Baby Food

Question: Any good and healthy baby food recipes?

(Posted by: Michael K on 2010-04-08 13:20:58)

We were thinking about trying homemade baby food when our baby is about 5 months old. Has anyone ever tried this? Does anyone have any good recipes for baby food that would be healthy for this age? I heard something about making them in ice cube treys, then keeping them in baggies, if you do this, how do you thaw it before feeding baby?

Posted by: ckngbbbls on 2010-04-08, 13:43:10

I never bought baby food for any of mine and used a thing called a baby food grinder that worked wonderful As with using commercial baby food, you never ever introduce more than one thing at a time and always simple. You do not need recipes for steamed carrots or cooked peas. Those are both excellent beginning veggies and you only need a mouth full or so at first feeding. As for cereal, we used cream of rice, cooked per directions on the box and served it with a bit of breast milk or formula mixed into it. I added sugar(just a touch) but that was 30 years ago and adding sugar was not frowned upon as much then as it is now. Mashed raw banana is also an excellent beginning fruit. I also used canned fruit(canned in fruit juice) and ground them in the grinder for my babies. they all loved them. Once your baby is eating a variety of foods, he can eat what ever you are having with the exception of things like chili, pizza, and other super spicy or rich foods. For example, I would grind roast beef and feed the baby that and mashed potato with a small amount of the gravy and ground or mashed veg that we were having on the night we had roast beef. Same with meatloaf or chicken dinners. Homemade chicken or beef noodle soups are great too. I would grind the ingredients, using broth to make it the right consistency and the babies loved that too. Children ate healthy long before baby food was invented and starting with special recipes is just silly. You will end up cooking a different meal for each kid and who has that kind of time?? a typical first meal for a 5-6 month old is a couple of spoonfulls of c.r of rice cereal and then his formula. If all goes well, you can introduce a spoon full or so of mashed peaches after the cream of rice is eaten and then the formula. I only fed one meal of solids at first to get babies tummy accustomed to the different textures and flavors and gradually introduced mashed peas for lunch, followed by a bit of fruit or carrots and fruit. Eventually the meat and potatoes were added to the lineup and I would save some of what ever we had for supper to serve the next day for babies lunch. I added new foods very slowly as we have allergy issues in our family and it just seemed to work best that way.

Posted by: Lulu on 2010-04-08, 13:24:28

Yes, you need to thaw your frozen food. I can't imagine what a six month old would do with an cube of frozen peas. :-) I got my inspiration from wholesomebabyfood.com

Posted by: Pippin on 2010-04-08, 13:26:31

You don't need a recipe. Just cook your chosen food as usual. (Steam or bake or microwave, as appropriate and desired.) Fruits, veggies, meats, starches, etc. No salt or sugar, but herbs and seasonings are fine. Bananas can be given raw. Puree or mash or cut up, depending on baby's ability. YOu may need to add a little liquid (breastmilk or formula or water.). Either feed to baby right away, or freeze. (If you freeze, you'd thaw in the microwave or on the stove -- check temperature carefully before feeding.) BTW, it's recommended to wait until around 6 months to begin solids, so if you're wanting to be 'healthy', you should wait at least that long.

Posted by: favorite_aunt24 on 2010-04-08, 13:36:55

Recipes we tried with my nephew who is just over 6 months and that he loves are Sugar Free Applesauce 4-5 medium apples, peeled and cored - use naturally sweet varieties, such as: Gala Golden or Red Delicious Fuji Pink Lady Red Rome pinch nutmeg or cinnamon water Chop the apples roughly and place in a saucepan. Pour in about one inch of water - (you could use apple juice instead, but some varieties will contain sugar) Bring the apples to a boil, then reduce the heat. Cover and simmer slowly until the apple chunks are tender (about 10-15 mins). DON'T cook the apples to the point where the mixture actually looks like applesauce! Cooking it this long will cause it to be watery and tasteless. Instead, remove the apple chunks from the pan and either puree them or mash them well. Thin with a little cooking water if necessary. Sprinkle with cinnamon and nutmeg and serve warm or - as a soothing treat for teething babies - nice and cold. GREEN BEAN After washing your beans in cold, fresh water, remove the stem end. It's not usually necessary to remove the other, curved end. You can then cut them into 2 inch pieces for cooking - or just leave them whole. Green beans can be boiled in a little water - or steamed - for around 4-5 minutes until nice and tender. TO MAKE A SIMPLE GREEN BEAN PUREE FOR YOUR BABY... ... transfer the cooked beans to a food processor and add a little water (preferably the water they were cooked in, if boiled) or milk and blend until as smooth as possible. Green beans can be difficult to get completely smooth, however. Adding water to the mixture certainly helps, but another option is to push the beans through a very fine mesh strainer AFTER processing in the blender, which removes those stubborn little bits!

Posted by: Jada's mommy on 2010-04-08, 13:50:14

My baby LOVES avocado and mango. After I fed these two fruits seperately to see if there was an allergic reaction, I would mix 1 mango (large) 1 kiwi 1 avocado Blend in a blender (you might need to add a bit of water) This is sooo yummy. What ever my baby would not eat I would ...haha. I would freeze them in 1 oz cube trays by kidco (they have lids) I would then transport them into really good freezer bags and write the date on them. They defrost faster when they are in smaller cubes. Just take out night before. One more recipe :) chunk of sweet potato (size of a mango) 1 baked apple 1/ 2 cup of cooked quinoa (high in complete protein) pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg You need to add a lot of water to make it smooth

Posted by: Mama J. on 2010-04-09, 10:36:16

I would recommend buying the book Feed Me I'm Yours. I used it with my first daughter for whom I made all her food except cereal. Here are some links to that book: search.barnesandnoble.com/ Feed-Me-Im-Yours/ Vicki-Lansky/ e/ 9780684028620 amazon.com/ Feed-Me-Im-Yours-Expanded/ dp/ 0671884433 I used to make her food by peeling if needed. Then everything except bananas I would boil until tender (Fruits, Veges, and Meat). I would try not to put too much water just enough so there was only a little extra when done boiling. Then I would puree her food in a baby food processer similar to this: babyearth.com/ dex-products-electric-baby-food-processor.html. When it was the right consistancy I would put it in ice cube trays and freeze. When it was frozen solid I would put them in zip lock freezer bag. Label with the date and contents (One food per bag). At night I would take our her food for the next day and put the cubes in seperate tuperware containers. I found some small ones at our Dollar Store which were the perfect size. Or you could just put it in a bown with some type of covering. It was usually defrosted by the next day. She liked her foods warm so I would heat it up for like 25 seconds in the microwave to take the chill off. If you do that then be sure to stir the food well and wait a couple minutes before feeding because it can have hot spots.

Posted by: Mick St James on 2010-04-11, 00:55:16

Here are a bunch of Baby Food Recipes that are healthy and easy for Mom's to make - gourmet-living.com/ category.html?category= baby+ food Goodluck!