Birthday Burrito Blend

OK, so I've been a slacker with this blog recently.  But hey, I'm a busy lady.  Last month was Morty's 3rd birthday, and we had a big mustache party with all his playgroup friends, Early Intervention therapists, and nannys (past and present).  I contemplated what to order for food (there was no way I was making all the food & planning the rest of the party) & asked a lot of people whether they would like burritos or sandwiches.  The overwhelming response was burritos!  Which is good, because that's what I wanted too.  We just weren't sure whether a bunch of 2 & 3 year olds could handle them - we have no way to gauge since our little 3 year old doesn't eat a whole lot by mouth.  But it was a total success - typical 2 and 3 year olds can definitely handle burritos.

Happy Birthday to my little dude!

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We ordered them from Boloco and got a bunch of the "mini" size - which were just right because the dads could have 3 if they wanted to eat a lot, and the little ones were satisfied with 1.  I also made some fresh salsa and served it with store bought chips (some salsa ended up in the blenderized mix, but the chips did not).

For cake, I made this great mustache cake out of a Betty Crocker cake mix with directions from this site.  I also made a batch of cupcakes with a second box of cake mix.  I'm not afraid to admit I used a box mix.  My palette is not refined enough to actually tell the difference.  And, of course, I'm short on time.  I did, however, make the frosting - I can definitely tell the difference with the stuff that comes out of a store bought tub.  I used the Cake Boss's recipe.  Just a hint - that "fancy" swirl of frosting on the top of the cupcake was WAY easier to do than frosting them with a knife.  I just used a ziplock bag with a hole cut in the bottom corner.

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I'm not going to lie - I am totally guessing at the volume that this recipe made - I forgot to check.  But my Blendtec doesn't hold much more than 40 oz and still mix, so I think that's about right.  But as is often the case with restaurant food, the calorie content of this mix ended up being super high!  I think it's the highest that I've made.  That's probably pretty normal for a birthday meal, though.  If you wanted to cut the calories down, you could just omit the 3T of oil, and that would bring it back to 1.3 cal/cc.

I added the basics to this recipe, including green beans and fruit to build up the nutrition content.  I also put in a cupcake - because every birthday boy needs a cupcake - even if it goes through a tube!

Here's the blenderized diet recipe:

Whole Milk	1 cup
flavored Kefir - 1% milkfat	1/2 cup
apple juice	1/2 cup
"mini" size Boloco classic burritos	2
salsa, fresh	2 T
green beans	1 cup
banana	1/2 small
diced peaches with juice	4 oz cup
Red Velvet cupcake	1 cupcake
cream cheese frosting
Canola Oil	3 T
Children's Multivitamin	1/2 tablet
calcium chews supplement	1/2 chew
Volume (oz)	42
Cal/oz	48.3
Cal/cc	1.6
% Fat	26%
% Carbohydrates	57%
% Protein	16%

Fish Tacos

I've already admitted to loving Mexican food and being obsessed about cilantro, so it really shouldn't be that big of a surprise that when I decided to do another fish-based blend, I couldn't stop thinking about fish tacos!  I've made fish tacos before, but never quite been happy with the sauce, so this time I found one on Pinterest with a delicious sounding cilantro & lime sauce.

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It's a simplified version of this recipe from Our Best Bites.  I don't really have the time or inclination to do my own deep frying, so I just bought fish nuggets.  Yes, that's right... I bought fish nuggets.  But they were pretty good - and I bought them from Trader Joes - that makes them more healthy, right?  Well, either way, it was a lot easier than battering and frying.

Similarly, I also don't deep fry my shells.  Definitely not for everyday dinners.  I like just plain flour tortillas that are a little bit warmed up.

I bought cole slaw mix and fresh salsa from the produce section to also simplify things.  And because I live in New England, where the Latino population is typically not Mexican, there is no Cotija or Queso Fresco at my grocery store.  Instead I just used crumbled goat cheese - pre-crumbled, of course.  I gotta make things a little easy on myself, you know?

The real key to this recipe is the super duper delicious sauce - Creamy Lime-Cilantro Dressing.  Yes, cilantro and lime is a match made in heaven, and this sauce does not disappoint.  And it was definitely easy to make - I actually used my Blendtec to blend this up.  I love, love, love it.  It definitely made the fish tacos delicious, and you better believe I'll be doing these fish tacos again - if only so I can taste the dressing another time.

