Tofu, Pasta + Carrot...Bacon?

Saturday

Arthur synced with his mama today, which was nice - he slept in until just before 8! Ok, he woke up for a few minutes at 6:30, Miklós told me, but fell right back asleep. He had a bath this morning, and we weighed and measured him to get some ideas of his size at 8 months. It’s always a bit inaccurate when we do it at home, but our guess is that he’s 71cm or so, putting him in the 55th percentile. As for weight, he seems to have shot up to 8kg! This marks a jump from the 11th percentile to the 24th! I am thrilled; clearly all these solids are doing their stuff.

Arthur, Mama has to peeeeee!

Arthur was tired and rubbing his eyes even before his bath, so it’s no surprise that he crashed hard during his 10:00 nursing session. I eventually had to wake him up from that nap after over an hour sleeping on me. He got in another long nap at his 1:00 nursing session, which I was happy about, though that meant that he didn’t get a lot of milk in. Ah well, that meant he had more of an appetite for his solid snack!

Which, once again, was a combination of sliced raw extra-firm tofu and mango purée. Gotta get that iron in! Arthur seems to really enjoy both of these foods, and especially the process of feeding himself the tofu. He’s getting quite good at it!

Arthur got in a 20-minute nap during his 4:00 walk with his dad, which was good because he didn’t sleep or eat much during the following nursing session (we were video-chatting with Oma). So he had quite a good appetite for his solid dinner; it probably also didn’t hurt that egg was on the menu, cooked in sesame and olive oil, and seasoned with garlic powder, onion powder, and nutritional yeast. We followed it up with a new food: pasta! Well, lentil pasta, because I was cooking some for Miklós and I, but Arthur enjoyed it as well! He really likes grabbing food from his tray and sticking it in his mouth, so being able to do that with this rotini went over well.

So, on Saturday, Arthur ate:

• tofu

• mango purée

• egg

• sesame oil

• olive oil

• garlic powder

• onion powder

• nutritional yeast

• lentil pasta (new food!)

Sunday

Arthur woke up, according to Miklós, 3 minutes before I did. Despite having gotten quite a bit of sleep, he was rather grumpy during the morning, alternating fussing with chilling. Luckily, he got in a nap during his 10:00 nursing session, and was in a better mood afterwards.

A lazy Sunday morning

After accompanying his parents to the Bisschopsmolen and a long walk with Papa, Arthur was ready for another long nap during his 1:00 feeding. Which meant that he didn’t get much milk in, but again, more room for solids, right? Which, today, was more tofu, as we work our way through the block. Since he had finished off the mango purée, I paired it with a new vitamin C-source: plum! This was another ready-made purée, but a new flavor for the little dude. And one he very much approved of, if his grunts for more were any indication! Afterwards, he had a lot of fun drinking from his little shot glass, and did a pretty good job at it, too!

Arthur’s dinner was more of the egg scramble from yesterday. I mean, his parents were having eggs for dinner, so it was only fair that Arthur had some as well, right? He wolfed the whole thing down, so I gave him a couple more pieces of lentil pasta, which he was very happy to much on for dessert.

Which means Arthur’s Sunday Solid Special was:

• tofu

• plum purée (new food!)

• egg

• sesame oil

• olive oil

• garlic powder

• onion powder

• nutritional yeast

• lentil pasta

Meanwhile, the grown-ups had their first sweet potato quiche in a couple of weeks for Sunday dinner, so it was a proper Sunday again. And on Saturday, I tried a new recipe: marmite carbonara! More on the carbonara itself in the next post, but I first want to write down the recipe for a component of it: carrot bacon! Unfortunately the typical meat component of carbonara was off-limits for my vegetarian hubby, and since baby carrots were on sale, I figured it was a good excuse to try the popular "carrot bacon" I'd seen floating around various places online. I wouldn't say it really tasted like bacon; I used to make a similar marinade and use it with coconut flakes and that was much better, probably due to the added fat and crispiness. But this certainly wasn't bad at all, and was a nice way to get some veggies in with the pasta! Here's how I made it:

---

Carrot Bacon (makes ~½ cup bacon)

Ingredients

• 150g baby carrots, thinly sliced (the original recipes I’ve seen suggest using regular carrots peeled with a vegetable peeler but babies were what we had and it is a pain in the butt to try to peel them)

• 2 tbsp syrup of choice

• ¼ cup soy sauce

• 2 tsp liquid smoke

• ½ tsp paprika

• ½ tsp garlic powder

• ½ tsp onion powder

• a few grinds black pepper

Instructions

1. Mix everything but the carrots together in a dish with a lid.

2. Marinate the carrots in the mixture for at least 15 minutes up to a day.

3. Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

4. Spread carrots out on a baking tray lined with parchment paper.

5. Bake 10-15 minutes (I baked for 15), or until crisp and golden. They crisp up a bit more as they cool!