Update, March 2022, Respose to Developer:
I agree that too many big flavors too so may shock a new human, but I believe in gradually increasing the flavors over time. This is the reason I try the recipes as written first and then augment them. That’s my choice as a parent. As I said, my husband and I eat what we feed our child, and we do this because we want our child to have a happy and healthy relationship with food. So, when we come across a recipe that claims a flavor and does not provide that flavor, we will allow our child to experience it again with an increase. To be fair to BLWMeals , when I find a recipe bland, I still make “mmm” sounds to encourage my child to try it more than once, but when she doesn’t like it and won’t eat it, and I’m stuck with a whole lemon loaf that has no flavor and she won’t eat again, I would rather add to it than waste the food altogether. Giving foods to babies is trial and error, yes, and it’s all new to them, yes, but that doesn’t mean I have to adhere to your suggestions 100% and mute my child’s experience. She loves trying fresh foods, and she has a lot of teeth already and enjoys using them. I just want to allow her to enjoy everything she is able to, which, again, is my choice as a parent.
I have really enjoyed using BLWMeals. We paid for the annual access so we could get recipe ideas. We like to eat with our little one, and she likes to grab foods off our plates, so it just made sense to eat what she could eat. We all get to try new foods, expand our cooking skills, and find healthy and delicious alternatives to our old standbys. One thing I’ve noticed is that some of the recipes seem to be missing steps in the instructions. For example, we recently made the Lemon Yogurt Cake, and since we’re off sugar, decided to also make the accompanying frosting recipe. The instructions say to leave the can of coconut milk in the freezer over night, then scoop out the cream with a spatula. We made the cake the night before, but when we opened the can to scoop out the cream, the whole thing was frozen solid. Common sense says this is bound to happen, but the instructions make no indication that further action is required between the steps. I wanted to run the van under hot water before opening it, but was not sure if that would mess up the separation process, so didn’t. Now we have an opened can of frozen coconut milk that we couldn’t use for quite a while. Another example of this is the teething crackers. I wanted to add flavor to them because they are quite bland, but the instructions did not include adding flavors until after the baking instructions, but are meant to be included in the mix before cutting and baking. It’s a lot of trial and error, but I’ve learned to read all of the instructions and notes before baking anything to avoid some of these mishaps, even though I prevent to follow a recipe as written the first time around. Some updates on the insteuctuons would make this kind of incident disappear. I’ve also noticed that the flavors of the cakes and treats are so bland. I want my baby to taste a lot of flavors. Muting them, is fine, but sometimes there simply isn’t any. Using the lemon yogurt cake recipe as an example again, the batter was very doughy tasting. Our gal loves lemons, so I squeezed a bit of juice into the batter to increase the flavor. It made the cake dense and stodgy, but it tasted like lemons this time. As I said before, they’re great recipes to start with, but we definitely alter a lot of them after the first time around.
