Adventures in eating: yams

Last night we started Josie off on her first solid food, yams. Somehow I couldn’t find sweet potato’s in the store, so yams it was! We are following the baby-led weaning approach to eating which basically means we put very soft french-fry shaped finger food in front of her from day 1 and let her decide what to eat and how much. She was definitely ready as she was interested in the food and picked it up like a champ. She had a little trouble with not shutting her hand completely and squishing the yam out of it. But she definitely got a bunch of it in her mouth and swallowed as evidenced by her output this morning. Initially I think she was overwhelmed at all the cameras pointed at her as the food was put in front of her! The high chair unfortunately seemed to get a bit in the way with the big straps and the high table part, she was much more excited and quick to grab and shove the yams in her mouth once I put her on my lap and the yam on the table in front of her. It wasn’t as messy as I had feared, although the cats all came over to check out the goods on the floor.

I went a little nuts with the cooking yesterday and cooked all day long when Josie would let me and so the adults had quite a feast (*relative to normal dinners of mac + cheese or takeout which are more common now) as well. We had yam pie, yam, spinch, carmelized onions and fresh mozzarella pizza, and butternut squash soup. I hope to continue making double duty out of making food for Josie and food for us, such as the baked yam’s that made their way into her dinner and our dinner and dessert. The butternut squash soup happened because they were cheap at the store, it would also be a great baby/adult meal with steamed squash for the baby and soup for the adults, it was really easy once you’ve put in the effort to peel and chop the squash already. I’ll post that recipe later.

Josie’s verdict on the yams: not loving them, not hating them. The only time she spit anything out was when she bit off a chunk of yam, otherwise she seemed interested but not thrilled. We’ll try again tonight, maybe she’ll like them more.
 

 Mmmmm unbaked pizza

2 Responses to “Adventures in eating: yams”

  1. Marcus Says:

    Fun fact: “Yams and Sweet Potatoes are terms used interchangeably in the United States, but Yams in America are actually Sweet Potatoes that have a moist texture and an orange flesh. The US Department of Agriculture now requires that the label, ‘Yam’, always be accompanied by ‘Sweet Potato.'” (for more info, go here: http://tonytantillo.com/vegetables/sweetpotatoes.html).

    But, basically, what that boils down to is that you gave Josie a Yam-branded Sweet Potato. The more you know . . .

  2. Jen Says:

    Huh… good to know. So she had sweet potatos as I intended! excellent

Leave a Reply