Dinnertime SOS for Babies & Toddlers with @yummytoddlerfood Amy Palanjian

Katie Ferraro (1s):

What if when you woke up in the morning you knew exactly which new food your baby should be eating today? Does it sound like a dream? It is. I know because I'm living it. I'm actually following my own hundred first days meal plan for baby-led weaning with Baby Ezra. So Baby Ezra is my friend Carissa's baby. He's six months plus one week he just started solid foods. We are in week one of baby lead weaning and he's following our framework to eat five new foods each week. So I'm making all of Ezra's a hundred first foods. And so this week for week one we're doing avocado, zucchini, sweet potato, lamb, and yogurt. So I'm following my own a hundred first day's meal plan and creating some new recipes along the way with safer, easier ways to help your baby successfully eat 100 safe new foods before Turning one If you are looking for some new food inspiration with safe food preparation you can follow along with Ezra's 100 First Foods Journey.

Katie Ferraro (56s):

I'm on Instagram @babyledweanteam and If you would like to follow the same hundred first days meal plan with the exact sequence of which new food to do on which day comes with a weekly menu, daily recipes, the shopping list for each week. I've literally done all of the work for you and it's all available inside of my Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro program. I also have a 100 First Foods content library component of this program where you can pick your own five foods, If you want to and then learn inside of there how to make each of the foods safe. It's kind of like you choose your own adventure approach, but whichever route you choose, whether you wanna follow my exact hundred first day's meal plan and I do all the work for you or If, you wanna pick your own five foods each week and I'll show you how to make them safe.

Katie Ferraro (1m 40s):

Everything you need to get started is at babyledweaning.co/program and I hope to see you there. So I'm a little old school, I feel lame even admitting this, but actually love email, like writing emails to my email newsletter is one of my most favorite work tasks and every week I send out a baby-led weaning roundup email with a recap of what's new that week in infant feeding. The weekly newsletter is packed with baby feeding nutrition tips, recipe ideas and answers to some of your most frequently asked questions about starting solid foods safely. So If, you like reading email, I'd love to have you on my email newsletter. All you have to do to sign up is head to babyledweaning.co.

Katie Ferraro (2m 21s):

Then scroll to the bottom and drop your email address. Again, that's babyledweaning.co and I'll shoot you some useful infant feeding information by email starting this week.

Amy Palanjian (2m 32s):

We always have either frozen chicken nuggets or like chicken tenders or fish sticks in the freezer as like an easy protein option. That is one thing that I can then like cut up and put on top of pasta. I can put it into tacos, we can put it in burritos. It's just like a nice backup to have on hand. I almost always have a jar of marinara sauce or tomato sauce in the pantry, which I use on spaghetti, but also as like the poaching liquid for chicken or for fish or sometimes eggs.

Katie Ferraro (2m 59s):

Hey there. I'm Katie Ferraro, registered dietitian, college nutrition professor and mom of seven specializing in baby-led weaning here on the Baby Led Weaning Made Easy podcast I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding, leaving you with the confidence and knowledge you need to give you your baby a safe start to solid foods using baby-led weaning. Now when it comes time to make dinner for your family, are you the type of person that plans out every dinner for the week on Sunday and then you actually have all the ingredients on hand and then you actually make those meals? Or do you wing it and try to figure it out day by day?

Katie Ferraro (3m 41s):

My guest today, she's coming in hot with a Dinnertime SOS plan. If, you are cooking for Little Babies and kids. I'm so excited to have Amy Palanjian from Yummy Toddler Food on the podcast today to talk about strategies for making Dinnertime with kids a less stressful and maybe even enjoyable experience. Amy is a cookbook author, content creator and a mom of three. She runs the wildly popular Instagram site and website, both called Yummy Toddler Food. Amy recently published her second cookbook, this one's called Dinnertime SOS, 100 Sanity Saving Meals, parents and kids of all ages will actually want to eat and I loved getting to chat with her. I've never met her before. I don't follow a lot of other kid feeding accounts on Instagram for lots of reasons, but hers is so real, her recipes are so good and I really appreciate and applaud Amy's messages and her philosophy about feeding kids and families.

Katie Ferraro (4m 33s):

She's gonna be sharing a little bit about her own experience starting solid foods with her oldest child and what she went through as well as the one thing that she wishes that everyone who feeds Toddlers would really stop doing when it comes to food. So with no further ado, here's Amy Palanjian from Yummy Toddler Food.

Amy Palanjian (4m 52s):

Hi. Thank you for having me.

Katie Ferraro (4m 54s):

I am excited to strategize about Dinnertime solutions when you have small kids. Before we start though, can you tell us a little bit about your professional background? How did you come to create your brand yummy toddler food?

Amy Palanjian (5m 4s):

So I worked for over a decade in magazine. So I worked as a food editor, a lifestyle editor, a freelance writer. And so I worked in an industry that was steadily contracting. So I lost every magazine job I had and there was a point after my daughter was born that I just like, there was a gap in the dialogue and resources about feeding little kids at that time, it was over 10 years ago. There were not like toddler specific anything really. And all of the kids' recipes I was finding were for older kids so she couldn't chew them like they were too crunchy, too hard. There were a lot of choking hazards.