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First, a note on blending: I've slightly altered my blending technique based on some comments I've read from other people that blend.  We've had some really foamy blends - which translates into extra air in my son's tummy, and he often has a tough time managing his burping anyway.  So I've started blending everything but the milk and kefir on #4 - that's the Blendtec button for "Whole Juice".  I do the whole juice cycle twice, and then add the milk and kefir and pulse it 3 or 4 times.  It has really helped make it a lot less foamy.  And in turn, my blends have come out a little more calorie dense - which is a good thing.

After making the dinner, this is a pretty quick blend.  It's basically 2 fully filled tacos plus a couple of extra tortilla shells.  Then I also added some fruit to the blend - today it was bananas and berries.

Here's the blenderized g-tube recipe:

Whole Milk	1 cup
flavored Kefir - 1% milkfat	1/2 cup
orange juice	1/2 cup
tortillas - small flour	4
battered fish nuggets (TJ's)	4 pc (4 oz)
coleslaw mix	1 cup
salsa, fresh	2 T
cilantro-lime dressing	2 T
crumbled goat cheese	2T
banana	1/2 small
mixed frozen berries	3/4 cup
corn oil	2 T
Children's Multivitamin	1/2 tablet
calcium chews supplement	1/2 chew
Volume (oz)	34
Cal/oz	37.4
Cal/cc	1.2
% Fat	22%
% Carbohydrates	61%
% Protein	17%

Tangy Pork Chops

I like the ease of cooking with a slow cooker, so this week I went searching for new slow cooker recipes for  some pork chops I had on hand.  I looked on Pinterest and found this recipe from Taste of Home.  It's kind of a stewed vegetable sauce to go with the pork chops.  It was pretty good.

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The one thing I changed from the recipe was adding more peppers.  I cut up a green pepper, a red pepper, and a yellow pepper, instead of just one.  Just a little way to add some more veggies.  Otherwise, I followed the recipe pretty closely.

Morty even helped out a little bit and we mixed the sauce up together.  (Shortly after I took this picture, he tried to shove his right fist into the sauce, which was precariously perched on his lap, so this is the only picture I got)

The table version of this meal turned out great.  I love how you do all the work for a slow cooker meal ahead of time - I started this in the early afternoon - so that by the time dinner rolls by, everything is already done.

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To make the blenderized version of this meal, I used 2 oz of one of the pork chops and about a cup of the veggie sauce - i.e. the rest of the recipe ingredients.  I tried to make sure that I scooped up a bunch of the peppers and tomatoes in my measuring cup to put in the blender.

I planned to make this with 1 1/2 cups of brown rice, leftover from our meal, but unfortunately, we only had a little over a cup, and I wasn't going to cook more rice, so I ended up substituting a slice of bread in our mix.  Oh well.

Even though I list Trader Joe's Omega-3 Carrot Orange Juice, you could really use whatever juice you have on hand.  I just happened to have purchased this juice on a recent grocery shopping trip.  I think I thought I was just getting carrot juice when I put it in the cart, but noticed later that it contains sardines, anchovies, and tilapia!  Sound gross?  Yeah, maybe.  But I can't taste any of the fish.  And it does have the good Omega-3's that the nutritionist wants us to get.  She suggests fish 2 times a week - even for Morty's blends.  We don't quite get to that yet - but I'm trying to do more fish.

I also list applesauce, but we actually put a homemade low-sugar apple butter in our mix.  It came from a recent apple picking adventure that resulted in far too many apples than I knew what to do with.  I've been adding apple butter to a lot of his mixes lately.  I'm actually not even sure what the difference is between apple sauce and apple butter - maybe apple butter has more of the liquid cooked out of it?

Now, even though I didn't exactly follow it, here's my planned g-tube recipe:

Whole Milk	1 cup
flavored Kefir - 1% milkfat	1/2 cup
TJ's Omega-3 Carrot Orange Juice	1/2 cup
brown rice	1 1/2 cup
applesauce	1 cup
Tangy Pork Chop Veggie Sauce	1 cup
pork chops	2 oz
Canola Oil	3 T
Children's Multivitamin	1/2 tablet
calcium chews supplement	1/2 chew
Volume (oz)	40
Cal/oz	33.9
Cal/cc	1.1
% Fat	23%
% Carbohydrates	65%
% Protein	13%

Heaven's Mexican Chicken Vegetable Soup

The past week and a half have been rough for Morty.  He got a cold - not a particularly bad cold - but one that does make him cough quite a bit.  And the little guy has problems managing all the phlegm.   We had been going on several weeks of really good non-puk-i-ness.  But the coughing and the phlegm have made it too hard for him, and he just hasn't been able to hold his food down - especially at night.  To be honest, it's been a bit of a nightmare.  We did go to his pediatrician and have him checked out to make sure that his lungs were still clear (they were).  And from a couple of different doctors' advice, we've totally altered his feeding to try and make things a little bit easier.

