Adventures in Baby Food, Part 2

I ran out of baby food already.  Well, almost ran out.  So if you remember that post about the first batch I made, it made enough for about eight weeks.  

Yes, this is a boring post.  But I have friends with babies and pregnant friends that may or may not be interested in it, so here it is.  

Bo is a vacuum.  He likes to eat.  He eats more than I imagined he would, and he eats with gusto.  He isn't very picky and has enjoyed just about everything EXCEPT green peas.  For everything else I feed him, he hums and make nom-nom sounds from the first bite to the last.

Now that he is just about six months old and has a few sharp chompers to eat with, I was excited to increase the types and textures of foods this time around.  I made a list, and went shopping.  And then I made baby food.  Lots of it, and it took a lot longer this time.  About 12 hours to be exact.  I didn't do it all in one day, I split it up over the course of three days.  It was much more time consuming because I added meat and grains to his diet.  I was cooking chicken, poaching fish, cooking brown rice, steaming veggies, making sauces, peeling fruit... and the list goes on and on.

I went to the grocery store first, and looked at the combinations available so I could get some ideas about what might go well together.  There were a lot, but most of them had common basic ingredients.  "Chicken, Broccoli and Rice", or "Tropical Fruit", for example.  So rather than pre-mix the "Tropical Fruit" flavor which is a combination of pineapple, mango, and banana, I opted to puree and freeze them all separately so I can mix a bigger variety of stuff come meal time.  This way, I can also mix the bananas with blueberries, or the mango with chicken rather than only having the mango in one combination.  I will have a lot more mixing options this way.

Here is a good example:

Three banana, one blueberry, and one coconut milk.

After nuking for 45 seconds, and with a little oatmeal added.

The one thing I did notice though, is the difference between what I read on the internet that babies should eat compared to the foods available at the supermarket.  For example, on http://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com, I read that citrus fruits should be avoided due to the acidic content until 10-12 months.  However, Gerber sure enough sells a stage 2 food (marketed to "sitters") that includes oranges.  The commercial foods also include desserts in the stage 2 food, which I'm not ready to introduce yet.  And they don't include fish, which I do want to include.  Internet says wait on fish, but I think that's sort of dumb.  Babies in nearly every other country of the world start out on fish.  Instead, Gerber sells VEAL in a jar.  Gag.  Do people even eat veal anymore?  So, I took the recommendations of the baby-food market and inserted a little common sense and just went from there. If you have a history of food allergies in your family, you just use a little more common sense in that particular allergy area.  

I do fully realize that a lot of people just mash up whatever they are eating and feed that to their babies after they get past the first pureed stage.  I don't do that because of the salt content.  That is the one ingredient that I have always been hung up on because I am extremely sensitive to salt and I just don't want my babies eating it.  But to each his own.

 So yes, I have separate mashed potatoes for Bo than I do for everyone else.  His don't have any salt in them.  And no, he does not think they are gross.  He loves them.

This round was much more time consuming than the first round.  If it weren't for my super awesome food processor, it would have been pretty close to impossible.  I couldn't imagine doing this with a blender unless it was a Vitamix.

My most-favorite drinking glass gets a cameo in this post.  My friend Natalie made me that glass last year at Christmas, and it's the only glass I drink out of.  It has my initials etched on it, and I use it constantly because I know the children haven't touched it.  It's germ-free.  Nobody can mistake it for their glass.  If I ever break it, I will be begging her to make me another one so I don't have to worry about catching the plague from my backwashing kids.

Ok, and here is the list:

Chicken and Brown Rice

Fish and Brown Rice

I used mostly chicken tenderloins but threw two chicken thighs in for some flavor and some fat.  Babies do need fat, and white meat can be dry.  Especially if you pulverize it to smithereens in the food processor.  I went ahead and added the rice strictly because it needed something to bind it together, and I didn't want to make gravy.  So now, I have a meat/fish with a grain, I can just add a fruit (like peaches or mango) or a veggie (broccoli or sweet potatoes) and have a full meal.  I boiled the chicken, poached the fish (I used cod fillets) and prepared the brown rice the good old fashioned way.

Blueberries (I used frozen and boiled them per the internet instructions to make them easier to digest)

Mango (it wouldn't puree without liquid, so I added coconut milk.)

Peaches

Apples

Pears

Bananas (he won't eat them plain, but loves them mixed with other fruits)

Broccoli

Peas (he will eat them mixed with something else to cut the strong flavor)

Sweet Potatoes

Pumpkin

Carrots

Yellow Squash

Butternut Squash

Mashed white potatoes (I did use a little butter (not margarine) but no salt)

Coconut Milk (This can be added to anything that's really thick, or to add a tropical flavor and some good fat to anything.  It's easier to keep on hand if you freeze it in cubes.)

I also made a few main courses with pasta.  The trick with using pasta is to overcook it.  It needs to be really mushy in order for a baby to gum it.  I still used the food processor to blend it up somewhat (not pureed) but the pasta has to be mushy or even the tiniest pieces of pasta won't mash up in their mouths. I made spaghetti with meat sauce, but I am not feeding him this one yet.  I had second thoughts due to the acidic content of the tomatoes but it will keep in the freezer so I will feed it to him later.  Again, no salt.  I seasoned it with basil, oregano, onion powder and garlic powder.  I also made macaroni and cheese.  I made a traditional cream sauce for this one based on my stand-by recipe and just left out the salt and other spices.   

Photo bomb courtesy of Jack.

 Go big or go home, right?  That's always been my motto, even when I don't want it to be.  It's what I do, I can't help it.

This was a lot of work.  It wasn't what I would categorize as fun either.  However, it was worth it when it was over.  I always go "full table food" at 12 months, so I only have six months of baby-food making to worry about.  If I look at it that way, it's not so bad!