Cheese Quesadillas Revisited

What seems like forever ago, when Grace was first starting to eat solid foods, she started eating cheese quesadillas (is saying "cheese quesadilla" redundant or is it making it clear that there isn't anything else in the quesadilla besides cheese?) like they were going out of style. Gobbled them down like she hadn't been fed in days. At some point, she got tired of them, but I kept making them, mostly due to the convenience of only having to sprinkle cheese on a tortilla and heat it on the stove for a few minutes. She'd eat them, but rather than take bites, she'd pull off one side of tortilla and eat the cheese off of the other side. I moved on to other foods for her, but sometimes I would make a quesadilla for myself that had leftover chicken or pork in it. If she took some of my quesadilla, she'd take out the meat and eat the cheese, as usual.

A few weeks ago, I made chicken quesadillas for dinner, not thinking that Grace would eat any since she'd had dinner earlier. She proceeded to eat over half of a chicken quesadilla, taking bites of the whole thing, chicken, cheese and tortilla all in one bite. Since then, I've offered to make quesadillas for her for lunch. Some days she wants one and will eat it rather than dissect out the cheese. I feel like this says something about something, but I'm not quite sure what. I'm pretty sure it doesn't say anything about my parenting or anything that I'm doing, but perhaps something about her taste in food or something.

Relaxed lunch time with milk, fruit and cheese quesadilla.

My Hopes and Dreams Regarding Weight Watchers, Weight Loss, and My Future Eating Habits

I've been going to Weight Watchers every week for over a year (since March 2010, to be slightly more precise). I say "going to" as opposed to "kicking ass" or even "following", because for the past month or three, I've been, well, not. Haven't been counting points or even writing down what I'm eating. How can you say if a plan is working if you're not following it?

Am I a blogger or what?

I've been pondering this blog a bunch lately. Why do I have this blog? Why do I have the blog but never post anything? Why, if I have something I'd like to write about for the blog, do I not write it? Why do I write posts then not post them? Am I a food blogger who happens to be a mom or am I a mom/parenting blogger who likes food? Or am I a mom who likes food and talking about parenting and it doesn't have to be one or the other? If I want to post something about myself and not specifically about my daughter, does that mean I'm not blogging about parenting, or am I blogging about parenting by definition because I am a parent and blogging about myself is blogging about a parent?

This Week in the CSA Box: Week 1

Way back in January or so, we signed up for a CSA with Landisdale Farm, sharing a full share with Andrew's parents. It seemed like fresh, local produce would be forever away, but here we are with our first week's box of yummy-looking veggies (and cherries, yay!). Week 1's box included fennel, parsley, scallions, garlic scapes, lettuce and cherries. Monday, I made roasted chicken with fennel, carrots and celery from Bittman's "How to Cook Everything". Pretty boring, but we'll probably just use the lettuce in a salad. I'm thinking of grilling the garlic scapes (we only have 3, so we can't do anything too exciting). I'll probably end up shoving the cherries into my cherry-loving mouth.

Week 1 of CSA blogging is kind of sad, but I'll try to remember to take pictures of the veggies and foods I make with them in the coming weeks. I'm looking forward to being forced to use more veggies in our meals, as I know that we need to include them but I'm too good at avoiding them. Yay CSA!

Muffins!

We were playing up in the third floor, and I was glancing at an old issue of Cooks Illustrated, when Grace saw a picture of a tray of muffins and shouted "muffins!" I remembered that we had an old box of muffin mix and figured why not? So we went downstairs to make some muffins. I measured the ingredients and Grace poured them into the bowl. We took turns mixing. Waiting for them to cook, she kept grabbing the timer shouting "muffins!" Finally they were done baking, but waiting for them to cool brought more of the same.
Needless to say, the muffins made from an old mix were not really very good. Grace ate a little of one, but I'm thinking it might be ok to chuck the rest and try again tomorrow with better ingredients. As something to do on a rainy day, though, I'd say it was a success.

Putting the theory into practice

Remember how I wrote about the food division of responsibility and how I wanted to help Grace make her own food choices? Well, today that intention was put into practice. We were talking about what to have for breakfast, and she pointed to the cookies and said "cookie, cookie" all cute like. I told her that we could have a cookie at lunch or at dinner, but we'd have something different for breakfast. She had been talking all morning about peaches and grapes, so I was able to distract her from the cookies with those and she was happy.

I'm not pregnant and that's ok.