• First, we are giving smaller feeds more often.  So he's now having 4 oz every 2 hours until he goes to bed
• Second, we started Morty's humidifier/air purifier up in his room
• Third, I stopped giving him his morning feed until he's pretty much cleared the junkies out of his system (for Morty, that's around 10 am)
• Fourth, I suction the mucus out of his belly in the morning.  I do this by flushing a couple ounces of water in through the tube, and pulling it back out with the syringe.  If he's got mucus, you'll see it and know.  It floats to the top of the water level in the syringe, and then you can push most of the water back into his belly, and dispose of the mucus.
• Fifth, I took the dairy out of his mix.  Only for a while.  It may not be quite the same as when someone orally drinks milk and gets really thick mucus, but it can't hurt to help thin things out.
• Sixth, as we learned quickly, if he pukes late at night in bed, don't bother trying to give him replacement food, as it will also come up soon after.

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In desperation and fatigue from late night coughs/pukes/cleanups, last night I decided to make a special soup for Morty.  It's a soup that comes from a woman in my mother's church.  The legend behind this soup is that while you are making the soup, you say a special prayer to help those who are sick who eat the soup, and they will feel better.  Totally worth a try.  Really, after a week and a half of 1 - 4 pukes a day, it's ALL worth a try.  The soup is named "Heaven's Mexican Chicken Vegetable Soup" and is slightly adapted from a recipe by Connie Reyes.  I don't have a link to this recipe online, as the copy I have is typed and photocopied!  Here it is:

Stock:
1 split chicken breast
3 large onions
Tops of a stalk of celery
4 qts water

Soup:
4 large carrots, finely diced
3 large celery stalks, finely diced
3 large potatoes, finely diced
16 oz diced tomatoes
1 tsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp cumin (I probably put in more than this)
1/4 tsp celery seed
chili pepper, to taste (I use lots)
1 hand full small thin noodles (I used 8 oz of angel hair)

1.  Boil the chicken breast in water with celery tops and onions for 40 minutes.  Remove celery and onions and discard.
2.  Remove the chicken and dice when cool enough to handle.
3.  Strain broth and cook remainder vegetables with the spices until vegetables are tender.
4.  Bring soup to a boil and add noodles and diced chicken.  Cover and turn off heat.  Noodles will cook in hot broth in about 15 minutes.
5.  While soup is cooking say a prayer asking to bless the soup that it will heal all the sick who partake of it.


If you were in a rush, you could make this recipe with store-bought broth and rotisserie chicken.  Although there is something nice on a crisp fall evening about having a boiling pot on the stove.  The steam from the boiling pot might also help clear things up a bit.

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The blenderized g-tube version of this recipe basically takes 3 cups of the soup and blends it with a few other things.  I used 1/2 cup orange juice for the vitamin C.  I also added some honey because it's supposed to be a natural expectorant.

The blenderized mix comes out fairly low calorie, even with the extra noodles, bread, and oil.  But most people don't eat a ton when they're feeling sick anyway.

I blended this up while the soup was still pretty warm, so it flowed pretty well.  I did notice the next morning, however, that the blend had gotten quite thick - not unexpected as the pasta probably soaked up a lot of the broth, and the potatoes have a lot of starch.  To give it the "comfort food" factor, I'd probably heat it up before putting it through the tube anyway!  (I have an adult friend with a g-tube who tells me that while she doesn't taste the food that goes in through her tube, she definitely can feel if the formula or food is hot or cold.)

If the thickness is unmanageable, you could alter the soup/juice ratio.  When I made the second day of this with the leftovers, I used 2 cups of soup and 1 1/2 cups of orange juice, and it was thinner.

Here's the blenderized recipe:

orange juice	1/2 cup
Heaven's Mexican Chicken Soup	3 cups
Arnold 12 Grain Bread	2 slices
Canola Oil	3 T
honey	1 T
banana	1/2 small
diced pears in light syrup	4 oz
Children's Multivitamin	1/2 tablet
calcium chews supplement	1/2 chew
Volume (oz)	40
Cal/oz	24.4
Cal/cc	0.8
% Fat	24%
% Carbohydrates	65%
% Protein	11%

Chicken & Roasted Vegetables - Double Time

I came across some recent Real Simple recipes that had 2 recipes for the same ingredients - one where you make a big meal one night, and then use the leftovers to make a different second meal the next night.  This week I tried out the chicken and roasted vegetables combo.  With a slight chill in the air in the evenings, these recipes seemed totally seasonally appropriate.

