Baby Food?

[emunding]

I have a 6-month old son, and have been making some baby food at home. We have tried a fair amount of baby food from the store, both to try new flavors and to collect the jars to use for home-made stuff. My wife and I would both prefer to go with as much freshly made food for him as possible. So far, we've been successful (according to the baby) with pinto beans, chicken & beef (both with potatoes and carrots) and blueberry apple sauce (his favorite). Failures include garbanzos, avocado and broccoli & carrots. Tonight we made some mango & strawberry (which smelled amazing when it came out of the oven) and some apple & carrot. The fruits are baked, the meats are pressure cooked. Then it all goes through the blender until it is reasonably smooth.

I am wondering if others have made their own baby food and what their best recipes are. I am interested in expanding his selection (corn, spinach, etc.)

--Eric

[Lilija]

Yay! First of all, welcome to eG, and good for you making the kiddo's vittles. The baby food industry depresses the hell out of me.

I made all my own baby food, 11 years ago, when my son was wee. I pretty much steamed/simmered single foods, pureed them, popped em into an ice cube tray (except potatoes), and made combinations from there. You sound like you're on the right track with types of food. No recipes, really, in the early stages. Peas are nice. Sweet things help introduce bitter. Apples will take you far. Carrots can be strong tasting, but mixed with butternut squash (and or apples)the flavor gets lighter. In fact, butternut squash is a lovely, subtle, highly nutritional base for anything. I think for spinach, I waited till he was a year, and made him a baby version of creamed, which was basically finely minced with a little baby rice cereal and milk slurry. You could use water, breast milk, or formula, too I suppose. I think I did broccoli that way too, to dilute the flavor. Little ones have more tastebuds than adults, so strong flavors are intensely strong. The only concession to prepared stuff I made was the baby cereals, they were good bases. Simple very mashed potatoes, are great too.

I kept salt and sugar far away, so he'd get a good palate for actual vegetables, but introduced flavors early. I think around a year, I was already seasoning his foods with a whisper of garlic, or nutmeg for the squashes, stuff like that. Also, by the time he could handle bits of food, he got a little taste of everything that crossed my plate, from hijiki salad to roasted beets and goat cheese, to tandoori chicken. Just every flavor imaginable, except the highly sugary, salty, or spicy. When he gets older, then you can get into making actual recipes, like very mild mac and cheese, with very soft noodles. I'll go see if I still have some of my ancient books. My mother passed a few on, that she used for me when I was a baby (!!)

It's paid off, though. the kid is 11, and has a more varied palate than I do. There's nothing he won't try, and very few foods he outright dislikes, and those are mainly a texture thing. I think it's EXCELLENT that you're making the baby's food. I had to pick up some jarred baby food for my pet lizard the other day, and loitered around the row checking stuff out, seeing what's changed since my boy was that age...it's shocking. Setting jr. up to be a prepared food junkie from that early.

[ambra]

I made/make all my own baby food. My son wouldn't have it any other way. I used a book my Annabel Karmel for some ideas, but really, I tried to cook things that WE eat. In other words, if I were making cauliflower for us, I would make some for my son. I just figured that transitioning to our food would be easier.But that is probably conjecture! Luckily, we eat a very well rounded diet with regards to vegetables and fruits.

My son's favorites are overcooked broccoli, olive oil, garlic and tiny pasta....Same recipe with cauliflower, also spinach and ricotta with pasta, and minestrone. He also likes peas and rice alot.

Minestrone is our absolute 'go to' for him. The base is always onions celery, carrot, green leaf vegetable such as chard, zucchini, and beans or peas. From there I add whatever is fresh and beautiful: broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, literally what ever I can find. I've even added brussel sprouts in the past. I puree it and serve it with parmigiano and a little raw olive oil. (Keep in mind that I live in Italy where food introduction is quite different.) My son STILL eats that dish more than any other. Granted, you're going to need to introduce these veggies one by one before you start mixing them, but it's a good way to hide nutritionally valuable veggies.

Leeks are pretty good for flavour. My son also loved sweet potato, regular potato, peas, spinach, zucchini, carrots, apples, pears, apricots, bananas, fish, garlic, onion and I can't think of anything else...

Lilija is right about sugar and salt. Actually, salt is a BIG NO-NO before 12 months as it could be harmful to the kidneys. (I am not a doc, but this is what Iwas told by mine.)

The website wholesomebabyfood.com was a great resource for me.

Good Luck!