So many people, people I know in real life as well as people I know of on the internet via their blog or twitter, are either pregnant or recently were pregnant and now have adorable, sqishy newborns. I am not pregnant, nor do I have an adorable, sqishy newborn. There is some part of me, my ovaries or my hormones or something, that is screaming about how I should get pregnant ASAP. It's screaming about how cute newborns are and I should get on it. It's screaming about how the longer I wait to have a second child, the higher the chances are that Grace will wean herself before then and my small desire to tandem nurse will be crushed.

The other part of me, the rational and thoughtful part of me (not to say that people who want more children are irrational, just that the part of me that wants more children RIGHT NOW is irrational), knows that it will be ok to wait to have another baby. It knows the reality of what my days and nights with Grace look like. It knows that Grace still nurses three or four times a day so there's still a possibility that she won't wean before I have a second baby. This part of me also acknowledges that it would also be ok if she weaned before I have a second baby. This part of me knows that my days of having a baby aren't numbered but even if they are, even if I can't have any other children grow inside my body, there are other ways of growing our family. 

So there you have it. I'm not pregnant and that's ok.

Baking with Baby

Our new neighbors brought us some cupcakes last week, so I figured we should bake them something. (Can't return an empty tupperware, right?) I have this bad habit of browsing foodgawker and opening a million tabs of recipes that look yummy, then getting mad that having so many tabs open makes Safari get cranky, then save the tabs in a folder of bookmarks for later never to think of them again. I figured I might as well use one of those recipes to make something potentially yummy for our neighbors. I ended up making this recipe for sunflower butter cookies with chocolate covered sunflower seeds. They're kind of like peanut butter cookies in texture, kind of crumbly rather than cake-like (but that might be due to the ingredient snafu where I had to coax the brown sugar into moistness).
Grace didn't really do much except get impatient when it took forever to get anything done (especially during the aforementioned ingredient snafu). Then I put her up on my shoulders, she played with my hair and everything was fine. Probably if things had gone more smoothly, I would have thought to have her stir the dry ingredients or dump things into the mixer, but that's what next time is for.

Meat-eater baby

While we were on vacation (about which I definitely have a post or two brewing in my mind), Grace decided that she really likes chicken. She'd eaten it a few times before, but on vacation, she ate it for a few meals as her actual meal, as opposed to a bite or two in addition to eating every french fry in sight. (She also ate fries with ketchup for the first time, but dipping things in ketchup isn't her new favorite thing, and ketchup isn't meat, so we'll save that for later.)
She'd always been a fan of sausage, but most other meats hadn't really interested her for whatever reason (unfamiliar taste, that it requires more chewing than other foods, who knows?). This past week, she's eaten pork chop and steak. It was quite interesting hearing her say "more, more, more" when I was half expecting her to avoid eating it altogether.

Is it about her or is it about me?

Pink or blue or brown or yellow? It's starting out simple, but I can see the complexities that lie ahead. How much of it is about her and how much is about me? How do I separate them out so I can deal with myself on my own time and attempt to minimize projection of my issues onto her development, her experiences, her preferences?

Parenting PRN OR That's How We Roll, Parenting Edition

I first learned of PRN, an abbreviation for the Latin pro re nata, which translates as "in the circumstances", in nursing school, when learning medications. Some medications have a specific (and sometimes rigid) schedule, whereas some medications are given as needed. Pain medications are an example, where a patient will request a dose as they feel they need it. So how does this medical term relate to parenting? I've been mulling over various blog post topics (naps, breastfeeding, meals vs. snacks, etc.) trying to figure out just what it is I'm trying to say here and trying to organize my thoughts on parenting as a whole.

I won't judge you if you don't judge me.

There are a bunch of blog posts and metafilter posts that I've been reading lately that address a similar theme: different lives are different so it's incredibly difficult if not impossible to impose your method onto someone else's situation. Whether it's parenting decisions, health/food decisions, anything. One person's magical miracle cure is another's "been there, done that, didn't work". So why do people feel like their imposition is the exception and that it's ok?

Dry Goods Challenge

I have a weird habit of buying random food that I don't necessarily know what I'm going to use it for and I also have a habit of buying way more food than I really need. Think of how people buy stuff at Costco but I do that kind of thing in normal grocery stores as well. We have a cupboard full of random food that I thought would be a good idea to have mixed with extra items of things that I thought would be a good idea to buy multiples of even though I only needed one. There was that trip to the store where I thought it would be a good idea to have a supply of beans on hand and, hey, beans are cheap so why not buy 8 bags of them? It's kind of how I roll.

