Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Today was hilarious. We were On The Move in NYC all day, so I set us up with a big Tofu scramble and toast (mushrooms, nootch, kale and onions and garlic). We ate lunch at Pain Quotidien (Med Plate of hummus, babag, quinoa tabboleh (not like tabboleh at all) and tons of bread and Speculoos. She snacked on puffs and an apple carrot pouch and now dinner of Eggplant Breadcrumb Fettucine. Yumyumyum!

They have Speculoos at PQ?

I'm amazed (and a bit jealous) that Leela can eat apples! They are way to hard for guineapiglet. Extremely ripe pears are the hardest fruits she can chew on right now, but I think Leela has more teeth - we're still working with 3 1/4 over here :)

Malka really loves taking bits out of whole apples. She won't eat apple slices, though.

They do! And Leela has 8 teeth. She's been nomming on them for ages though - I think even pre-teeth - because they were listed as a "first food". Then as the teeth came in, she'd break chunks off and mash them.

And yes to PQ speculoos! The PQ at Union Square is pretty kid-friendly - the main room is large and has enough space for a toddler to run around in, and if you hover so they stay off the stairs and out of the kitchen its pretty fun for them. Plus for whatever reason, instead of people being annoyed (which I was afraid of), they were so sweet with her. Even when she broke a bowl. Oy.

We will have to make a trip, then! I just looked at their menu online and they look way more vegan friendly than the last time I was there (which I guess was actually a long asparagus time ago).

breakfast: homemade pancakes & some bagel
lunch: (while at a farm pumpkin pickin) happy baby pouch, peanut butter & jelly on oat bread, puffs & mango smoothie
dinner: joanne's nuggets, an experimental indian food recipe I made - summer squash, white beans (I was out of chick peas) & tomatoes sauteed in oil + biryani spices + coconut milk over barilla spinach wagon wheels. He actually ate some! Then raspberries and blueberries. Finally, spoonfuls of isa's pumpkin bread batter, which literally made him dance.

It's his birthday Thursday, and his pop-pop is coming tomorrow, so that's why i'm making the cake. I did less sugar and replaced half the oil with applesauce but it is still really sweet! I thought I read the whole thing with sugar making kids hyperactive was an old wives tale, but he sure seems pretty rambunctious now!

They have tons of vegan options! All marked clearly on the menu too :) I wasn't a big fan of the vegan quiche though fyi - bc its glutenfree crust is so... chewy

Guineapiglet's first two teeth came in super early and it looks like the rest are in no hurry to get here!

Today was a rough rough day in the Guineapig home - I'm honestly surprised any food was consumed at all. All I ended up eating for the entire day was 5 cupcakes, some lemonade and a glass of almond milk and a bowl of cereal - we really need a new thread called what a single parent eats, because it's not much when your house turns into crazy town. Somehow this is what she consumed:

Breakfast - o's, cantaloupe and pears
Lunch - attempt at mac and cheese, 1/2 broccoli for her and 1/2 broccoli to the dog
Dinner - after serving her macaroni multiple times to no luck but rotini and fussili several times with success I realized she hates macaroni (she has the most interesting food aversions) so I tried bowtie pasta with a noochy cheese sauce and she loved it, ate about 1/2 cup plus some more broccoli.

So far I've figured out that she doesn't like anything too mushy (she tests everything with her "testing finger" first - she even test people with this same finger although I'm not sure what the criteria is but some people she decides she likes, others no based on a touch of a finger), nothing that smells even remotely like fish (once I realized this I started making homemade sushi without the nori sheets and she loves it), and macaroni (all other pasta shapes are fine).

We had lunch at a Chinese restaurant today and the owner couldn't believe that babynut was eating (and loving) steamed dumplings. Whenever someone new came in, she would point at us and say there's a baby who likes dumplings. It was cute.

Chipotle chili with sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts from AFR was a big hit today. This kid can put away the sweet potato, let me tell you. I'm dieting to try to get back to prepregnancy weight (below, actually) so I'm pretty much working my way through AFR and she hasn't been complaining.

I' m so excited about Kai's birthday menu I'm posting it here in advance. We're bring him and the little girl who he stays with in daycare all week (and her parents) to Sesame Place. I'm packing a picnic lunch to have at the picnic tables outside:

For the kids: Dinosaur shaped chocolate peanut butter and blackberry jam sandwiches + hummus & carrot roll-ups w/ hemp hearts. Probably just water to drink but maybe apple juice too.

For the adults: Sandwiches called "Pan bagnia," which are basically like fancy subs. It's french garlic bread with olives, tomatoes, basil, onion, arugula, roasted peppers & artichokes all smashed into the bread so it gets really yummy. Then to go on the side, AFR Trattoria Pasta Salad with White Beans.

For dessert, fruit cut in fun shapes (watermelon stars & melon balls) and chocolate cupcakes with blueberry frosting.

(I just ordered some blueberry flavoring from amazon so that's why I'm thinking about it. Going to use the VCTOW recipe for raspberry buttercream, just with blueberry instead.)

Fun menu! And Sesame Place is super fun!

Guineapiglet is starting to reliably replace one nursing a day (sometimes more) with food. I love letting her lead the way, it doesn't leave me with that empty feeling I thought I'd have when she started to wean but rather a feeling of pride in her independence and the knowledge that we'll still have a strong nursing relationship for years to come. But onward to food!

