New Foods

     So my little pku girl was being very picky the past few months.  However, I was determined not to give up.  I needed to get her us out of the habit of eating snack foods and actually eat a meal.  It has become too easy to just give her crackers and snacks because she can eat them by herself which means no fussing.  Deep down, I know that this will lead to problems and it has to be broken sooner rather than later.
     With this being Christmas vacation, I decided to tackle this problem and also make the transition from bottles to sippy cups.  I'm not sure if this is really ambitious or just plain stupid.  We'll see how it ends up.      
     I had some Cambrooke cheese pierogies and peanut butter & jelly sandwiches in the freezer.  First, I boiled the pierogies and then lightly fried them in olive oil.  By frying them, it took away some of the stickiness of the noodles (since there's no flour in the noodles, it leaves them very starchy & sticky).  I then placed 4 pierogies in snack bags, labeled them, and put them back in the freezer.  Now they're ready for meals.  I just have to take out a serving bag, warm it up, and feed Lily.  This was the first step to getting her off of snack foods.

Cambrooke Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwiches

     Next, I baked the peanut butter & jelly sandwiches.  I then refroze them.  I know that sounds crazy, but instead of baking the sandwiches for 25 minutes at meal time, I can just zap them for 10 seconds.  Lily tried one of these right away.  She ended up getting super messy but really enjoyed them!
     I also took a bunch of carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower and cooked them up.  I portioned each type, bagged it up, and labeled with the phe total.  These also went into the freezer.  The goal is to get her to eat some veggies.  She really hasn't had many veggies because they are too hard and she doesn't have any back teeth yet.  Hopefully, I can just zap the veggies in the microwave and she'll enjoy them.
     Since the oven was warm, I cooked up some Tweekz.  This is Cambrooke's version of chicken nuggets.  Of course there is no actual chicken, but I tried a little and it did have a chicken flavor to it!  It's just that when you cut it open, you could tell that it was indeed mushrooms in place of chicken.  But my little pkuer won't know the difference.  I placed the tweekz in a bag and labeled with the amount of phe. 
     Hopefully we'll have some success withou a lot of tears!

**Update**
Lily loves cooked carrots & cauliflower! 
The first time, she tried the tweekz she didn't care for them.  But persistence goes a long way.  When she tried them a second time, she devoured them!  Yeah, I think that we are well on our way to eating an actual meal and not just snacks.