Amy Palanjian (5m 44s):

And so I, since I knew how to develop recipes, I honestly, I didn't know what I was doing from like a blogging perspective, but I had like a very basic Squarespace site and picked a name. Like I asked a couple friends and we like picked Yummy Toddler Food 'cause we thought it sounded happy and then just started putting recipes online. And so I did that like on the side for about four years as I worked in magazines, as I worked as a freelance writer. And then there was a point that I was, I knew the job I had was gonna go away 'cause I could tell the signs. And so I had to make a decision to like learn how to be a blogger in a way that could be my career and my income.

Amy Palanjian (6m 25s):

So I listened to lots of podcasts, I learned about SEO, I had my website formatted properly. It's like amazing the difference when you actually do things the way that you're supposed to for Google.

Katie Ferraro (6m 37s):

Yeah, imagine that.

Amy Palanjian (6m 38s):

Yeah, I was like, oh this is interesting. It's the same content, it is just formatted correctly and now I can like earn a living. So it's been my full-time job for four over four years now.

Katie Ferraro (6m 49s):

You can always tell like the OGs who refer to themselves as bloggers, which isn't technically a thing anymore. Yeah, but you're not calling yourself an influencer and I, I caught that because you have but your, but your blog, your website is still like where people go to find your recipes. Although I know you know Instagram is very important and I, I love your content on Instagram. I think your recipes are so creative but like so doable for busy families and I'm really glad that you tackled dinnertime in your newest book 'cause I know you'd written a cookbook previously. So how is this new book different? What inspired you to write it? Like how is the experience different doing this cookbook versus your previous one?

Amy Palanjian (7m 23s):

So the previous cookbook was a cookbook for kids that was, it's very visual like the pages are wipe clean, it's called food play. And that was really a way to like involve kids in the kitchen. So that came out in 2020 and then I had this idea to do a dinnertime cookbook that really was meant to like meet parents and families where they are at like 5:00, 5:30 where there is all sorts of things going on. Everybody is tired and lower on energy but still needs to eat dinner. To be honest with you, I could not find a publisher who would publish it because it was like my brand name was even with

Katie Ferraro (7m 59s):

Your following I feel like they would be like knocking down your door.

Amy Palanjian (8m 2s):

It was long enough ago. Okay so I like had the idea for this like five years ago when I was not as large as I am now, but like my brand name, the publishers were like, well where do we put this in the bookstore? Is it like a baby food book? Is it a regular book? They were like very confused. So it wasn't until I had a large enough platform that someone was able to be like, well maybe we don't know where we're gonna put it in the bookstore but we trust her that this is the thing that her audience needs. So that took a little bit of time but I really like, I just, I wanted there to be a resource that someone could open a book and be like, yes I have these five things in my pantry.

Amy Palanjian (8m 42s):

I can combine them and serve my family a meal and also have all of the tips in one place for like what to do when your kid doesn't want to eat what, how to reduce food waste. Like all of the context that comes up around feeding a family.

Katie Ferraro (8m 58s):

So you had a different publisher for the second book?

Amy Palanjian (9m 1s):

Yes, it was a different publisher.

Katie Ferraro (9m 2s):

I know there's a part in your book where you say, and this is a quote, women in particular tend to put kids in partners first and while I know it can be hard to center our needs, it can go a long way towards helping us feel more included and seen in the middle of often chaotic meal times. So I keep my desires front of mind and then factor in the preferences of kids and I was like underlining nodding my head so hard. Yes when I read this like because we do do that as parents you think of these two distinct entities, there's adult food and then there's kid food and then maybe there's baby food too. But like you don't put up with that stuff. You're like we can make everyone to some degree happy. And that's what I love about your approach. Do you have some concrete examples of how you put your needs at the forefront since you're the one actually making the food here?

Katie Ferraro (9m 46s):

Like how do you actually make that happen in real life for your own family?

Amy Palanjian (9m 49s):

So when I'm looking at what we're going to eat for dinner over the course of the week, I like literally choose meals that I want. So I am like this week I really wanna have breaded chicken and that may or may not be something that is like my kids' favorite, but then I will build the meal around that and then I will make sure that I'm including like one or two foods that I know my kids like. So the other night we had burrito bowls, which my girls love black beans, they love tortillas and cheese. I made the chicken to go with mine and then like everybody picked and chose what they wanted. So I am making sure that there are meals that I want because it just gives me extra motivation to cook.

Amy Palanjian (10m 32s):

And then also to be able to like model for the kids that it's important that everyone get a chance to eat food that they love and that that's not necessarily gonna always be the kids every night but that like mom's needs are important too and like everybody can have a chance to have their favorite thing

Katie Ferraro (10m 51s):

And I love that 'cause you're not, I mean I think so often like that approach can get misinterpreted well that's short order cooking 'cause you made one food for that. It's like no I didn't, I put a few things in there that we're all trying to eat but like there are some variations based on ability, preference, maybe food allergies, like I think that's much more positive way to look at it is like hey everyone's getting something they like here.