Breakfast: mostly nursed and homemade whole wheat potato bread
Snack: homemade animal crackers
Lunch: vegan meatballs and vegetable medley
Pre-dinner snack: BBQ soy cakes (her first try and I was surprised how much she loved them)
Dinner: butternut squash ravioli and peas
Dessert: Figs (her way of asking me what things are is to hold it up and make her "what's this" face, when I told her it was a fig she repeated "fig. FIG!" and then sat down and ate it happily).

Yesterday: Breakfast was Sweet Potato and Kale Tofu scramble on sprouted toast.
Lunch was Trader Joe's Japanese Fried Rice (Yummy but so messy)
Dinner: Coconut curry quinoa and veggies
Snack: Apple slices

Today: Banana pancakes with lots of flax in the batter and apple sauce for dipping instead of syrup
Lunch: TJ's Gigantes on Toast
Dinner: TJ's Chickenless Fingers with Harvest Grains made with Broccoli. She fed pretty much all the fingers to the dog.

Mr. T was out of town, so I relied on the convenience foods more than usual.

For dinner Kai ate rye toast with bbq chickpea spread, half an avocado, and a bunch of steamed green beans. That's really good for him! I was so happy I let him have some cookies for dessert. I had a few too - wow these TJ's "Cats Cookies for People" are really yummy!

Last night she didn't really eat the pasta and tempeh we had.

Tonight she ate everything: chickpea piccata, Brussels, and millet.

Banner dinner tonight. Lucy ate broccoli, cauliflower, pear, kiwi, and whole wheat linguine with a masala marinara sauce, which was soooo good! She hasn't really had Indian flavors before, so we were very excited she ate it.

The boy had a broccoli, pear pouch mixed with oatmeal cereal followed by boobs.

Do y'all tone done Indian flavors for your kids, or just let them have at it? So far, I've made alternate dinners when we've had spicy stuff, but I'd like to try and test her tastebuds a bit more. (very afraid that she may have her dad's bland Norwegian palate :p)

for the most part, especially with Indian food, we try to go for lotsa flavor and interesting spice (garam masala, coriander etc.) as opposed to heat (cayenne, serrano peppers) and Dahlia does great! she loooves sag "paneer" and chickpea masala, for instance. Every once in a while, she'll pronounce after a few bites "Mama it too spicy for me" and then she gets a peanut butter sandwich (happily). That's funny about your husband's palate - my partner's Norwegian by heritage (his middle name is Halfdan!) but of course is very American and looooves spice.

Oh no I just had this long post about indian food that got erased. Point is yes, even though my son loves indian i tone it down. Sometimes we have a problem when we get dal in Edison which is a real indian community and the mild is more like medium. I mean for me it is fine, and awesome for my partner who loves spicy - he usually get can't hot enough so it works great for him.

But usually store bought stuff like simmer sauces at tjs is fine for my son, and we also use spice packets from indian groceries. I haven't done much of my own cooking from scratch but he does love veggies & beans mixed with the simmer sauces or packets.

Today he had the most amazing lunch. We went to Veggie Heaven in Denville (on the way to hike Pyramid Mountain) and he ate a ton of the wheat gluten bbq ribs, along with a bunch of veggie chow mein they made special for him without soy sauce & steamed broccoli. I thought the veggie ribs were a bit weird in texture, even though I ate some, so I couldn't even believe he kept chowing them down! I was so happy it seems he really isn't so picky, it is just that he doesn't like dinner much. At lunch he is so much more adventurous!

I think curry must be one of those flavours that comes through strongly in breast milk. From the first taste of curried cauliflower guineapiglet was hooked. Like Audrey I go for lots of spices but not necessarily spicy. Guineapiglet is a kind of "the more spices the better" kind of girl so I can never really over spice a dish (in terms of flavour not heat).

Here's what we ate today:

Breakfast - lots of figs, roasted potatoes
Snack - Mango and Carrot snack bar
Lunch - spinach and artichoke pasta
Snack - a couple soy crisp and something else I can't remember
Dinner - soba noodles stir fry in a soy butter sauce, teriyaki grilled tofu, figs for dessert

We had one very traumatic experience in Edison, when Leela got a green chili in some rasam and it caused a bright red crying meltdown so yeah, we avoid giving her anything that could be spicy (hot).

That said, I made a moong dal with coconut, nigella and amchoor and she loved it.

And how was Pyramid Mountain? I keep hearing good things and if its pretty easy, I'd love to go. My knees are a bit crappy. We are going on a toddler hike tomorrow at Lard Stirling. So excited! Last time I was there there were so many deer, and sadly it is open season on them starting in November.

Also, I love Veggie Heaven Denville!

Today: breakfast was Granola, yogurt and apple (after lots of nursing last night she wasn't that hungry)
lunch was eggplant and lentil chile and cornbread muffins (devoured and asked for more).
dinner was about 1/4 of my Terri Thanksgiving sandwich and some of the oat-date bar I got. Mmmmmm We played at eating it on the train and it held off a very sleepy meltdown.

Breakfast: Green beans, oatmeal cereal, cheerios
Snack: Apple
Lunch: Soy yogurt, avocado, apple

Pyramid Mountain is so easy (if memory serves), but the last time we were there Mr. A's misdirection got us super turned around and lost for an hour. It was the only time I've ever been right about directions and him wrong, and I still use it. Also, love Veggie Heaven Denville! And both they and the Montclair VH are excellent at tolerating Malka.

Yesterday I tried to help Mr. A offer Malka way more variety of food than she usually gets (because he runs out of ideas) and she ate NOOOTHING and was offered food like six times during the day. Today she has eaten french fries (good job us) and a squirt of a fruit puree thing. Blah.