So, I need some help from you ladies.
We need to put some weight on my baby boy(he's almost a year old) and we've all been battling just a bit with meals.

Unexpectedly I had to go on a business trip abroad and leave him for 2 weeks(it was the hardest thing ever!) So he's now pretty much weened, he nurses only night before bed and when we wake up. He has 8 oz bottles of formula during the day though.

He was eating really well, when we started him on baby food. He even loved the creamed spinach. Now, he wants to eat what we're eating more and more, but often gags because he's still not chewing things.

Do you have ideas for healthy foods we can prepare for him that are in between baby food puree and table food?

Just about any veggie, boiled and mashed up a little.
Bananas are good gumming food.
Mashed potatoes with spinach.
Spaghetti, cut up really well.
Yoghurt.
Fruit smoothies.
Apple sauce.
Ground beef stew.
Lentil soup.
Cream cheese cracker sandwiches. (the crackers soften up really fast and you can use whole wheat crackers like bretons for lots of fibre)
Hummous cracker sandwiches.
Baba ghanouj cracker sandwiches.
Digestive cookies.

The above is a sampling of things Kieran (11.5mo) eats regularly that are only gag inducing when he decides to shove an entire mouthful at one time into his mouth.

I didn't start giving my older daughter solids until she was that age....all I did was give her whatever we were having, cut up into obscenely small pieces before I added any seasonings. I think that makes it easier, since you don't have to plan special things, just make it teeny and plain. For dessert type things I would give her fruit.....her fave being canteloupe and bananas.
She also ate yogurt and cheese alot at that age.

Thanks ladies.

I've figured it out now...I feed him off MY plate and with MY fork. If I give him his own bowl with a baby spoon, he will refuse it.

I've just been giving him rice, smashed veggies (he likes zucchini, carrots, sweet potato), and meat. He really loves Pizza crust, although that's probably not the healthiest for us and him to eat. At least he's eating! Oh and he also likes Maple and brown sugar instant oatmeal. I'd like to get him to eat plain, but he won't.

It seems like his appetite fluctuates too, one day he won't eat anything and won't even finish his bottle, and next day he's ravished and eating everything all up.

-g