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For the first meal, Roasted Chicken and Vegetables with Maple Mustard Sauce, it was super easy.  Basically I just got out a giant roasting pan (the size of one you might use with a Thanksgiving Turkey), put a bunch of vegetables in it, and put some chicken on the rack.  Olive oil on everything, and salt and pepper to your liking.  I also added some "Everyday Seasoning" - I don't remember what's in it, but it's just some seasoning mix that tastes good.  Stick it in the oven and enjoy how delicious it makes the house smell!

For the vegetables, I buy my new potatoes at our grocery store in little 1 lb net bags, so instead of putting in 1 1/2 lbs of potatoes, I used 1 lb and added a few parsnips.  I just happened to pick the "red, white, and blue" mix of new potatoes - it made kind of a cool color mix.

For the chicken, instead of roasting 2 whole birds, which I didn't actually have, I roasted 2 split chicken breasts (making a total of 4 chicken breasts).  That's just the way I get my meat from the co-op.  It made for plenty of meat for the 2 dinners plus Morty's mix.

I found the sauce to be a really nice addition.  Tasted very similar to a honey-mustard and was good on both the vegetables and the chicken.

The second meal we made was Roasted Vegetable Soup with Chicken Melts.  This meal took the vegetables and heated them up with chicken broth and orange juice to make a soup.  Then, it was blended together.  Of course, this was super easy with the Blendtec.  I'm not sure I was a huge fan of this soup.  I felt like it needed something more... I don't know what though.  Maybe some garlic?  It wasn't bad, it just wasn't fantastic.  Maybe if it had some tomatoes in it?

The chicken melts were an open-face sandwich toasted in the oven broiler.  It used the leftover maple-mustard sauce and chicken and added some red onion and graded cheddar.  If you like melted cheese sandwiches, these were delicious.

While these recipes may look relatively complex, there was really only 1 night of "cooking", and the food lasted for 3 dinners, at least one lunch, and a Morty blend or two!

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I was originally going to make a g-tube blenderized version from the first meal, but there weren't very many ingredients, so the second meal - the soup and sandwiches - lent itself better to making a blend recipe.  

Here was the basic ingredients for the soup, if you're not making it from leftovers:

Roasted Vegetable Soup

carrots	1 lb
new potatoes	1/2 lb
celery	4 stalks
yellow onions	1 med
parsnips	2 med
olive oil	1 T
chicken broth	5 cups
orange juice	1/2 cup

As you can see, this soup uses a lot of starchy root vegetables, which alone would probably really thicken up a blended dinner.  So cutting them with the chicken broth helps keep the blend not too thick.

If you're making up the melted sandwiches and have leftovers, you could probably just put 2 of the open sandwiches in the blend.  I didn't make extras up, so my recipe has measured quantities of the ingredients.

If I made this again, I might substitute one of the cups of vegetable soup with some fruit.  As is, this blend had the largest volume of any blend I've made, and it turned out lower on the calorie scale than most of my blends.  So substituting some fruit would probably help bring it up.

Here's the blenderized g-tube recipe:

Whole Milk	1 cup
flavored Kefir - 1% milkfat	1/2 cup
orange juice	1/2 cup
Roasted Vegetable Soup	2 cups
Dill	1 teaspoon
Country Bread (TJ's Tuscan Pane)	2 slices
chicken breast	2 oz
red onion	thin slice
Cheddar Cheese	1/4 cup (28 g)
olive oil	3 T
maple syrup	1 T
dijon mustard	1 T
Children's Multivitamin	1/2 tablet
calcium chews supplement	1/2 chew
Volume (oz)	46
Cal/oz	30.5
Cal/cc	1.0
% Fat	19%
% Carbohydrates	49%
% Protein	32%

Carolina BBQ style Chicken

The first time I went to North Carolina was for work.  Of course we ate BBQ.  Later I went to North Carolina for a good friend's wedding.  Of course we ate BBQ.  A few years later my sister moved to North Carolina, and I have since made several more trips down there and of course since eaten a lot more BBQ.  I love vinegar, so I love Carolina BBQ!

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Carolina BBQ chicken sandwiches
Creamy Coleslaw
Cornbread
Plums

We get our meat from a meat co-op, and just didn't have pork left this month, but we did have some chicken, so I decided to make a chicken version of it.  I use this recipe on Allrecipes.com for my BBQ.  I slow cook the meat in apple cider vinegar for around 10 hours on low and it is totally falling off the bone.