Amy Palanjian (11m 10s):

And in my mind that's like a perfect example of a deconstructed meal where there is like an overarching like cohesive idea of a burrito bowl and then there are multiple components where everyone can pick and choose. I was not cooking the kids like mac and cheese to go with next to the chicken. I was putting things that would go with it. So I had some of everything in my bowl and then they just chose like what they wanted.

Katie Ferraro (11m 34s):

I love the part of your book where you introduce it, you're gonna think of these years as like the taco years. It's like oh thank goodness like we have tacos for everything. But when you're teaching about baby lead weaning, it's like I'm not gonna give the seven month old a fish taco. However when I take the crispy crunchy part off of the to that that fish protein there that's nice and soft once I checked it for bones, those tomatoes that I can cut into quarters for older babies strips of the tortilla that I do need to soften because it can be a choking hazard when it dry. They're not eating the fish taco but we're eating the same components of the meal and I'm helping the baby get to the point where when they do have the ability to eat, they've already been conditioned like oh we all eat the same foods in this family. And so that whole deconstructed meal idea, it works great for babies and for toddlers and then at the end of the day you're eating the food that you want to as well.

Katie Ferraro (12m 17s):

So I just, I love this approach. I also as a dietitian who does not give 2 cents about how much your baby eats 'cause that's not what's important when babies are learning how to eat. I have to say that your take on portion sizes is so refreshing and you said in your current book there's nothing wrong if your family of four needs more food and it's not a problem if your family needs less food. And then I love that you kind of went into notating that a lot of recipes include portion sizes that are dictated by diet culture, which I'm not a cookbook author, I never thought about it like that. Can you talk a little bit about portion sizes in the context of diet culture?

Amy Palanjian (12m 52s):

Yeah so there's, and this this comes up a lot with like snack foods or pre-portioned things where people or even like yogurt or some anything that has a nutrition label. Many people, so food look at nutrition label. Yeah food will look at a nutrition label and they'll see the serving size and they will think that's the amount that I need to eat or that my child needs to eat when that may or may not be true. Like the best guide for a portion size is everyone's unique hunger, the amount of food you have for a particular meal, who else needs to eat it. Like there are all of these other factors that go into it. So with recipes in particular, like there are certain things you have to do as a recipe writer and you have to let people know how much food they're gonna get generally speaking so that they know how many people generally it will serve.

Amy Palanjian (13m 41s):

And so I was trying to give enough information that a family would know, like this might make enough for us as like the main dish but we probably need something on the side. But I didn't want anyone to like literally divide the pasta into six and then be like this is how much we eat. Because that is, that's an example of diet culture 'cause that is an external way of checking how much food you need rather than being able to tap into your internal cues.

Katie Ferraro (14m 11s):

Hey, we're gonna take a quick break but I'll be right back.

Katie Ferraro (15m 5s):

I teach you a 100 First Foods approach. So we teach the baby seed a hundred foods before they turn one in one component of our program with recipes. We redid it by removing anything about portion size because to be honest, anytime you see like a portion size and parents will be like, I saw this portion guide for Babies on an Instagram account. It's like, well guess what? They made it up because there's no peer review published portion sizes for infant age six to 12 months. And also everyone knows portion sizes are bogus to begin with, but we started focusing on yield for the same thing. Like families want to make like, sorry, they're not gonna make a pork roast every single day, but we want the child to continually have the exposure to you make one pork roast, here's about how much you can expect to get, here's about how long it might last your family and how many times the baby might be able to eat it.

Katie Ferraro (15m 46s):

But when they say like what's the exact portion size, it's like I, not to be a contrarian but I refuse to answer that question because it doesn't matter. Every baby's different. And when you publish a portion guide that you made up, all you're doing is setting that family up for failure because unless that baby eats the exact same amount that some random dietitian made up or not dietitian, a blogger or some, honestly a lot of people teaching about nutrition that frankly have no business doing it, especially in the baby space that all the families feel is like, oh my gosh, my baby didn't eat that exact amount so I must be terrible at feeding a baby. I'm like, no, you're amazing that you made a pork butt for your baby. But like how much it makes varies and like, and also I think your audience probably has a lot of the same characteristics as ours sometimes. you know, having kids is the first time they ever really even cooked like oh shoot, real food doesn't magically appear on the table and So there is a learning curve here but I think just removing the portion size, it helps you focus on the parts of the meal that really do matter and the exact amount that the child eats does not matter.

Amy Palanjian (16m 38s):

Yeah and I think it just, it allows you to actually pay more attention to trusting the child and their appetite. Like someone sent me DM just this morning that was a picture of the sweet potato mac and cheese from my cookbook and she was like, it was delicious. My baby didn't eat any of it and and like she put like some like laughing emojis and I was like, and she said something about like baby attitude and I was like, your baby wasn't hungry. Like it wasn't

Katie Ferraro (17m 1s):

About or doesn't know how to eat that food yet.

