Purées That Are Also Baby-friendly

Now that my boy Soren is 6-months old I have been making more purées to go along with my meals. That way everyone can eat it and the leftovers I freeze in ice cube trays for later baby food.

Anyone have any suggestions. So far I have done a carrot and mint puree and another one with broccoli, pea, and ham.

I think I might do a parsnip or maybe cauliflower next. I also might cook up some orzo to add some texture.

k.

One of the cooks at work runs the brown jasmine rice that he and his wife eat through a food mill, then thins it with stock for his little girl. We were actually talking about this this morning. Most of their meals either go in the food mill or vita prep and then feed Eloise.

If you make good parsnip purée, pass me the recipe.. Mines always like frikken glue

mr drinky said:

Now that my boy Soren is 6-months old I have been making more purées to go along with my meals. That way everyone can eat it and the leftovers I freeze in ice cube trays for later baby food.

Anyone have any suggestions. So far I have done a carrot and mint puree and another one with broccoli, pea, and ham.

I think I might do a parsnip or maybe cauliflower next. I also might cook up some orzo to add some texture.

k.

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you should try making congee, so good and so many flavors can be added.

Add apples to the parsnips, like 80/20 or so, and it makes the texture much nicer. Mounting with a ton of butter also helps.

Sweet potatoes?

mr drinky said:

Now that my boy Soren is 6-months old I have been making more purées to go along with my meals. That way everyone can eat it and the leftovers I freeze in ice cube trays for later baby food.

Anyone have any suggestions. So far I have done a carrot and mint puree and another one with broccoli, pea, and ham.

I think I might do a parsnip or maybe cauliflower next. I also might cook up some orzo to add some texture.


k.

Click to expand...

My daughter is 2 and I have cooked all the meals for her at home.I have started with carrots and then sweet potatoes. I would steam them until very soft and add the juice from the steaming water to adjust to consistency and pass trough chinois. Then it was mashed potatoes ,parsnips. With the parsnips if you take out the tough inner inner core it will be lot softer puree. Peas are always her favorite tough we gave that more for earlier meals since it is little more difficult to digest. Later on I have started cooking fish in those purees and break it apart in little pieces to add more protein. I have done pumpkin puree , spinach puree with added cooked quinoa, cauliflower wit fennel (helps digestion ) ,red lentil soup...
Hope this helps

That apple and parsnip puree sounds good. And I also do sweet potatoes a lot, but I just bake them for an hour or so, wrap them in foil for the fridge and smash them with a fork before serving. The kid eats it like a champ. That and avocado.

I also read somewhere recently that it good to introduce textures into their food from 4-12 months. Kids that weren't introduced to textures in the first year (read: too much purees) are much more likely to be picky eaters. All these child raising books are so afraid of allergies that they tell you to do a single food puree for one week and monitor for allergies before starting another food. You then are supposed to do this for several weeks until you are SURE they don't have allergies and only then do you *gasp* mix foods -- let alone add mild texture that will likely choke your kid to death. I hate the American 'child safety' industry.

Anyhow -- rant aside -- I love the idea of adding fish to purees. I'll definitely try that. Gives some protein and texture.

The congee also sound fabulous. A chicken one strikes me off the bat as being a good option.

I actually did a cauliflower, cream, and potato soup a few weeks ago that I would have been good, but I ate it all. I might try that again and thicken it up a bit. Another one of my favorites (but probably a few months down the road when more teeth come in) is pork ribs. Strip off the bigger chunks of meat and it becomes a protein teething bone. I actually got the idea of Eamon (who is no longer on the forum). His kid at 5 months or so was gnawing on a rib bone and loved it.

Anyhow, thanks for the ideas. Keep 'em coming if you have any. I might post my favorite recipes in a few months.

k.

If he's old enough for cereal, grits might be good. (Or polenta, if you want to be highfalutin.) I make a side dish of tomato grits topped with cheese--saute a little garlic in olive oil, add tomatoes, thyme, saffron, salt, & pepper--boil it up and throw in some grits to soak up the liquid. Cook until the grits are done. You could puree the veg with an immersion blender before adding the grits--add whatever veg you want--and add the grits and liquid as necessary to get it to a nice runny cereal texture. You could vary the spices/vegetables to suit your palate. Top with some grated cheese for the adults.

We always have a few purees on our menus at work. They are usually pretty simple with very little added to them as they are a component to a dish. Veg stock, salt & butter, maybe some herbs or a spice or two. The list includes (depending on the time of the year):

English pea (w/ mint)
Chickpea
Lentil
Corn
Squash
Garlic
Cauliflower
Parsnip
Lemon
Potato
White bean
Soy bean
Heirloom tomato
Eggplant

and the list goes on and on.

Google 'baby-led weaning'.

This is what we did with my son who is now three.

The idea with baby-led weaning is that you don't give the kid any purees, but instead anything that you eat you offer the child some. You don't feed the child, just put the food in front of them and let them use their hands.

The core idea is pretty elegant. The time that a child is developmentally prepared to to digest solid food, naturally coincides with the time that a child is physically able to pick up a piece of food get it into its mouth and swallow it.

We started offering jack solid food at about six months, never puréed anything or spoon fed him at all. At this point all of his nutrition is coming from milk and solid food is all about discovery and play. It's also messy, having a dog to clean up scraps was gold.

This technique just seemed so much more natural to us than prepping separate mush for the kid.

Couple of years later, jack is a great eater - sure he has his dislikes - but he'll try anything.

I read Dusty's post to the dog. He thinks it sounds like a good gig!

I've cleaned out some pumpkins over the weekend to roast and puree (and the mandatory carving). The finished puree looks a lot like the Gerber stuff in the bottle. Tastes better.