Side note - I have read that many people who tube feed use apple cider vinegar to help calm tummies.  I don't personally have direct experience with this for my son, but it certainly doesn't hurt.

We made this a slightly healthier version by using big whole wheat buns for the sandwiches.

Many times I purchase coleslaw from the deli counter and use that to top the meat, but today I decided to make my own and see how that went.  I used this recipe from Allrecipes.com.  It wasn't too hard, and I upped the normal amount of carrots - about a pound of cabbage and a 1/2 pound of carrots.

I made cornbread from a Trader Joe's mix that I had around the house.

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To make the blenderized g-tube version, basically after the basic liquid base, I just threw a serving of all the meal into the blender - everything that is on the plate in the picture.  A bun with 3 oz of meat, 3 - 4 oz of coleslaw, a serving of the cornbread (use an 8x8 pan and cut a tic-tac-toe design into it - one of those squares is a serving).

I did use the fully spicy sauce - with the Trappey's hot sauce and crushed red peppers.  My son hasn't had a problem with spice in his mix, but if you're feeding to someone with spice sensitivities, you could set aside some of the meat right after it's done cooking and before the spicy sauce is added.

If you don't have a Trader Joe's close by for the cornbread, I'm sure you could use any cornbread mix, but might need to add some extra oil to the blenderized version to make up the fat calories if your cornbread mix is a light version... a single serving of this is 290 calories and contains almost a tablespoon of oil.  In fact, if you're trying to add extra calories, you might want to add a pat of butter to the mix - just as someone might add butter to their cornbread!

Here's the tube recipe:

Whole Milk	1 cup
flavored Kefir - 1% milkfat	1/2 cup
apple juice	1/2 cup
wheat bun	1 roll
BBQ chicken	3 oz
creamy cole slaw	1 serving (3-4 oz)
corn bread	1 serving (1/9 of 8x8 pan)
plums	4 small (5 oz)
Children's Multivitamin	1/2 tablet
calcium chews supplement	1/2 chew
Volume (oz)	36
Cal/oz	35.5
Cal/cc	1.2
% Fat	24%
% Carbohydrates	57%
% Protein	19%

Mediterranean Stuffed Zucchini

Morty got his tube changed out this past week.  He is now a proud owner of the Mic Key button.  We have been waiting for this for a long time and we are so happy to finally have it.  It's taking a bit of getting used to... just to get into the new routine of filling the syringe/tube and administering.  It's just a slightly new system.   At the hospital, my husband requested that they give my son the same size Mic Key as the PEG tube.  Apparently they didn't listen to him, and we're now running a size smaller - 14 french now vs the previous 16 french.  We'll see if that has much of an effect.  I am blending the mix a little longer to make sure everything is smooth.

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Summer brings zucchini, and this week we bought a bunch of it at the farmer's market to make this stuffed zucchini dish.  Compared to a lot of stuffed recipes (stuffed cabbage, stuffed peppers, etc), this one is not tomato sauce based, so it's a little dry.  But it still has a variety of flavors with the cheese and pine nuts and sun-dried tomatoes , so it's pretty good.

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After I made the zucchini, my husband and I ate a serving each, and I just put the other 2 servings in the blenderized g-tube version.  It included zucchini stuffed with the sausage, asiago cheese, pine nuts, sundried tomatoes, and scallion mixture.  I also actually threw in some of the zucchini that was hollowed out - seemed a waste to throw it out.   I added some cooked bulgur wheat for grains.  Side note: my dad used to make a cracked wheat breakfast cereal when I was growing up, that he called simply "mush".  It pretty much looks the same as cooked bulgur.

Here's the blenderized g-tube recipe:

Whole Milk	1 cup
flavored Kefir - 1% milkfat	1/2 cup
orange juice	1/2 cup
bulgur wheat	1/4 cup dry, cooked
stuffed zucchini (1/4 lb sausage)	2 serving
Sunflower Seed Oil	2 T
Dole cherry mixed fruit cup	1 container
Children's Multivitamin	1/2 tablet
calcium chews supplement	1/2 chew
Volume (oz)	40
Cal/oz	31.3
Cal/cc	1.0
% Fat	33%
% Carbohydrates	50%
% Protein	17%

Mussels with Pesto and Garlic Oven Fries

photo credit to Real Simple and Christopher Baker

I'm a big fan of Real Simple recipes.  I've been saving the magazine recipe section for several years, and have a couple 3-ring binders filled with sheet protectors and the recipes.  It makes it easy for both my husband and me to pick recipes because they have a great picture for each one.  Plus, I really like that most of their recipes are quick, easy, and use fresh ingredients.  AND my husband will totally follow the recipes and make meals himself since we started using them a few years ago.