[Lora]

My daughter insisted on feeding herself long before she could handle a spoon or had any teeth to speak of - or any manual dexterity for that matter! It turns out you can make pretty much anything into a pancake by binding fruits and veggies with eggs and/or cereals or flours (of any grain type), then frying small dollops in a nonstick pan. (They'll be fragile.) Chunks of these are easy to pick up and eat, and they freeze beautifully. My daughter's favorites were strawberry-rice and broccoli-corn. (Oatmeal-green bean didn't work out nearly so well.)

[iguana]

Welcome emunding and congratulations on making your own baby food. I agree with everyone upthread that it is a great thing. You will get better food and save a lot of $$.

I used the book "Super Baby Food" by Ruth Yaron, but disregarded her porridge and a lot of her rah rah Super baby talk. Once you get past that, this book is a great introduction for making baby food. Freezing in ice cube trays is a great thing, as mentioned upthread. My daughter's favorites were fruits of any kind. chicken-and-gravy, and pureed string beans. I used my mini food processor to chop up cooked veg with a little liquid.

Lora, I love your little pancake idea-- my "little one" is now 5, sigh.

Jen

[Shamanjoe]

I'll definitely be watching this thread. My little one is only 2 months right now, but I know she'll be eating any and everything when she can. As far as freezing goes, is that making up individual portions from a large batch and then freezing for later thawing and eating? I can't wait to start blending stuff up for my little one. And thanks for the no salt tip.

[Lilija]

I froze it all in the trusty old ice cube trays, and I forget actual portion sizes, but I remember like half a cube being more than enough. I'd make it up in small portions, still, like maybe 2-3 cubes worth of each various thing, filling a whole tray with a variety of veggies, for the next few days.

Edited March 25, 2010 by Lilija (log)

[emunding]

Wow, I've gotten some good information and good ideas already.

For freezing, we've been using the little glass jars that store-bought baby food often comes in. The ice cube tray idea is interesting. I think my son might need 2-3 cubes in a feeding, but that might encourage us to give him a 3 course meal ;-) I like the pancake idea, too. It adds some dexterity training, and it has me thinking of a hundred combinations.

Thanks.

--Eric

[ambra]

Oh, the pancakes. yes zucchini cakes, potato cakes, even meatballs! For a while, my son wouldn't even eat meat unless it was a meatball!!

Shalmanese, I used to think my son would be the biggest eater in town! He was born hungry and he stayed that way until it was time to start introducing solids. He broke records! Seriously!! It turned out he just really liked his milk! He's 16 months now, and still throws himself a little party when we whip out the milk.

The important thing is not to rush your baby (unless you have some medical reason,) especially if the baby is breastfed. He or she will let you know when he is ready. And look into baby led weaning. It's a really good thing. I did a modified version of that. My son wouldn't touch a solid at 6 months no matter what I did or what I tried. At 8 months, he was more open. At the same time, my very good friend's son started solids a month ago (he was 5.5 months) and her son CAN'T GET ENOUGH even asks for it!!

Edited March 25, 2010 by ambra (log)

[Jaymes]

We do the "freeze baby food in ice cube trays" thing, too.

It's simplicity itself. You just cook up a big batch of whatever you like - sweet potatoes, carrots, squash, peas, etc. Then put it into the ice cube trays. When it's frozen, you can take the cubes out and put them into ziplock freezer bags, freeing up the trays to make more cubes.

You start with perhaps one cube of whatever it is at feeding time, and then as baby ages, work your way up to however many cubes you need to fill him or her up.

But the best tip by far that anyone gave me was to buy a baby grinder and use it to grind up whatever we were eating. We did cook our meals with no added salt. That way, we could add our salt at the table, but baby wasn't getting it.

After having one grinder and using it constantly, I bought a second one to carry in my purse so that baby could have some of whatever we were ordering at restaurants. It's so handy - you can even feed baby right out of the top of the grinder.

In my opinion, no parent should be without one.

Baby food mill

I notice in the product description that this particular brand no longer comes with a stainless steel grate. I'd suggest you find one that does.

_______________________

Edited March 25, 2010 by Jaymes (log)

[Kouign Aman]

In lieu of icecube trays, we made 'plops' on a cookie sheet and froze those. As noted by others, once frozen, they move nicely into freezer bags. I prepared single items, rather than pre-making combinations.

"3 course" meals, and combinations are easy to by combining 'plops', and help as baby starts eating bigger meals without giving advance notice.

