Big Girl Seat

 So you should take note of a few things for the following pictures:  First, Eliana is sitting at the big table with the grown-ups!  She has been asking for a while now to sit in the chair (and frequently climbs into it herself), so I have put her booster seat on one of the chairs and she hasn't looked back since.  She doesn't like the "high cha" any more.  Second, Eliana has started calling all meat "bawk bawk" - as in the sound that a chicken makes.  You know you are raising a country girl (despite living in the middle of the city??) when she can recognize the connection between the chickens that run around Grandma's backyard and the chicken that you eat off of your plate.  Tonight we were having salmon, but she kept referring to it as bawk bawk.  And third, Eliana decided to do an experiment to see which utensil works best for eating yogurt: a fork or a "poon" (spoon).  The second picture may lead you to believe that she chose the 'poon.  Actually however, she decided no conclusions could be drawn from the test and she would have to continue to use both.  Sometimes at the same time. 

Zucchini fritters

Broccoli Cheddar Nuggets

I have been trying to get creative in serving vegetables to Eliana.  She actually is a very good eater and will usually eat a wide variety of plain veggies such as green beans, peas, cauliflower, and broccoli.  However, she also loves carbs and is always asking for bread a crackers.  So I have been trying out different ways to make veggies into bread like snacks.  First I made this cauliflower pizza crust.  I wasn't actually making a pizza.  Eliana was constantly asking for crackers, so I thought I could make this without toppings and cut it into squares as a cracker substitute.  I forgot to take a picture, but it mostly looked like bread.  I must have had a larger head of cauliflower because my dough turned out so dry I couldn't form it together into a crust.  I added an extra egg, but that was too much because then the dough was too soggy.  So my particular pizza crust came out pretty soft.  It didn't crisp up like I wanted it to (and I cooked it much longer than the recipe suggested, like maybe 20 min).  But it held together and Eliana liked it.  So I consider that a success.  Next I made broccoli cheddar nuggets.  Those were a big hit!  Eliana would eat them warm or cold, so they were a great snack, especially when I needed something quick.  The cheese to broccoli ratio seemed a little heavy on the cheese to me, but that probably made them more appetizing. And the vegetable experiment that was by far my favorite was the zucchini fritters.  These things were good!  Of course, what isn't good when it is fried in oil?  The zucchini fritters were really light and fluffy.  I called them zucchini cakes, and Eliana would ask for "more cake!"  I ate them with a dollop of plain yogurt on top, which was very tasty.  In conclusion, I have found that making vegetables into something is a good way to get Eliana to eat them.  However time constraints usually prevent me from making these types of things very often.  Frozen pea popsicles it is then!