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With a recent trip to Cape Cod and an unappetizing visit to a seafood shack there, I was in the mood for some good seafood, so I picked this mussels recipe from Real Simple from a year or so ago.  I made the mussels in the pesto sauce per the recipe.  If you've never made mussels and are scared, I promise it's super easy - as easy as boiling pasta - and a little bit faster.  To save time, for the fries, I just bought a bag of Garlic Fries from Trader Joes.  To round out the meal with vegetables, we just had a super simple lettuce salad.

Because nectarines are in season, I decided to make a nectarine galette, another Real Simple recipe.  It's basically an open whole fruit pie, using pre-made freezer pie crust.  Mine didn't turn out as pretty as the one in the magazine (when does it ever?)  I was worried about the edges burning, so I did as suggested, and "tented" the galette with aluminum foil, but then the edges had trouble getting golden, so I ended up cooking it a little longer than the recipe suggested.

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I did actually check on how long you can use refrigerated mussels via a Google search.  All the sites seemed to say as long as the mussels were out of the shells, they could be stored in the fridge for 1 - 2 days. Conveniently, that's about how long the blend lasts.  And, I do know from previously feeding my son shellfish, he doesn't have any allergic reaction.

I was interested to see how well the mussels would blend in the Blendtec... "Will it Blend?"  And, well, "Yes, it Blends!"

I don't have a lot of experience with potatoes in the blend, and after the super thick blend with sweet potato fries, I was worried about making too thick of a mixture with the potatoes.  I only added 3 oz.

I also just basically just put a whole serving of the nectarine galette (1/4 of the galette) into the tube.  It had carbs, fruit, and fats.

There's not really any whole grains in this blend, but since most of the blends I make are full of whole grains, and the typical 2 1/2 year old seems to be eating mac & cheese, chicken nuggets, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I think one day of potatoes and pie crust won't hurt.  

With the salad greens and the pesto, this blend ended up a nice rich green color.  Plus, it had a great basil-garlic smell to it.  And it blended pretty smooth.  We'll see if it gets thicker after being in the refrigerator, but so far it flowed through the syringe quite nicely.

Here's the blenderized g-tube recipe:

Whole Milk	1 cup
flavored Kefir - 1% milkfat	1/2 cup
orange juice	1/2 cup
garlic fries	3 oz
mussels, shelled	3 oz
basil pesto	1/4 cup
salad greens, fresh	4 cups
nectarine galette	1 serving
Children's Multivitamin	1/2 tablet
calcium chews supplement	1/2 chew
Volume (oz)	36
Cal/oz	34.6
Cal/cc	1.2
% Fat	28%
% Carbohydrates	53%
% Protein	18%

Beef Tacos with Roasted Red Peppers

When I was young, one of my sisters would only eat a couple different meals, one of which was tacos, so needless to say, we ate a lot of tacos growing up.  Mexican food is definitely a favorite in my family.  And I think my all time favorite flavor is cilantro + lime.  So this blend definitely includes cilantro!  Morty might not taste it, but I can't help myself.  Plus, there is a farmer at our farmer's market that sells a bunch of cilantro for $1.  What a deal - and I can't let it go to waste.

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The recipe for this dinner came from the June 2012 Real Simple magazine.  I would link the recipe here, but I don't think it's been added to their website yet.  Basically, it's a beef/onions/corn base with all the appropriate spices, and garlicky red peppers roasted in the oven on the side (we actually just ate these laid on top of the meat, a la the picture above).  Then you add all the regular taco toppings - salsa, grated cheese, avocado...  It looks like a lot of ingredients, but it really wasn't anything particularly fancy.  I did make my own salsa this week, with some tomatoes that a neighbor was kind enough to give me.  (another great use for the BlendTec)  And you can bet that I added plenty of cilantro & lime to that salsa.  I also have a jalapeno in the salsa...  It didn't seem to bother Morty.  You can definitely leave it out if the blenderized diet you're making needs to be less spicy.