Amy Palanjian (17m 3s):

Like right, right, right. Like I was like, I am fairly certain it was nothing to do with the recipe. Like it was, I wish that the assumption was that like we're gonna trust the baby's hunger, we're gonna trust the toddler's hunger as a starting point because I just find that that makes everything easier.

Katie Ferraro (17m 21s):

I love that the book captured you cooking and eating with your kids in the picture. I know your kids are way past the baby phase, but just curious, can you take us back to when you started solid foods with your oldest child? Like what was the thing that you were most scared about when you entered that new phase as a new mom? And then how did that change with Babies number two and then number three if it did at all?

Amy Palanjian (17m 41s):

So it was very different. So when I had my first stutter I was, I have changed a lot in the way that I think about food and I was, I really bought into the fear mongering messages out there that if a baby has sweetss or quote unquote processed food before a certain age that that's gonna like ruin them or turn them into picky eaters. So I fed her, I mean I made everything from scratch. I was very scared. We did do baby lead weaning and she was a voracious eater and so it was like delightful to feed her because she loved everything. But at the same time, like when she was one and she had a lot of opinions about what she wanted to eat and didn't eat, I just was like, I felt all the time that I was sort of on the edge of doing something wrong that was going to have like a cascading snowball effect.

Amy Palanjian (18m 36s):

Which I then like just from learning more about intuitive eating, learning more about responsive eating, learning from other experts, I just learned that is not an accurate depiction of how feeding kids work. That was me internalizing cultural messages around me. And so with the second two kids I was much more able to trust them when I fed them something and they wanted a lot of it or not a lot of it. And then I was like, I just got to be so much more laid back with allowing them to eat a broad range of food and then knowing that over the course of a week or over the course of the month they would have a variety and I didn't have to try to control it in the same way.

Katie Ferraro (19m 18s):

I love that. And I think sometimes, you know, we always talk, especially in our line of business, you know we're making content but we're also selling products and you're always trying to, you know, speak to the conversation that that the customer, the parent is having in their mind and that you can go back there and remember exactly what that felt like. I think that is so important and why your content resonates so much with parents. 'cause sometimes it's easy. I mean I have seven kids, I have now fed thousands of other Babies but I can still remember like that feeling of shame when I couldn't get my oldest to eat off of the spoon and my mom invited me to go to a lunch date but I wouldn't go because I didn't wanna see her struggling, me struggling to get my baby to eat and like that feels like yesterday and she just turned nine like sometimes those, again those cultural messages like you're a mom, you shouldn't know how to feed your baby, you're a dietitian mom and you can't feed your baby like what's your problem?

Katie Ferraro (20m 5s):

And like every single day when parents send me messages and like that's how they're feeling, I immediately go back there. I'm like, I, I would like will that ever, well I'd be like 80 and still like traumatized by the time I tried to force feed my daughter by a spoon. But I do appreciate you you know, sharing your background and I know you wanna remind parents that like listen at the end of the day we always say you know when you start solid foods like you have to feed this person for the next 17 and a half years of, of their life and like we can commiserate and like but at the end of the day like having some tools and having things that work for your family is going to serve you not just in the immediate future but down the road as well. Since we're helping our children formulate you know, the basis of their future relationship with food with baby-led weaning, it's kind of an anomaly in the baby space 'cause it is one of the few things that appeals to second time or seasoned parents.

Katie Ferraro (20m 45s):

I know you did it with your oldest but a lot of times what we end up with our parents who are like, listen, I struggled with spoon feeding my oldest, now that child is a toddler, they are not a lover of all foods, whatever you wanna call that. So then the family will be interested in trying something new with the next baby and that's kind of when they tend to stumble upon baby led weaning. So could you give us some tips for incorporating a toddler like the older child in the experience If you have a baby in the house starting solid foods and everybody needs to learn how to eat. If it's true that kids are more, you know, aptt to eat foods that they had a hand in preparing, how do you realistically do that when you're trying to like take care of and prep food for a baby as well as an older kid?

Amy Palanjian (21m 21s):

It can depend a lot on your context and You don't have to go like all in like you, you do not have to be making meals like start to finish with a toddler at any point regardless of who else is in your family. But I think that there are really easy ways to help a toddler or preschooler like two to four engage with food when they are either watching you prepare a meal or sitting with you at the table. So some things that my son loves to do are like wash salad greens and like help me push on the salad spinner. Or if we get like a big head of broccoli breaking the florets off just like touching the food.

Amy Palanjian (22m 3s):

It does not have to be like a cooking class. Like we don't have to be chopping. And so things like that. Like the other night he helped me pit cherries, which he needed a little help like pushing the cherry pitter but that was a way that he didn't want to eat what I had made for dinner when I told him what was for dinner and then as I was getting everything to the table I had to get the cherries ready and I was like, do you wanna help me do this? And he was like, yes. And that helped him calm down enough to then come to the table with less anxiety. Some other options would be to like give a toddler like a novel utensil, like a pair of tongs or a big salad fork, which is sort of funny and let them eat with that. I did have the experience that my older kids were very interested in trying the baby food when we were feeding Babies.

