What's cookin'

What is it about toddlers and "helping" in the kitchen? Ashi LOVES opening the cupboards and putting things away where he thinks they should go (which doesn't quite match where I think they should go). And of course he likes to "cook", it looks like stewed car keys today.

The most common question it seems everyone asks me lately is "what does he eat?" Well, that's an interesting question. THIS

is what he WANTS to eat. I've been making LOTS of shiro. Basically its a whole bunch of onions and tomatoes, jalapeno, shiro powder (spices and powdered red lentils), and berbere (a dark red mix of cayenne and other spices). I throw in more lentils (yellow and brown) for texture. Then we mush it up with injera or rice. Since coming home I've been mixing in about half/half shiro with other baby foods like meat/veggie dinners, sweet potatoes or green beans. At Hannah's Hope they usually ate this for lunch and dinner, with potatoes and injera mixed in.

His breakfast in Ethiopia was eggs blended with potatoes and carrots. Sometimes they had eggs with onions, tomatoes and berbere. They also ate bananas and oatmeal. For snacks they had bowls of milk with bread chunks in it between breakfast and lunch and lunch and dinner. And everytime they ate they ate a lot! I am totally underfeeding Ashenafi, he's probably eating about half as much right now. That will get better as he gets used to American food, but he's pretty reluctant.

Here he is enjoying some good 'ol American macaroni and cheese! He feeds himself pretty well, they let the kids self feed at the orphanage, but they also had to be fed because they really wanted to get a lot of food in them. We're doing pretty well with pasta at home, tomato or cheese sauces are going down good. Meat is a little trickier. He is not accustomed to the texture, but loves breakfast sausage (who doesn't?). Yesterday he had some rotisserie chicken, so we're getting there.
Fruits and veggies are not happening. He eats bananas like a mad man, but spits out applesauce, peach or pear chunks, and veggie pieces (but will teethe on a raw carrot). I'm mixing baby fruits into his morning oatmeal (a huge bowl of oatmeal), and baby veggies into his shiro, but we're no where near our five-a-day (unless you count all the tomatoes and onions). Thank God for Poly-vi-sol! He gets Ethiopian food at least once a day (usually lunch), and has to suffer through American grub the rest of the time. If it really doesn't seem like he ate enough, I mix rice cereal in his bedtime bottle and a squirt of vitamins.