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For this g-tube blend, I pretty much made an extra taco and threw it in the blender.  I added an extra shell for carbs/calories and more peppers for the vitamins.  I also put in mango & bananas because they seem like appropriate complement!  With the previous success of adding a small amount of cheese to the blend, I kept that in here too.  The avocado also added some nice calories and fat.  It also made the blend real "smooth".  This was such a great smelling blend!  That may stem from my love of all Mexican food.

Here's the blenderized g-tube recipe:

Whole Milk	1 cup
flavored Kefir - 1% milkfat	1/2 cup
orange juice	1/2 cup
wheat tortillas, fajita style	2
ground beef taco mix	2.5 oz
red pepper, oven roasted	1/2 pepper
salsa, fresh	2 T
cilantro	2 T
avocado	1/4 fruit
grated Mexican cheese blend	2T
banana	1/2 small
mango	140 g
corn oil	2 T
Children's Multivitamin	1/2 tablet
calcium chews supplement	1/2 chew
Volume (oz)	36
Cal/oz	37.3
Cal/cc	1.2
% Fat	23%
% Carbohydrates	57%
% Protein	20%

Pork Chops with Green Beans and Sweet Potato Fries

Ok, first confession is that I did not take the picture above - I found it on Google Images and took it off of Southern Living or something.  Second confession is that I did not make the pork chop dinner that is pictured above!  My husband was gone on a 2-week trip for work, so you might be able to imagine how hectic things become with a special needs child with only one parent - you may even be in that position permanently yourself!  I was pretty much lucky to not fix frozen pizza every night or just eat a bowl of cereal for dinner - and believe me, that thought crossed my mind more than once.

Table
This table dinner was a pretty simple one.  I just grilled a couple of pork chops and ate it with green beans and sweet potato fries.  Nothing spectacular.

Tube
For the g-tube blenderized version of this, I added brown rice for carbs.  We buy frozen brown rice from Trader Joes that only needs a 3-minute zap in the microwave to cook.  It's the best thing for busy people.  I think the blend came out super thick, so if you don't want it so thick, I'd recommend only using about 1/2 the brown rice and substituting a couple slices of bread.

I also put in applesauce, because pork chops and apples just go together so well, and he needed some fruit.  I also added maple syrup because there's a Real Simple recipe we often use for sweet potato fries where you drizzle maple syrup on the fries.  I just used store bought frozen fries this time, but the maple syrup is good for a calorie boost.

Whole Milk	1 1/2 cup
flavored Kefir - 1% milkfat	1/2 cup
brown rice	1 1/2 cup
applesauce	1 cup
sweet potato fries	3 oz
green beans	1/2 cup
pork chops	2 oz
maple syrup	1 T
olive oil	2 T
Children's Multivitamin	1/2 tablet
calcium chews supplement	1/2 chew
Volume (oz)	38
Cal/oz	36.4
Cal/cc	1.2
% Fat	15%
% Carbohydrates	71%
% Protein	14%

Grilled Hawaiian-Style Pizza

Table
One of my favorite ways to make pizza is on the grill.  Yes, we grilled again tonight!  It is summer, after all...  I can buy pre-made pizza dough at a couple of my regular grocery stores.  Trader Joe's even regularly stocks a whole wheat version, so that's what we started with tonight.  I follow the basic directions from Allrecipes.com found here.  It's really quite fast and easy - the hardest part is stretching and managing the dough before it goes on the grill, but I've found if I put the stretched dough on some cornmeal, it really helps avoid some disasters.

Instead of sauce, I used canned diced tomatoes.  And for toppings tonight, I made a sort of Hawaiian pizza with ham and pineapple.  I also added some green peppers for extra veggies.

The picture above already has the pizza cut up and ready to go.  We've been bringing these quick, homemade pizzas to the Concerts on the Common.  If there was one thing I could change for the "table" version, it would be to figure out a way to cook the toppings a little more - it cooks so fast on the grill that the toppings don't have much of a chance to get all crispy.

Tube
I was totally excited to make a blenderized version of this recipe for my little guy's g-tube.  When Morty was eating easily by mouth, pizza was one of his favorite meals.  Yes, I fed my little guy pizza.

I saved about 1/3 of the dough for the blend, spread it out, and basically just cooked it on the grill with the other pizzas.

The test for this blend is how well the mozzarella cheese would blend.  I'm keeping the volume to 2 tablespoons to see how it goes...  I'm worried it will be soft when I blend it up, but then it will get solid and thicken everything up in the fridge.  I don't mind pushing a thick blend through a syringe, but the potential for blow-outs is higher.