Amy Palanjian (22m 48s):

If your older child asked to try something or they asked to try it the way that you've given it to the baby, I would totally give that to them. Like if you've cut sweet potato in a certain way or you made meatballs like a different shape, like I would just know that it's totally fine to let the older kid like eat that type of food too.

Katie Ferraro (23m 7s):

What are some good shortcut foods that you always have on hand that save you time at dinner?

Amy Palanjian (23m 13s):

We always have either frozen chicken nuggets or like chicken tenders or fish sticks in the freezer as like an easy protein option. I sometimes do make it from scratch as I mentioned like a little bit ago. But that is one thing that I can then like cut up and put on top of pasta. I can put it into tacos, we can put it in burritos. It's just like a nice backup to have on hand. I almost always have a jar of marinara sauce or tomato sauce in the pantry, which I use on spaghetti but also as like the poaching liquid for chicken or for fish or sometimes eggs. So that is a good one. We always have a ton ton of canned beans. Circling back to the comment about this phase being like the taco phase of my life, I did use to cook beans from scratch but then I just like, but

Katie Ferraro (23m 57s):

Then you had three kids and a full-time job. I know I was like

Amy Palanjian (23m 59s):

I know I was like it's so I would like, I don't wanna cook beans every weekend.

Katie Ferraro (24m 4s):

Also a can of beans. The other thing I would always argue, they're always cooked perfectly. Like you give a baby an undercooked bean, you're gonna destroy their gut but like a canned bean. Mm perfect. Like they're not gonna mess it up in that process.

Amy Palanjian (24m 14s):

Right. And then I don't have to worry about like thawing it if I put them in the freezer. So

Katie Ferraro (24m 19s):

Mine is like the butternut squash that's already peeled and cut up like I know I could do it myself. It is just like I do not have time and I like it hurts my hand at the end of the squash and like someone else did it for me. So I, I feel like that's like sometimes like my like luxury convenience item, I'm like I know that the cost per ounce on this is insane but to me it's worth it to not have to cut that butter squash.

Amy Palanjian (24m 39s):

Well also if it's like the difference of you actually getting it on onto the table, I feel like that's worth like the little bit more.

Katie Ferraro (24m 46s):

But then sometimes I think my kids like maybe will never know what a butternut squash actually looks like. It doesn't come out of a clamshell already cut out. I'm like this is what it used to look like but I don't have the time to cut it. Right.

Amy Palanjian (24m 58s):

Which

Katie Ferraro (24m 58s):

Kitchen appliance gets the most use in your house? Like when you're testing recipes? So that's

Amy Palanjian (25m 1s):

Like two different questions. So the kitchen appliance that gets the most use in my kitchen just generally speaking is my blender. Okay. So I got a Vitamix when I was pregnant with my second daughter and I still use the same one. It is like not new looking So, there are always comments like when I post something using the blender, the people are like do you, is your blender o like

Katie Ferraro (25m 20s):

You know they make newer ones like of course they do but it works fine.

Amy Palanjian (25m 24s):

I know I'm like it works amazingly well. So we use that, I mean I use that to like grind up oats to make oat flour, to like grind up sunflower seeds to make sunflower seed butter on the occasion that I do that. But also just for like shakes and smoothies and puring sauces like I, we use that often multiple times a day. I do use my food processor for grinding up vegetables.

Katie Ferraro (25m 46s):

Yeah 'cause it takes too long to cut 'em.

Amy Palanjian (25m 48s):

Yeah. Or If you need like a finer texture for something. And then I do use my air fryer quite a bit because my oven is beautiful but it takes forever to preheat So If. I wanna cook something and not wait a half an hour to start cooking it. Then I use the air fryer.

Katie Ferraro (26m 4s):

See I wanted to love the air fryer and I'm cooking for 10 people like every night. So like just from a volume standpoint I just ended up giving it to my parents the Excel. I was like why am I doing this five times It was taking forever or the kids would like the first kids would start eating the first batch and I'd turn around and be like no it's for dinner. And then they were like eating it as I go. So I kind of gave up on the air fryer because it was like just from like a food production. This is not a quantity food production situation. My mom and dad love it for two people. But yeah

Amy Palanjian (26m 31s):

It makes just enough for my family. What do

Katie Ferraro (26m 34s):

You like in the air fryer?