My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to go through the cupboard and utilize all of the dry goods we have already with minimal purchase of new dry goods. I'll buy produce, dairy, and protein. Hopefully I'll learn new some yummy new recipes.

Baby Rabbit

We (Grace and I) were preparing dinner this evening. She likes to help make dinner sometimes (or at least she likes me to hold her while I prepare  dinner, as opposed to playing or just standing next to me). Tonight I made one of my go to meals of putting a roasting pan full of veggies with some sort of protein on top in the oven and letting them cook for a while. The veggies usually are baby carrots with some other veggies mixed in (sometimes potatoes, sometimes this root vegetable mix I've been getting at Trader Joe's, sometimes with brussels sprouts), then drizzled with olive oil, salt and pepper. The protein is usually chicken of some kind or pork chops.
Today I was mixing some carrots in with the root vegetable mix, when Grace grabbed a carrot and started gnawing on it. Then she grabbed a handful of carrots, presumably for later. While the veggies and chicken were baking, she ate her carrots. She ate maybe a carrot and a half of bites taken from 4 or 5 different carrots. Then she ate a carrot or two of cooked carrot. I knew that she liked cooked carrot, but she hadn't really shown any interest in raw carrot until today. It always surprises me when she shows interest in new things. It's a good thing.

Sugar Free New Year?

In 2009, for Lent (even though I'm not religious or Christian, but because it was a set, limited amount of time), I decided to not eat anything that had sugar added. Foods that I decided I would not eat include desserts, soda or other sweetened drinks (such as flavored syrups in drinks at Starbucks, since I was working there then), candy, and even sweetened foods or drinks that used artificial sweeteners (thinking that reducing intake of artificial sweeteners would help reduce my craving of sweet foods). I did not limit my intake of naturally sweet foods such as fruit.

I was surprised at how well it went, how little I actually craved sweets. I did have a few weeks leading up to Ash Wednesday where my drink of choice was an extra caramel sauce Caramel Macchiatto, and I did indulge whatever sweet craving I had. On the other hand, if I remember correctly, it only took a few days before I somewhat stopped having such frequent cravings for sweets. I'm not saying that I never wanted desserts or soda, but I am saying that those cravings were few, far between, and easily handled.

I'm thinking of doing this again, starting January 2nd. (I would start January 1st, but we'll be at a family Christmas get together, and there might be cookies that I'll want to eat. I know it's a lame excuse, but it's an excuse I can live with.) I've been eating a lot of cookies and such lately, unrelated to holidays, and I feel like it's hindering my attempts at eating healthier, which is hindering my attempts at weight loss. I don't mean to say that I want to stop eating sugar so I'll lose weight. I mean to say that I want to stop eating sugar for a time so that I can make it easier for myself to eat healthier which will hopefully make it easier to lose weight.

I don't know how long I'll want to keep it up, but I'm aiming for at least a month. I suppose I'll reevaluate as needed. I know I'll at least have to make an exception for Pi(e) Day, if I make it that long. I'm looking forward to drinking more water, eating fruit and not worrying about whether or not I should feel guilty about things I've eaten.

Better late than never.

Last week, Grace ate two foods that I'd offered a bunch of times but she'd always rejected: oatmeal and gnocchi. I always offer her a taste of foods even when she's rejected them before, because tastes change and you never know. I had kind of given up on oatmeal, though, since I eat it for breakfast almost every weekday morning and she never showed any interest.
Not so last week, though. She pointed at my oatmeal (which we encourage her to do to communicate rather than the ear-splitting shrieking that she does sometimes) and I thought she was pointing at every other thing on the table (sippy, puffs, fruit, etc.) before I finally realized she wanted some oatmeal. She ate four or five big bites. I was definitely surprised. The same thing happened with the gnocchi, though she had had less exposure to them since I don't cook them that often.
These two experiences encourage me to keep offering her foods that she's rejected because you never know when she'll start liking something. I don't have any expectations that she'll eat mass quantities, though. If she doesn't like or want something, I won't force her to eat it.

I Eat Food Too.

