories. If your baby does not eat little pieces of chicken puree the chicken with a little yogurt or yogurt and fruit.

Serve stirfry on a soft small pasta (or quinoa)- we used a multigrain pasta.

Alex still spit out a few green beans, but I think a few were gone by the time we finished our meal.

Maybe I didn't eat enough green beans while Alex was fetal.

Rotisserie Chicken, Squash Medley

Maybe my mind has been infiltrated irreversibly by Michael Pollan ... I can't get over the best food advice I've ever heard, eat real food. Doing this has done as much for our overall health as synthroid has done for my metabolism. I love artificial hormones as much as I love real food.


Anyway, with so many food options, it is easy to go with the convenient ones. I like the idea of spending very little time on cooking. If it were my artform, and I truly enjoyed the time I spent in the kitchen it would be different. For me, it means that I am not playing with my son, hanging out with Trey, writing a research paper, or going on a long run. Whether or not I drop running as a hobby because my music loop is putting me to sleep, I still don't want to spend hours in the kitchen and I don't like feeding Alex out of a jar. It takes no more time to give him some variation of our meal than it does to open a jar. Plus I feel a little guilty if he doesn't finish the jar because even the non-organic stuff is more expensive than feeding him what we are already eating. Yes, I am cheap and becoming cheaper as I stay home more.


Last night dinner approached too fast---our dog put on a freak show and occupied most of the afternoon with an unexpected illness.

In haste, I grabbed a rotisserie chicken and made a side from the farmer's market goodies.

Into a pan of 2 tablespoons of olive oil on medium heat:

I sliced:

1 small white onion
2 medium ears of sweet corn

at the same time I microwaved

5 fingerling potatoes until they were soft to the touch (2-3 minutes)
I like the colorful ones because they typically have more nutrients.

I then cut these even smaller and added them to the sweet corn and diced

1 summer squash

I put a few tablespoons of water into the pan and put the lid on and cooked 3-4 minutes until the squash was done and then added

dill for taste


For Alex, I diced his potatoes even more and also did a quick softening of part of his meal in the blender (just loosening it for a little bit easier chewing). Turns out his 4 teeth are good enough to eat the dish with or without the easy blend. I also gave him really small pieces of the most moist (and fatty) parts of the chicken because they were easier to chew.

I gave myself a slice of ugly tomato (I'm the only one that digs uncooked tomatoes in this house).

Alex devoured this and I only spent 10 minutes making the meal. This is real convenience food.

Summer Quinoa Salad (for parents and babies)

Alex napped blissfully this morning! I had plenty of time to wander through the farmer's market while my husband Trey mowed down our grass forest. I bought as many colors as I could fit into my bags and returned to short grass and a missing spaghetti squash plant.

By the time dinner neared, it was over 90 degrees and I had no desire to cook and definitely didn't want to eat anything warm. With this in mind, I set out to make a simple salad made with fresh produce, black beans, and quinoa (a hearty grain--- you could use couscous, bulgur, or a mixed grains from a grocery chain). Quinoa is a great choice because it has the highest protein concentration of any grain. I also like quinoa because it cooks faster than rice.

Before I could choose from all of my farmer's market goodies, I had some bok choy and lemons that I had to use up before they sat too long. If I were making this strictly from the farmer's market I would substitute another green like chard, kale, or spinach. But the stalk of the bok choy lends a nice crunch. Lemon was a nice summery addition to the meal, but you could use balsamic if you needed another source of tang.

The meal is baby friendly because the vegetables can be diced to a good size. Also, quinoa is a nice grain to serve to babies because it is small and soft. Alex doesn't really care for meat unless I blend it with other things and only sometimes likes beans, so I was happy to serve him Quinoa as another source of protein.

The salad could easily be blended or stirred together with yogurt or applesauce or another food you know your baby already likes. Alex was tired from a busy week and I was overcautious thinking he might be picky because he has never had quinoa before. So I put some of his meal in the blender for a few seconds with 1 part baby yogurt (you can make your own baby yogurt with fruit and whole milk yogurt, or buy a name brand). He ate 1/4 c of the adult version of the salad and about the same amount of the salad-yogurt blend.


For the summer salad:

Prepare 3/4 c. Quinoa (dry) according to package (will make ~ 3 c. cooked)- takes 10-15 minutes

While the Quinoa is cooking-

In 2 tablespoons of olive oil sauté:

1 diced summer squash (medium-sized)
the white part of 1 bunch (4-8) scallions (save the green parts to toss in with the finished salad)
1 clove of finely diced garlic

after the scallions and squash have browned add
1 bunch of bok choy diced (I use the white and green parts)
juice from 2 lemons

Wilt the green parts of the bok choy (the quinoa was done about the time I was done with the bok choy)

Mix quinoa with the cooked vegetable mixture
add 1 can of rinsed black beans
add olive oil to taste (~1/4 c is my preference)

I put the salad in the fridge to cool for a few hours, but you could also eat this warm. Either way, the scallion greens and parsley are a nice addition.(Keep them both out of the infant portion unless you chop them really fine so that they aren't difficult to chew on).