Amy Palanjian (26m 36s):

So I like it for reheating anything that has like a crispy breading because it actually makes it crispy. We do roasted frozen broccoli in the the air fryer so it's like just roasted broccoli but I just like dump a bag of frozen broccoli in and it evaporates all the ice and then you toss it with olive oil that is really yummy. Roasted potatoes. Roasted sweet potatoes. The other day I made like a really fast non pizza so like non bread with just a little bit of pizza sauce and mozzarella. Good idea. So it was like three minutes, it was really fast and like the perfect texture for a little kid to eat 'cause it was very soft. Hey

Katie Ferraro (27m 14s):

We're gonna take a quick break but I'll be right back. I love that you acknowledge the texture too because a lot of like recipes I think that bloggers and stuff come up with you're like oh super cute but like not gonna spend 20 minutes decorating the celery stick or whatevers. Plus like they're not gonna eat the crunchy celery 'cause like they can't even do that physiologically yet. So I love that you're always taking into account the texture but also acknowledging that like children don't just have to have like soft white multiple carbohydrates. Like we can incorporate other foods without like smashing nutrition messaging down your throat. Like you are just leading by example showing a wide variety of recipes and I love that 'cause you'll do dinner, you'll do breakfast, we have dessert in my house, so here's my dessert recipe.

Katie Ferraro (27m 58s):

And then everybody you know has their own comments about feeding kids dessert, which I admire you for even sometimes responding to them. I have a question about tofu because you mentioned like the protein that you have in the freezer and I feel like this is where I suffer sometimes. My husband is originally from Texas and he's like I wish we ate more meat. And I was like, I wish meat didn't take so long to like actually think about and prepare. So sometimes if I'm not like prepared with protein, like the only defrosted protein I have in my kitchen right now is tofu. Like we can sometimes do stir fries with it. I sometimes like we'll put it in manana cotta 'cause like Rico coated cheese is really expensive but like what else can you do with tofu? Not, I don't, I'm never hiding it like it's a source of protein and it's cheap, it's a good source of iron. Like what are some other things I could do with it?

Amy Palanjian (28m 38s):

So I would recommend, I don't know which type you buy, but I prefer like the extra firm kind. So my two favorite ways are baked tofu. It's a very quick marinade, it has like four ingredients, it's like an Asian flavor and then you bake it and so it winds up tasting like the marinated tofu you would get at the Whole Foods salad bar but it's not like $15 a pound. So that would be one and then you can use it like you can put it on salad, you can have it with a stir fry. It's sort of like all purpose because the flavor is not super strong. So it's very versatile. I also love sauteing tofu in sesame oil as like a very basic one breaded tofu either as like a nugget shape like diced or in slices is very yummy.

Amy Palanjian (29m 27s):

So you can pan fry that or you can bake that in the oven. So it's sort of like a chicken cutlet but with tofu in the middle.

Katie Ferraro (29m 33s):

You mentioned earlier that like you actually do you say I'm gonna pick out the foods for the week and you're I think kind of joking but not also like you are gonna make it foods that you like but do you have like a day of the week that you sit down and write it out? I mean it's maybe part of your content creation schedule but can you do the whole week like I'm always like are people really doing like five days worth of meal planning on Sunday? Like what works for your family? I get to like Tuesday and I'm like let's go out for dinner.

Amy Palanjian (29m 59s):

Yeah. So for me, I really don't wanna go to the grocery store more than once a week. We live in a college town and like it's too crowded. I just like, I don't, I don't wanna do it. So on Sunday or Monday depending, because it is tied into my work so I need to know the groceries I need for shooting photos and testing recipes and any videos and then I need to know what I need for the rest of the meals for my family. So I try to like plan when I'm making stuff for work so that we can have time to eat it. It may or may not work out. Like right now I have a Turkey in my refrigerator, like a roasted Turkey. It's where I'm

Katie Ferraro (30m 38s):

Like hard to find a Turkey when it's not Thanksgiving time. So good for you on that.

Amy Palanjian (30m 43s):

Yes, I currently have four turkeys. It's a very long story. I'm working with a brand and they wanted the content early and they sent me four and I was like that's more, that's three more than I need a

Katie Ferraro (30m 54s):

Love Turkey.

Amy Palanjian (30m 54s):

Yeah. So anyway, I made it yesterday and so now it's sitting in my fridge 'cause I'm sort of like who wants to eat Turkey in August? So I probably will freeze that and like pull it out when it's colder. Awesome. But I, yeah I do plan and then like I try to allow myself when we get to Tuesday or Wednesday the flexibility to change my mind if I need to so I can like look and see if we have a lot of leftovers. We may have like a random assortment of foods to clear out the leftovers instead of cooking something. So to help myself do that, I buy a lot of vegetables that are frozen or I use like pan like the meals later in the week.

Amy Palanjian (31m 36s):

I try to have them include less fresh things so that I'm not so they don't have to go back to the store. Right. Oh and also so that it doesn't matter if we push that meal to the weekend or the following week because the food's not gonna go bad.

Katie Ferraro (31m 48s):

Yeah. One thing I've noticed about bigger kids, my, I have a 9-year old, I have a set of quadruplets that are seven and a set of twins that are five. The seven year olds right now. I mean they're playing a lot of sports and it's like what's for dinner? What's for dinner? And like my oldest one never did that. So it's like well the answer's always I don't know but like if I tell you something and then I change the plan it like it kind of stresses them out. They're like I thought we were having chili mac. I was like well we're going to, well what day? It's like oh maybe I should actually plan it out. But I like that you say you have the flexibility to change, which is important too 'cause I don't want them to be so regimented. Like sometimes plans change, like kids need to learn that but it maybe wouldn't be the worst thing if I had an answer besides I don't know. So you've inspired me to maybe do some more planning not to go negative but do you have any like least favorite like kind of toddler food tropes that you wanna hear less of in the online or the parenting space?

