Food Ideas For 20 Month Old

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Hey...can anyone offer any suggestions on new foods for Carrigan. She is a picky eater, but that's not a completely bad thing. She doesn't like normal kid foods such as nuggets or mac & cheese (yeah!!), but she's been gluten free for a week, and I'm really struggling on what to feed her! She likes fresh fruit and some veggies, but too many of them, and she gets D and that's the last thing she needs right now! I'm so new to this, and I'm still not sure what is OK to give her. I know that I'm safe with baked or mashed potatos and rice, but she's starting to get tired of that. I talked to her nutritionist yesterday, but every recipe she gave me was geared towards older kids or adults. There is nop way she is going to eat anything with salsa in it!!! Any suggestions would be great. Thanks

[angel-jd1]

Cheetos

Lunch meat roll ups (put cheese,mayo or leave out the mayo and roll up lunchmeat )

Gluten free pasta with cheese (velveeta works great)

Pieces/chunks of cheese

Corn Tortillas filled with lunchmeat and cheese and zaapped in the microwave then cut into pieces for finger foods

Gluten free Hot Dogs

Corn tortillas with beans and cheese

Those are a few off the top of my head.

-Jessica

[wonkabar]

Cheetos

Lunch meat roll ups (put cheese,mayo or leave out the mayo and roll up lunchmeat )

Gluten free pasta with cheese (velveeta works great)

Pieces/chunks of cheese

Corn Tortillas filled with lunchmeat and cheese and zaapped in the microwave then cut into pieces for finger foods

Gluten free Hot Dogs

Corn tortillas with beans and cheese

Those are a few off the top of my head.

-Jessica

My 3 year-old is on a gluten-free diet, so for the sake of keeping my sanity, my 18 month old is also gluten-free. It just makes things easier and less confusing. She eats all of this stuff, too! The gluten-free diet does get easier with time. "Whole foods" are always a safe bet. Don't forget to check out your personal care products, sunscreen, paints and anything else that could go in her mouth. Good luck!

--Kristy

hamburger/cheeseburger (no breadcrumbs!! )

gluten-free hot dogs (Sabrett or Market Day)

gluten-free fries (Alexia makes gluten-free fries and sweet potato fries)

Tinkaydya pasta (they make elbows and kid shapes...their pasta is THE BEST!!)

gluten-free waffles (Van's makes blueberry and apple-cinn)

gluten-free yogurt (stoneyfield farms, columbo and yoplait)

gluten-free chicken nuggets (Welshire Farms makes really good ones if you think she'd try them--Ian's, too!)

gluten-free fish sticks (Ian's)

gluten-free bread sticks, pizza dough, etc. (Chebe)

Robert's American Gourmet products (Tings, Pirate's Booty, Fruity Booty)

Gluten-Free Pantry has great pancake, choc. chip cookie, brownie and chocolate cake/cupcake mixes

(Duncan Hines Homestyle Chocolate Frosting is also gluten-free)

gluten-free icecream (check out Edy's website...we like the Caramel Delight)

gluten-free pretzles (glutino and ener-g)

gluten-free cinn cheerios (I can't think of the brand off the top of my head)

you can also check out glutenfreepantry.com and glutenfreemall.com for on-line orders.

[penguin]

gluten-free cinn cheerios (I can't think of the brand off the top of my head)

Perky-O's

[Girl Ninja]

Yogurt or pudding (i freeze tubes of both in the summer), peanut butter, cream cheese, or hummus with fruits or veggies or gluten-free crackers, peanut butter or cream cheese on mini rice cakes, popcorn (if she's old enough, maybe try a hulless one- I think Pirate's Booty has one), Trix or Cocoa Puffs, cheese (my son would only eat piles of shredded cheese, no chunks or slices ), mashed sweet potatoes or sweet potato "french fries", spaghetti squash, cheesy broccoli rice (the frozen green giant ones are ok), Chi-Chi's pouch mix corn cake (add cream corn and butter, i think), beans (I make pintos from dried beans). My son begs me to make the corn cake and beans.

[GFBetsy]

I've got a gluten-free 20 month old, too, and there are 3 things I would suggest.

1. "Saving Dinner" by Leanne Ely. It's not technically a gluten-free cookbook, but most of the recipes are naturally gluten free, and they are also delicious and really easy. Our whole family eats gluten-free dinners, as I am simply NOT going to cook 2 separate dinners every night. LOL. This cookbook is really helpful. You can find it at

Barnes & Noble, Borders, or Amazon.

2. Open Original Shared Link This website has tons of recipes that are really good. Their bread recipe makes some of the best I've had, and they also have sugar cookie and chocolate chip cookie recipes that I feed to all the neighbor kids - no one has complained yet! They also have some baking mixes (bread, waffles, and chocolate cake). I make pancakes from their waffle mix, and this week fed them to 11 or 12 visiting inlaws. They inhaled them and asked for more. And, hey, if my neices will eat them, I bet that your daughter will!

3. Sit down and do some menu planning. Rack your brains to come up with every possible variety of foods that you know how to cook and that are gluten free, and then make a list. Grilled meats, scrambled eggs, potatoes (baked, mashed, cottaged fried, etc.), soups (from scratch, but that's not as difficult as Campbell's would have you think!), stir fry, etc. Having a list of options makes it a lot easier to come up with a dinner plan (or a breakfast plan, if it comes to that).

The other thing I would suggest is: keep trying! Find a friend to cook with - that makes it much easier to try new things, because you don't feel like you're the only one in the world who is trying to cook gluten free.

Good luck!

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Thank you all so much. We are doing our best to get her to try new things, but we are having a really hard time. She is doing a little better, but I'm getting really tired of making mashed or baked potatos! LOL Thanks again!