[Sasha_girl]

What do you make and how? I'm a very unimaginative person and have pureed common fruits and veggies for Holden, but I'm looking for some good stuff.

 

[Colorful~Mama]

Both Zoey (now 4) and Roman (just shy of 11mos) were really big on combinations with mango in them. Like mango/berry, mango/banana, mango/pear... try kiwi with an older baby too. or papaya?

Romans favorite puree was actually sweetpotato/applesauce mixed.

now he pretty much just wants whatever we eat so we don't really make babyfood anymore, but its fun trying new things

 

[Tiskin]

my son loves avacodo.
I also puree fruits and mix breastmilk in to make like a smoothe. Then you pour them into ice cube trays and freeze them. once they are frozen we put them into zip lock bags.
he really likes strawberry peach.
But he's on just about everything now because he's 12 months, so we haven't made "baby food" in quite a while.
Oh yeah, we also pureed tomato, cucumber, parsley, and just a tad of garlic clove and made baby gazpacho. Umm!

 

[gokiamma]

Yes this would be very helpful to me too! So far I have been giving Rice Cereal and Gerber Size 1 fruits and veggies. Now I would like to make my own fresh foods. I am thinking of making some kind of a soup with a veggie medley-- But what veggies??? I can only think of carrots, peas & sweet potatoes. I did not know babies could have tomatoes..Also what fresh fruits are good for 6 month olds.

Thanks!
deepa

 

[Nik's Mommy]

Here's my favourite site for recipes and ideas.
Wholesome Baby Food
I also have this book , and I LOVE it!!! Fabulous ideas there. I bake many of the recipes for the entire family. (The only thing I disagree with, is some of the recipes include olive oil. I don't think oils are necessary for a child under 1.)

 

[beemama]

Bananas are good & so easy to take with you.
We make our little one mashed potatoes & green beans (we put them throught the grinder).. She also likes lightly steamed zucchini that we blend up. In fact, she's liked every type of squash we've had. She loves pears, peaches, nectarines & plums.
We've done some grains, too. Quinoa is her favorite, oats are a close second... millet & rice are good, too. We mix them with some lentils sometimes.

 

[ZanZansMommy]

My DD loves when I take hummus, finely chopped cucumbers (without the seeds) & bit of plain yogurt & BM---mix it all together for a wonderful dip. She sctually eats it right from the spoon. For myself & DH we dip into it with whole wheat pita chips that I bake---yummmy

 

[smeta]

Ds loves it when I give him ground up soup. Most recently I made Lentil and Sweet potato soup.

I've also taken quesadilla filling and ground it up - black beans, corn, and zucchini.

Or pasta with carrots and broccoli.

 

[wombat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nik's Mommy (The only thing I disagree with, is some of the recipes include olive oil. I don't think oils are necessary for a child under 1.)

Why? I keep hearing things like this (also about protein) but I don't understand why. I added flax oil to dd's baby food. And I wouldn't be concerned about small amounts of olive oil. My thinking was that after a certain age (around 8-9 months) the solid foods component of baby's diet should be well balanced in terms of fats, proteins and carbs. Unless of course you're exclusively BF then it's not an issue. Mind you, I've never seen any research either way. It seems a lot of people are content to feed mostly carbs (ie fruits and veges) even to older babies. Yet we keep hearing that fats are very important for brain development and protein for growth. BM is fine but if solids start to comprise a large part of baby's diet, then don't they need some more fat and protein too?

Anyway recipes:

We did ground millet/lentil cereal (a la Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron) and I added soaked, dried pureed prunes and apricots and then some blackstrap molasses for extra iron to it. This was cause dd didn't tolerate rice or oatmeal.

At 9 mo, a lot of people start yogurt. I'd buy the organic, frozen strawberries from TJ or WFs and mash one into her plain yogurt. She loved that. You can add raw wheatgerm to the yogurt too - adds lots of vitamins and minerals plus it thickens it a bit so they eat it off the spoon easier.

Also for 9mo+, beans cooked with veges and/or meat and then pureed. It's like refried beans but healthier. dd loves it. You can also just puree a tin of cooked beans and add some flavorings. After you heat it, you can thin it out with some yogurt which makes it nice and creamy.

Barley and vege soup (onion, carrot, celery, mushroom work well)- cook it and puree it. The barley makes the soup creamy. Another dd favorite.

My dd liked well flavored food. So I'd saute onions, garlic and green beans til really soft then puree them. Later, after 12 mo, I added tomatoes to this mix. It's one of her faves.

Egg yolk is ok after 9 mo but my dd didn't like yolk that was hard boiled. So I 'fried' it in the pan. If I added chopped cilantro to it, she LOVED it.

Books I found useful were:

Simply Natural Baby Food by Cathe Olsen (on the Good Eating and nutrition forum) and
Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron

 

[Hollycrand]

I second the book recommendations above.
Does anyone have any suggestions of veggies that 'match' well with parsnips? I'm trying to get my 12 month old dd to eat more of a variety...but she only wants parsnips, parsnips and more parsnips.

Holly, mama of Catarina 20/07/03