I've been thinking about foods that I would like to learn how to make, baked goods made with whole wheat flour, for example. I've also been thinking about how I'd like to learn how to make a dish or two that has many components that could take many tries to perfect. The food that got me thinking this way was banh mi, which has many components that I could learn how to make (baguette, pickled vegetables, pork products of many types, etc.) but would also be possible to make at home with purchased components so I could focus on one at a time. Another food that I've been thinking of working on perfecting is soup, especially soup made with my own stock. I'm not launching a cooking extravaganza today, but I am thinking about it in the back of my mind for when I have more time or for the next time I go grocery shopping and feel adventurous.

PS: If anyone's interested in reading stupid things I write in 140 character increments, I'm foodbabymama over there as well.
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Something Obvious.

Obviously I haven't posted the past few days. Obviously I can no longer say that I'm really trying to post every day for the month of December. It's ok, though, because I had a dream about blogging. That counts, right? Actually it's somewhat frustrating, because I had a few good ideas of things to write about in this dream, yet I can't remember any of them.

Unrelated, I've been reading "Good Calories, Bad Calories", and I want everyone I know to read this book so I have people to chat with about it. It's a huge book and it's taking me forever to read it, but I feel the need to chat with someone about it. I've been thinking about posting a few quotes here so I can remember them and also in the hopes that someone will read them and have some insight.

Day 11: Food Alternatives?

N.B.: I had the new post window up to write yesterday, but life got in the way, so here I am posting it today. It's all good.

A wide continuum of options exists on how to react when a child decides she doesn't want to eat whatever food it is that you've prepared for a meal. On one side, there is "eating everything on your plate", whereas on the other side is "eating whatever you feel like (whether it's what's offered or not)". Somewhere towards the middle, but towards the side of "eat what you feel like", is what I feel I strive for, based on Ellyn Satter's Division of Responsibility.

The division of responsibility for a parent involves providing the what, when and where of food. To me, this means that my responsibility as a parent is to provide my child with a variety of foods, some that she's had before and some new. It is also my responsibility to decide when and where she will eat, so I have to provide this variety of food either at times when I know she is hungry or at a proper interval of times such that she has enough opportunities to eat if she chooses to.

The division of responsibility for the child involves choosing whether or not to eat and how much to eat. To me, this means that my child's responsibility is to decide if she is hungry when I am providing food. She also must decide for herself which foods she wants to eat and when she's had enough.

On an ideal day, I provide her with meals and snacks in such intervals and variety that she eats a good amount of the food that I've provided. On a less than ideal day, our timing is off and the food that I'm providing does not necessarily involve foods that she prefers. On these less than ideal days, I devolve into giving her alternatives or puffs or mum mums. Example: Lunchtime I make something for myself that I know she doesn't like and I make something for her that I think she might like. She likes neither food, so I'll give her some cheese and pepperoni or banana or something. Another example: Dinner is later than expected for whatever reason, so I give her some mum mums and puffs, and because of the timing that ends up being her dinner because at dinner time she's full from the snack. For the first example, I'm trying to make her meal options something I know she'll like and my meal options something she might like so she can try new things but also have something she'll like. For the second option, I'm trying to just give her a dinner food when it's around the time we would've been eating dinner so she's eating something a bit more healthful than puffs. At this point, I think her eating healthful food is more important than our eating dinner together, though I like it when we all eat dinner together.

One of the things I'm wondering is how this will play out later in her life. Am I turning into the kind of parent who will make separate foods specifically for my child because I "know" she won't eat what I'm offering? How can I make sure I'm offering a variety of foods that include things she'll like without becoming a short order cook? Also, how can I make sure that we can all have dinner together when our dinner time is variable from day to day? These are all things that I consider when shopping for food and planning and preparing meals. I know I don't have all of the answers, but I think that as long as I keep thinking about it and trying to do what works for us, I'm on the right track.

Day 9: Blogging about blogging.

I'm not sure what I'm doing here. I'm not sure why I'm not blogging under the twitter name I already use. I'm not sure if that even matters. Should I have a consistent user name? Should I even be worried about that when I haven't even told anyone that I'm writing this blog? Should I tell people about this blog? Should I start using the twitter account I created when I created this blog so I could become a "super mommy blogger"? Should I use one account for tweeting about baby/mama stuff and one for everything else? Can I stop caring about becoming a "super mommy blogger" and just write about being a mom and how awesome my kid is and how she eats food and I sometimes make her food and sometimes get lazy and buy her food and etc etc etc? I know I'll probably never be famous or get paid or any of that, but I kind of think I have some things to say about parenting and being a mom and having a kid and cooking and eating and food that I'd like to say and wouldn't mind if people read and responded to.
I just wish I didn't get so hung up on the particulars.