I understand exactly what you mean. I have a 13 mos old who only just got started with solids a few months ago, yeah, she's a late bloomer in that dept. I have days where I panic thinking "omigosh, I have no food to feed her!". LOL.
What we've been doing recently is cooking (steam or nuke) some veggies to have on hand. I cook them, chop them up, and place them in their own plastic container. I usually have 2 or 3 different veggies ... usually zucchini, yellow neck squash, & carrots which is what she seems to like these days, plus they're easy to have on hand. I call this my "veggie medley".
Lunch this week is spaghetti. She loves tomato sauce. For protein, I add cubed (tiny cubes) tofu. Since tofu is so bland, I decided to try something new this week. I cooked spaghetti & chopped it into small pieces. I placed the spaghetti, cubed tofu, and spaghetti sauce into a Stain-Guard Rubbermaid container (it's supposed to resist tomato sauce staining) and put it in the fridge. I figure the tofu will pick up some flavor while it's mixed in with the spaghetti sauce.
... when I'm ready to serve lunch, I take some of the spaghetti/tofu mixture and then add some of the cooked veggies I already prepared (about a teaspoon each of 3 veggies, or a tables spoon each of 2 veggies). I add a little bit more spaghetti sauce, stir it up, heat it up, and my little girl just inhales the stuff. Yay, I snuck in veggies.
Last week's lunch was cooked Asian noodles with cubed tofu. Before serving, I'd take the noodles/tofu, add the veggie medley, and a few teaspoons of chicken broth for flavoring... she loved it!
Another thing I'll do is an egg scramble, tossing in the veggie medley. I usually do this with 3 eggs, so it's lunch for me and her ... so we both get our veggies.
We're still experimenting with dinner. Lately I have been using the food processor to grind up some of *our* dinner. For example, I recently made a pasta dish with sausage, bell peppers, onions, & tomatoes. I just take a bit of each ingredient, chop it up a bit, throw it into the food processor to almost puree it (per Pediatrician, we're to continue giving her pureed meats). So when dinnertime comes, I take this dinner mixture, and also add some of the veggie medley to it ... even though the dinner mixture has some veggies in it already, I figure it can't hurt to have more veggies, right?
Are yams considered a veggie? I always keep yams on hand. I cook one, then chunk it. It makes a good snack for her, and it is also filling.