Whole Milk	1 cup
flavored Kefir - 1% milkfat	1/2 cup
Welch's Grape Juice	1/2 cup
Whole wheat pizza dough	5 g
banana	1/2 small
pineapple tidbits	1/2 cup
Italian style diced tomatoes	1/2 cup
green pepper	4 oz
ham	2 oz
part-skim mozzarella cheese	2 T
olive oil	2 T
Children's Multivitamin	1/2 tablet
calcium chews supplement	1/2 chew
Volume (oz)	36
Cal/oz	31.3
Cal/cc	1.0
% Fat	15%
% Carbohydrates	66%
% Protein	19%

Honey-Soy Glazed Salmon

Table:
We bought some fresh salmon at the farmer's market this past weekend, and decided to do a grilled version of this Real Simple recipe.  We also bought some bok choy, so we grilled and used that in place of the vegetables in the recipe.

Tube:
This is a pretty low calorie meal (the bok choy is practically water!), so for the g-tube blended diet, I added broccoli.  I also added pineapple to keep a sort of Asian stir fry feel to the mix.  And of course, I used the honey just as in the glaze.  (My son is 2 1/2  - babies under the age of 12 months should not have honey).  To keep a thinner consistency, I kept my rice to 1/2 cup and used a slice of bread.

Whole Milk	1 cup
flavored Kefir - 1% milkfat	1/2 cup
orange juice	1/2 cup
brown rice	1/2 cup
whole grain bread	1 slice
pineapple tidbits	1/2 cup
diced pears with juice	4 oz cup
bok choy	1/2 c
broccoli	1/2 c
Salmon	3 oz
honey	1 T
Sunflower Seed Oil	2 T

Children's Multivitamin	1/2 tablet
calcium chews supplement	1/2 chew

Total volume - 36 oz
cal/oz - 30.8
cal/cc - 1.0

Grilled Lamb Kebabs & Tzatziki

Table
We have a meat share through a local farm coop, and they often give some lamb in the share.  This month we got lamb "stew meat", which is actually just pre-cut in chunks, making it perfect for kebabs & grilling (all I want to do in the summer is grill).  I wanted to try something fun, fresh, lemony and totally Greek.

A quick search found this Ina Garten recipe and some blogs (Smitten Kitchen, The Delish Dish) using the recipe.  It sounded totally delicious, and I thought it would also be a great conversion to a tube recipe.

The yogurt marinade was kind of messy, but the end result was delicious!

Tube
Here's the dinner converted to a g-tube blended diet.  I made the blend to be the lamb kebabs, tzatziki, and an apricot-grape fruit salad.  We used the lamb, peppers, and onions straight from the grill.

Notes on the lamb-
1.  We cooked the lamb to about medium well.  We had marinated it for about 24 hours, so it was still pretty tender.
2.  This lamb had some fat on it that didn't blend so well, even though I tried to pick the least fatty pieces.  I had some slight stoppage when I plunged the blend in, so I put the remaining blend through a strainer, and that seemed to help.

Whole Milk	1 cup
plain yogurt, whole milk	1/2 cup
lemonade	1/2 cup
pitas whole wheat (large)	1 pita
apricot, canned extra light syrup	1/2 cup
grapes	1/2 cup
honey	1 T
cucumber	1/2 cup
peppers	1/3 med pepper
onions	slice, 1/4" thick
lamb	2 oz
olive oil	3 T
Children's Multivitamin	1/2 tablet
calcium chews supplement	1/2 chew
Volume (oz)	38
Cal/oz	30.8
Cal/cc	1.0

Warm Spinach Salad with Grilled Sausage

Table:
We used this Real Simple recipe for a sausage dinner on a hot summer night.  We grilled and put everything over pasta.  It was a perfect summer recipe.

Tube:
Here's the corresponding recipe for a g-tube blended diet.  This is the first time I've tried Italian sausage in a blend.  I'm a little nervous about how well my son will do with it, considering he has some reflux.  I have definitely done orange juice and tomatoes before without too many problems.  So we'll see!  If you'd rather substitute ground pork, I think that would work well also.  With the blueberries and the spinach, this blend came out a really nice dark green color.

Whole Milk	1 cup
flavored Kefir - 1% milkfat	1/2 cup
orange juice	1/2 cup
pasta	1 cup (dry)
blueberries	1/2 cup
diced pears with juice	4 oz cup
tomatoes	1 plum
spinach	1 cup
Italian Sausage	2 oz
olive oil	2 T
Children's Multivitamin	1/2 tablet
calcium chews supplement	1/2 chew

Volume: 40 oz
Cal/oz: 27.7
Cal/cc: 0.9