I enjoy cooking, and I'm afraid I spoil her a bit. I will whiz around cooking all kinds of things for her to see what she likes. The answer is almost everything!
I do feed her turkey sausage, also chicken sausage, bacon, pepperoni, turkey or chicken dogs, and pork sausage. I don't think she eats enough of it to worry about salt/preservatives.
I am more worried she won't get enough iron or protein. She weighs only 18 lbs so I want to give her every opportunity to get lots of protein so she can grow!
I also give her thin-sliced turkey or ham, boiled/scrambled eggs, pieces of pork chop, shredded chicken, and fish or fish sticks.
In the dairy department, we have cottage cheese (always a favorite), creme fraiche, baby yogurt, ricotta cheese, cheddar cheese or processed
cheese slices, string cheese, mozarella cheese, swiss cheese (we are working on cheeses--I want her to try them all eventually!) and whole milk.
She does the worst with breads. I give her all and any breads we have, including tortillas, pitas, hot dog rolls, and rye bread. She barely touches bread by herself these days. I have to place it in her mouth. The same with pasta. She will eat soda crackers but not as much as before. I also give her baby oatmeal using a spoon (or she can eat it herself--messy,
though). She has Cheerios or crispy brown rice cereal in the morning. For beans, I give her Boston baked beans, refried beans, pinto beans, and kidney beans (inside chili).
No nuts or peanut butter yet as allergies run in the family.
For veggies we have corn, tomatoes, potatoes, lima beans, peas, wax beans, green beans, asparagus, carrots, brocoli, spinach ...oh, what else is there. Squash, sweet potato, yams, eggplant, turnip...we have tried all kinds of veggies. She only hates the zucchini or raw onions (can you blame her?)
For fruits, the big thing right now is blueberries from our blueberry bushes. She also eats strawberries, a little cantaloupe, peaches, apples, bananas, pears, plums, what have you.
She likes apple and pear and white grape juice. Does NOT like grapefruit or grapefruit juice. She has had orange juice but not often. These juices are all diluted with water btw.
For treats, I used to give all kinds of cookies or goldfish crackers. I became concerned about sugar so now I only give graham crackers or maybe a tiny piece of white corn chip. She also eats pickles and pretzels with careful supervision. (She has about 12 teeth including some molars, and she is a good chewer.)
With cottage cheese, lima beans and blueberries, I have to be very careful. She will gorge on these things if I give her too much. She also tends to take a big handful and cram it in her mouth, so I coach her to chew. She has only choked once, on a slippery peach. She's reasonable with most other things. She is starting to not eat some things at all, particularly bread.