This was an excellent meal! Trey even admitted that it competed with meat, which I'll take as a carnivore's compliment. I'm going to try the leftovers for lunch and have high hopes that it will still taste as delicious!

Drinking blood versus eating bulgur and beets...a.k.a. what was I thinking?

When Alex started solids, he was a good little eater, slurping and gumming up just about everything I could blend together from kale & pear, to fennel & apple. I've taken advantage of this and continued to serve him a variety of foods that I'm eating already in their diced up solid form, or I'll puree with a little yogurt to improve the texture of the gritty more fibrous foods.

Alex does like beets, he liked those that wrapped in foil and drenched in oil and grilled until the were sweet and soft on the inside.

But last night both my husband Trey and baby Alex rejected a meal of bulgur and lentils (1:1 cooked ratio) mixed with pan cooked garlic beats and olive oil. I served the adult portion chilled like a salad and with a little balsamic vinegar, fresh basil, and a little blue cheese. I was in heaven--- I just adore stinkkkkky cheese and the contrast of the sour vinegar with sweet beets... but poor Trey, took a few bites and was left thinking, where is the meat?

I spared baby Alex the vinegar and blue cheese, and put in ample shredded cheddar, but now realize that although Alex adored shredded cheese a month ago, he now thinks it is launch material only. As far as cheese goes, only the solid chunks are edible. The little shreds are wildly whipped into our poor schnauzer's black tangles. Although Alex loved the lentil, potato, carrot stew, unblended, he thought the beans were little ticks and also tried to attach those to Loki's black locks to pay him back for barking during naptime.

Today, I tried to salvage the remaining bulgur and lentil blend today (I saved a beetless portion) and mixed 1/2 a cup with 1/2 lb of ground turkey, 1 egg, and a bit less than 1/4 cup of oatmeal together with a little bit of A-1.... We pan fried these, because they are a little looser than beef patties... Again, I thought they were wonderful (they did need some mustard for zip) but Trey almost passed out from malnutrition. Alex ate his lentils and bulgur in the blended form with a little olive oil, applesauce, and formula.

Unfortunately, a late morning nap kept us from our red meat source at the farmers market and poor Trey is going to have to drink blood this week to regain his composure.

Carrot, Potato, Lentil Soup

Thought I 'd post another easy bean(lentil) meal. It has been sweaty hot in Columbus, Ohio. Alex and I have been moving around between libraries and playgroups. We only go out in the cooler mornings, so that our black dog Loki won't die on our walks. Soup is a nice winter meal, but it is especially nice on these really hot days because it doesn't require a lot of tending and stovetop heat is much more forgiving than the oven.

Alex loves carrots and potatoes of every sort.

This meal is easy and can be fed to both adults and infants. It is also inexpensive and serves a family of 3-4 for 2 meals and freezes well.

In large pan:

Saute on medium heat until onions and potatoes have browned (about 10 min):

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion or 6 scallions (I use only the white bottom and save the greens for a soup garnish)
2 medium potatoes* (I used 1 sweet potato and 1 red potato- I don't peel, but I take off anything that looks too gritty or knobby)
3 carrots* (I pop the tops off and scrub, but don't peel)
1 apple or pear* (I take some of the skin off and remove the core and stem)

Add:

4 cup of chicken of vegetable stock (low sodium preferred for infants)
1 cup of uncooked lentils (you can substitute 2 cans of pinto beans)

Cook on low heat 30-45 minutes until lentils have softened.

Allow to cool on stove top for 30 minutes and then run the entire batch through the blender.


For the adult version, I garnish with scallions, dill, and/or chives. You can use other herbs if you have an herb garden, but this is what we had on hand. If you like a little heat add a pinch of red pepper.

For the infant version, I pour 1/4 cup of blended soup into his serving dish and add 1 scoop of formula (or breast milk), ~2 tablespoons of water, and 2 tablespoons of rice cereal. Alex prefers the soup when it is sweetened by the formula. Some babies will eat the soup without these modifications.

*Root vegetables like potatoes and sweet potatoes are especially good to buy organic because they scavenge pesticides from the soil. Apples and pears are also good to buy organic (or wash thoroughly and remove their skin) because they are heavily sprayed by pesticides.

Tomorrow, I will post the recipe for cornbread and cornbread teething cookies that I serve with this tomorrow. You can also serve this on a hearty grain like bulgur or brown rice or with toast/crackers.