8 Months = Exciting New Foods

So I'm pretty pumped that Nathan's reached the 8 month mark because that means we are ready to introduce lots of new foods!  The current menu was getting pretty monotonous: pears, prunes, bananas, avocado, sweet potato, carrots, butternut squash, peaches, applesauce, apricots, oatmeal, peas, green beans, chicken.  Well, that doesn't sound too bad, but with three meals a day, every day tends to be only a slight variation on the last.  BUT, we're already rolling on introducing new foods and that's pretty exciting for both me and Nathan. 

I have already introduced mango and blueberries.  I'm now feeding Nathan a serving of blueberries every morning (along with his daily prunes to help him, you know...) since they're such a "superfood".  Then last week I introduced papaya parsnip spinach and yogurt.  *Sigh* So I went to the Hispanic supermarket to get a papaya.  As I think I've mentioned before, I'm trying to use this "introducing foods to Nathan" to hopefully expand the variety of fruits and veggies that we eat in the house.  So, the papaya... they're pretty big and I couldn't remember if I had actually tried and/or liked papaya, so when I saw some halves that were pre-cut, I thought that would be perfect.  Well, I got it home and opened it up... and it smelled pretty unappetizing.  Not to be deterred, I scooped the seeds out and started slicing.  Luckily I tasted a piece before I got the food processor dirty because it was GROSS!  I'm not sure if I got an overripe or bad fruit, or if I just don't like papaya, but let's just say that our compost pile got a nice helping of papaya and Nathan didn't get any.

Onto the parsnip.  I peeled, chopped and steamed the parsnips, then tried a bite.  Not bad, kind of different.  Then I tried another piece and *whew* not good.  It reminded me of the taste of a bad, old carrot.  Again, the compost pile was the recipient of another large donation.

As I mentioned my troubles to Brian, he insightfully said  something like "there's a reason that obscure fruits and veggies are obscure", and  I may have to agree with him on that point. 

But I continued my day of cooking baby food, and ended up with some new and yummy combos. We have: green beans/carrots/sweet potatoes, carrot pieces, spinach/peas/sweet potatoes, butternut squash, sweet potatoes/carrots/butternut squash.  This should be enough for a few weeks of meals!

This week we are starting even more, exciting foods.  Today I gave Nathan "multigrain" baby cereal, which introduces barley and wheat.  Wheat is going to open up lots of new fun foods and finger foods - toast sticks and pasta, to name just two.  Then later this week I'm going to introduce onions and garlic as part of a chicken and veggie medley that I'm planning on making.  Then we'll move on to eggs and cheese next week.  Yummy and exciting!