Amy Palanjian (32m 37s):

I just wish that we would stop labeling every toddler as picky. Like I wish we could just leave them be because the thing that happens when you just lean into using that word when you like can't, when you're serving food and the child doesn't want it, you're missing all of the potential reasons why and I just don't feel like it gives you the opportunity to like improve the dynamic at all. If the dynamic of meals is stressing you out, it just becomes complaining.

Katie Ferraro (33m 5s):

I feel you so hard on that too. And I have to be so careful as a dietitian 'cause there certainly is you know, pediatric feeding disorder and we do have severe extreme picky eating and there are situations where like this is a clinical situation where you do need a trained therapist but like 99.99% of what I'm working with, which is like neurotypical healthy term, your seven month old is not picky, they just need lots of exposures. You don't, you're not off the hook for broccoli. Sorry. But I feel like you have a such a better way of saying that and I'm always like I can't say that but I never even use that word like to describe my own kids or anyone else's kids but everyone else uses it.

Amy Palanjian (33m 37s):

Yeah and I get that like I fully understand that it's frustrating. I just like, I know how differently I feel feeding. Like my third child is the one who eats has been like the most unpredictable with what he eats and I would never call him picky but he doesn't eat a lot of foods like but the thing that helps me is I just trust him and his appetite and when I start there and he doesn't eat dinner, I assume it's because he's not very hungry and that assumption versus labeling him as picky and seeing him as a problem to solve changes the way I act and I, I just feel like it must feel better to him to like not feel like I'm trying to fix him all the time or not feel like I'm trying to always convince him to eat in a different way.

Amy Palanjian (34m 27s):

I just let him eat the way that he eats like within the sort of structure of our family.

Katie Ferraro (34m 33s):

I love that And it's the absence of the word which is sometimes hard 'cause If you get online and you start talking about why I don't use the word picky. It's like I think people see the way you're interacting with your kids and when you put it that way it's so eloquent the way you just put it. It some of that is it is your third child if it was your first child and they weren't eating you some you literally like this child might actually die if they don't eat that meal. Like you don't know that 'cause you never saw that. Sometimes kids go to bed hungry and when they wake up they eat a really huge breakfast just like we do sometimes and and trusting that process. But I think a lot of times parents have to hear that message and then they live it themselves and then the third kid they're not as worried. Now sometimes we do have obviously severe situations where the child's palate is so limited that it's affecting them nutritionally but then that's when we call in the experts if there truly is a problem.

Katie Ferraro (35m 14s):

I think we're just so quick to label and diagnose our children with that word that I would love to see it removed from the vernacular as well. So at least there's two of us not using it. What's your favorite recipe from the Dinnertime SOS cookbook and why?

Amy Palanjian (35m 27s):

I don't know that I can pick one. There are a couple breakfast for dinner recipes in the book and the pancakes I love just because you can stick it in the oven. So I made those last night I made two sheet pans so that we could have it for dinner and then they also had it for breakfast. So that is the current

Katie Ferraro (35m 43s):

Favorite. Your sheet pan pancakes changed my life. Like I stopped making pancakes. Well I have an electric pancake maker 'cause I always like just burn the regular ones. But then we just started making pancakes are circular but in baby led weaning we cut things about the size of an adult pinky fingers so the baby can pick it up. Started cooking everything in a mini loaf pan and I was like, like Amy's sheet pan pancakes. It's, that's what the mini loaf pan is to us. Like why have I been making these encircle things on a grill with like lots of dishes? So I love that. Ours is, I love your pepperoni bread recipe. I had never had anything like that until we went oh really? On a road trip this summer and we went to Chicago, we were going to a Cubs game and my neighbor, my cousin lives close by Wrigley Field and she made this like amazing pepperoni bread for an appetizer And I was like to my kids like these are the same ingredients you literally have like once a week in pepperoni pizza.

Katie Ferraro (36m 29s):

But they were like pepperoni bread, this is amazing. So I made yours and I loved that like I was like sorry Amy but I don't have time to actually on the next page you have the recipe to make the pizza dough. And I was like, if it says yeast like I know I'm gonna mess it up. But I just got like the pre-made one from Trader Joe's, a couple of 'em.

Amy Palanjian (36m 45s):

That's why the dough recipe is not in the main recipe. I love it because I wanted, I made sure that all of the homemade stuff that takes longer was the sub recipe and not included in the main recipe. 'cause I did want people to do what you do.

Katie Ferraro (36m 56s):

Yeah and and I just learned recently that you can like go to your local pizza shop and be like, can I just buy the dough? Like I mean ask for Dough If. you don't have a Trader Joe's or whatever If you store doesn't have it. But I thought it was awesome and we made the pepperoni bread. I absolutely loved it. So thank you for that recipe. I know I like to kind of end interviews. My goal personally with baby-led weaning work is I wanna make force feeding Babies by spoons a thing of the past because Babies can eat so many more foods than we give them credit for. What do you hope for as the outcome of your work in the toddler and child food space?

