no fuss lunch

Eek! Joaquin is almost one! It's funny, when they are two months old and everyone tells you "it goes by quick!" you think, yeah right.
It sure does.
Now that I've practically got a toddler in the house, offering three solid food meals a day is a must. I've talked before about my boy not liking the pureed mush that we assume babies will magically devour at 6 months. He likes "big boy food." He wants whatever it is that I'm eating. The challenge is that I love spicy hot food. A meal that doesn't burn all the way down just isn't satisfying to me. What's a mom to do?
Rice cooker to the rescue!
This is a Yan can cook rice cooker that I bought at Target years ago. I can't remember why I bought it, but that doesn't matter. It has a vegetable steamer and I only recently realized what an amazing mom saver that is. I have been making different versions of the same thing for days now. Joaquin loves it, I love it, and Dad loves the leftovers. Win, win, win.
The vegetables steam as the "rice" cooks. I say "rice" because you would have to use white rice (though you can easily make perfect brown rice in this cooker) if you don't want to turn your steaming veggies into total mush. Instead of rice, I use quick cooking whole grains like millet, quinoa, and buckwheat. One day I even made a combo of all three. This is millet.

Since these grains are going to be eaten by an 11 month old, it's okay to err on the side of a little too much water and make the grains a touch mushy. They are still delicious, just kind of porridgy. I don't ever measure my grains and water. I simply put the grains in the pot and pour water over them til the water is one inch above the settled grains. By one inch I mean my first knuckle. Place your finger on the grain and add water until it touches your first knuckle. Add a little more if you are cooking for baby. My sister in law, Alice, taught me this trick. (Thanks Alice!)
Joaquin loves asparagus, green beans, carrots, broccoli and tofu. You can put one or ALL of these in the steamer basket.



While your grains cook, the veggies steam. Brilliant! To make it all the more wonderful they are cooked sans oil, salt or any baby unfriendly spices.
When the vegetables are cooked soft enough for a baby to easily chew, I toss the veggies into a bowl and add different toppings. Some that we like are:
Avocado
hemp oil
braggs liquid aminos (just a touch)
ground walnuts
olives
bubbies pickles
goddess dressing
We always add the hemp oil and the Braggs, and leave the rest up to our mood.
We toss our mixture of the day together and then we eat together out of the same bowl.A little hand that can't wait to get some num-nums.

With the first bowl we take turns having bites, I praise him when he puts it in his mouth rather that throw it across the table, and he gets to practice with the fork. For the second serving, Joaquin gets to feed himself in the high chair and I get to put sirracha all over my veggies.