Filling Sammy's Tummy

This guy is growing up. FAST. He takes a look at me holding a spoon of pureed baby food and says, "No thank you, mom. I'd like to serve myself." Or, he just takes that lil' fist and bangs it on the high chair and yells while looking directly at me. Interpret as you will. Trouble is, if he serves himself, we'd have to re-paint our freshly painted home. No dice.

Challenge was to find a protein rich, self-serve finger-food recipe that could be easily digested by 2.5 teeth. 

Enter turkey apple sticks - basically, pieces of turkey meatloaf. Sammy LOVED them. Inhaled them. I think the face above proves this.

Fair warning, this still got messy. Not quite re-paint any walls messy, but messy. 

Apple Turkey Sticks

Ingredients:
1 lb. ground turkey
1 egg or 2 egg yolks, beaten
1/2 cup pureed carrots
1/4 cup applesauce
1/4 cup unprocessed natural wheat or oat bran
1/4 cup breadcrumbs
pinch of basil
pinch of garlic powder

Place your turkey in a large mixing bowl.
Add the egg or yolks, carrots, applesauce, spices, breadcrumbs and bran.
Mix well. If mixture appears too dry, add more carrots and/or applesauce. If mixtures appears too wet, add more bran and/or breadcrumbs.
Place into a lightly oiled loaf pan and bake at 350F for 40-45 minutes or until an inserted knife comes out clean. (I topped my loaf with foil so the top wouldn't burn.)
Remove loaf from pan after cooling. Break into small bits for finger food. 

From Wholesome Baby Food.