I'd mix a small dose of some form of fat in several of the foods, and those were key at dinner so that baby stayed full and I got to stay asleep.

Mango and chicken was popular for a while.

Later, when finger foods were in, I would cut carrot sticks and steam them. Once cooked, they freeze ok (raw carrots never recover from the freezing experience and cannot be made edible by cooking afterwards), and make a nice independent treat if you need a bit more time to get the rest of dinner on the table.

The food mill was useful. I used it to make most of the pureed foods. As quickly as I could, we moved to a rougher textured puree, and then to finely chopped, because I knew kids with texture hangups and I didnt want to be serving babyfood for the rest of my life.

I didnt usually season the large batches, which left me free to season individual meals as inspiration struck and the microwave thawed the 'plop'.

I did a small batch of browned onions and then chopped them very fine. I froze them in 1/4 tsp size, to add to other meals at whim. Onions are good food.

Mostly, have fun. After all, you'll be feeding this person for many years to come.

Edited March 25, 2010 by Kouign Aman (log)

[emunding]

Thanks for the baby food mill tip. I just ordered one off Amazon for about $11. We've been using a blender, but I'm anxious to try this. It sounds like it will be a little coarser (which isn't a bad thing) and we can use it on the spot for single servings. I'll have to keep the salt warning in mind when we use it at a restaurant, but I love the idea of the baby eating what we eat at the table.

Also, I initially imagined ice cube trays storing the frozen food for days on end. Moving them to zip lock bags straight away would make for easier freezer storage than the glass jars we now rely on. Good stuff!

--Eric

[Jaymes]

Thanks for the baby food mill tip. I just ordered one off Amazon for about $11. We've been using a blender, but I'm anxious to try this. It sounds like it will be a little coarser (which isn't a bad thing) and we can use it on the spot for single servings. I'll have to keep the salt warning in mind when we use it at a restaurant, but I love the idea of the baby eating what we eat at the table.

The food mill is definitely too labor-intensive for processing large batches, but for single servings, we found it invaluable.

[PopsicleToze]

Thanks for the baby-mill info. Just ordered one for the great-nephew and looking forward to seeing it in action.

Rhonda

Edited March 29, 2010 by PopsicleToze (log)

[KarenDW]

Also, I initially imagined ice cube trays storing the frozen food for days on end. Moving them to zip lock bags straight away would make for easier freezer storage than the glass jars we now rely on. Good stuff!

Eric: actually, you want to move the frozen food into storage bags as soon as possible, to minimize the length of time that the food is exposed to air (causing freezer burn/drying).

We used the baby food mill almost exclusively for the time which our girls needed pureed foods (3-4 months, from age 6 months). I found that cooking well and mashing with a fork also worked, once the babes had a sense of the chewing (or "gumming") action.

Babies have no discernment of the difference between vegetables and fruits. By using such items interchangeably, I think I managed to stave off any bias towards eating either sweet or savoury foods at particular times of day. This, I think, was a good move, considering the various food pairings one experiences when traveling the world. Daughter 1 heads on a year-long globe-circumnavigating trip in a few months.

[snowangel]

Thanks for the baby food mill tip. I just ordered one off Amazon for about $11. We've been using a blender, but I'm anxious to try this. It sounds like it will be a little coarser (which isn't a bad thing) and we can use it on the spot for single servings. I'll have to keep the salt warning in mind when we use it at a restaurant, but I love the idea of the baby eating what we eat at the table.

The food mill is definitely too labor-intensive for processing large batches, but for single servings, we found it invaluable.

I never made baby food, per se, but rather we used the food grinder at every meal. Our kids ate what we did; ground pre-teeth.

[MollyB]

My 6-mo. old son is just starting solid food (so far we've done apples, sweet potato, and avocado), and I'm planning to make his food at home. I'm wondering if it's worth getting one of the baby food mills that are out there. I have a Blendtec blender, food processor, and full-size food mill in my kitchen, but none of them work very well for small batches of food. Many people seem to like the baby food mills for grinding up some of whatever we're eating, but the consensus seems to be that those mills were much better when they had all-metal grinding mechanisms, which you don't seem to be able to buy anymore.

Any thoughts on whether it's worth getting a baby food mill? If so, are there particular brands that you like? All brands get mixed reviews online.

Also, I really like the idea of just feeding him some of the meals we're making for ourselves, but I worry about all the warnings to space out introduction of new foods in case there are allergic reactions. If you've given your baby ground-up versions of your food, when did you start doing that?