Amy Palanjian (37m 25s):

I hope that we can get to a place where we're raising kids who are capable and confident to eat when they are in situations without us. And that who can eat a range of food without ever feeling badly about themselves. If for eating, like being able to eat desserts and broccoli and pasta and kale and quinoa and all of the different things without giving moral value. And I would love that foundation to start in the younger years so that when kids get to be a little bit older and they're in adolescence and in high school and are starting to feed themselves as young adults, that they are able to have a more holistic relationship with food that does not get them stuck in diet culture.

Amy Palanjian (38m 12s):

Because almost every adult I know has had to work hard or doesn't recognize it yet to get themselves out of that. And I would love kids to not have to be in it to begin with. Hey,

Katie Ferraro (38m 24s):

We're gonna take a quick break, but I'll be right back. I love that we spent like what intuitive eating is literally as an adult retraining yourself to be the way you were born as a baby, which when you instinctively knew when you were hungry and stopped eating when you were full and like it does begin early in life and and that's a lot of pressure for us as parents, but at the end of the day we, we do have the opportunity to help our kids not deal with a lot of the same food s h i t that the rest of us had too. Like

Amy Palanjian (38m 57s):

One of the most surprising things about my social media is that my TikTok following like a quarter of my followers on TikTok are like 20 year olds. And it is a lot of kids who are learning how to cook for themselves for the first time and they, and like the feedback on being able to incorporate all sorts of different foods without the baggage has been so amazing. And I just love like that there's like college kids. Like

Katie Ferraro (39m 22s):

I never ever thought TikTok is a different world though. I know it's totally, and it's great that you know how to navigate both of those. I mean your kids are getting older, you're living this experience. Older kids benefit from exposure to foods away from their parents. That's such a important message we're so in charge of, of everything at this age. But they're gonna go out on their own. I mean, If, you don't even wanna go to the grocery store at your college town because I feel like a lot of times those kids like they've never made food choices on their own and there's always a time to learn and, and you're not too late. So awesome that it's there for the talkers too. Amy, where's the best place for our audience to go to learn about your work and to support your business?

Amy Palanjian (39m 57s):

So yummy toddler food.com is my website there. All of the resources are there and then you can find me on social media at Yummy Toddler Food. And then the book is Dinnertime SOS and it is available everywhere books are sold.

Katie Ferraro (40m 8s):

Thank you for this book and thank you for taking the time to come on and talk to our audience as well.

Amy Palanjian (40m 13s):

Thanks for having me.

Katie Ferraro (40m 14s):

Well I hope you guys enjoyed that interview with Amy Palanjian from Yummy Toddler Food. It's always funny when you meet someone in real life that you follow on social media. Not it was real life like I met her on Zoom, but I'm like looking at her background, it's like, oh my gosh, I recognize that part of your house from your Instagram reels. Like, don't be such a weirdo. But she's really down to earth and I really appreciated her insights. Not only just about like recipes, but the realities of making food for kids and that it is hard, but we have to do it. I think she's very pragmatic. I very much appreciate her recipes, her cookbook. Dinnertime SOS is absolutely amazing. I'll put a link to all of her resources, including that marinated tofu recipe that she mentioned in the episode. That'll be on the Shownotes that you can find at blwpodcast.com/364.

Katie Ferraro (40m 59s):

And a special thank you to our partners at AirWave Media. If, you guys like podcasts at feature food and Science and using your brain, check out some of the podcasts from AirWave Media. We're online at blwpodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you next time. If you're interested in doing baby led weaning, but you're not exactly sure, like what does that mean? What does it look like? Where do I start? My online program called Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro has everything you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods and get them to eat over a hundred hundred foods before they turn one, whether you're terrified of choking or maybe you've started but you feel like you're feeding your baby the same foods over and over 'cause you don't know what to feed next or you're looking for guidance on how to prepare foods safely for your baby's age and stage.

Katie Ferraro (41m 48s):

My program has exactly what you need. There's five hours of concise self-paced video training. You can knock this thing out during nap time this week. You also get access to my 100 First Foods content library so you can see and learn exactly how to prep all of the a hundred foods as well as my original a hundred days meal plan. I've been refining this program for the last seven years. Just today, a mom wrote to me and told me that the a hundred days meal plan has been a quote game changer for her busy lifestyle. When you join the program, you also get access to over a hundred phase two combination food recipes. So you're gonna try out the trickier textures, push your baby's palate. And what's cool about these recipes is your whole family will enjoy them. So everything you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods is inside of the program.

Katie Ferraro (42m 28s):

It's created by me, a registered dietitian who specializes in infant feeding. If you're tired of hunting and pecking around the internet trying to piece this stuff together on your own, I put it all in one convenient place for you. I invite you to check out the Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro program that's at babyledweaning.co. Again, that website is babyledweaning.co and click on program to learn more.