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Farm Kitchen:  Cooking for babies  |
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ivmeer
True Blue Farmgirl
409 Posts
Amanda
Pawtucket
RI
USA
409 Posts |
 Posted - Jul 16 2007 : 06:56:09 AM
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Hi, everyone. It's been a while since I posted here, and I guess the title of my topic should provide a clue as to why. Last September, I gave birth to the most beautiful baby boy in the world.
Anyway, he's been on solids for a while, and I just have to say that commercially prepared baby food is disgusting. I'm okay with the occasional container of fruit or veggies, but it all smells like canned tomato soup to me, and I don't mean that in a good way. When we're traveling, occasionally I'll bust open one of those jars of "meat and vegetable dinner" and feed it to the baby. The last time I tried that, he spit it out and gave me a look like, "How could you do this to me, Mom?" I couldn't blame him. It looked vile.
So, what have been the farmgirls' solutions for cooking for the toothless bland diet crowd? Here are some of the things I do:
For meat, either I boil chicken thighs and then puree them in the food processor, or I put stew beef in the crock pot overnight and then puree it in the food processor. I find ground beef clumps and gets tough, where stew beef retains a pleasantly shredded texture. When my baby was less able to gum his food, I pureed it with water to make a paste. Now I puree it dry and it's nice and shredded.
For fruits and veggies, I'm really into the ice cube tray technique, where you boil the veggies, puree them, and put them in ice cube trays. I've cooked the following fruits and veggies this way: peas, carrots, squash, beets, cauliflower, broccoli, sweet corn, peaches, pears, plums, apples, mangoes, and blueberries.
My baby is on a weight gain diet (for a while, he was pretty skinny), so I also boil and mash potatoes (dry, nothing mixed with them) and then fry them in rendered chicken fat for him. I've also served him sauteed zucchini, either sauteed and pureed or diced finely and then sauteed until it gets soft. He loves baked mashed sweet potatoes, as well as mashed avocado and bananas. I've also fed him barley, lentils, and macaroni, boiled until it gets very soft.
I love to feed him sunbutter, an organic, peanut-free product that is made from sunflower seeds and tastes a whole lot like peanut butter. I mix it and a spoonful of apricot preserves into his yogurt.
Now that he's off baby cereals, I feed him quick oats, grits, or farina for breakfast, usually mixed with fruit puree and/or sunbutter.
And because good little boys (especially the ones who are too skinny) get dessert when they finish their dinners, he gets vanilla ice cream every day.
Does anyone have good ideas on wholesome baby food that doesn't come from a jar? |
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BarefootGoatGirl
True Blue Farmgirl
1495 Posts
Corrine
North Carolina
USA
1495 Posts |
Posted - Jul 16 2007 : 4:12:36 PM
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Amanda,
You are much kinder than I am about describing baby food...I think it tastes, looks, and smells like baby poop! As for giving your little bugger good food I think you are really on the right track. I have a daughter who has been on a weight gain diet for 6 years (she has a genetic disorder that causes her to be very thin) and one of the things I have found to be great is avacado --I know you mentioned it, but it is excellent. I would give my bugger homemade guacamole or mashed avacado with omega 3 mayo. Also soft boiled eggs are good once they are past a year. Whole grain toast "bites" spread with REAL butter, homemade extra nutrition smoothies, and smashed bananas with REAL maple syrup and coconut oil are all good.
Hope this helps. Gotta go feed my big buggers now...they think I'm starving them. Oh, when you start little man on milk you may want to concider goats milk. It is much easier to digest than cows milk so there is more accessable nutrition and has a much less chance of causing an allergic reaction. My skinny bug showed an impressive (for her) weight gain when we switched to goat.
Trina
http://glitteringgoat.blogspot.com/
If you would know Love, you must know pain too. -Hannah Hurnard |
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ivmeer
True Blue Farmgirl
409 Posts
Amanda
Pawtucket
RI
USA
409 Posts |
Posted - Jul 16 2007 : 8:58:33 PM
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Thanks for the good advice. I forgot to mention that as a protein alternative to chicken or beef, sometimes I feed the baby soft tofu mashed up with toasted sesame oil and a teensy bit of rice vinegar for flavor.
Also, the yogurt I buy is Krinos Greek yogurt, and it's full-fat with a layer of cream on top. Totally yummy and good for skinny babies.
Also, next week I'm going to send away for some ChillOver Powder (we're going away this weekend and I don't want the UPS package to arrive while I'm out of town) and make the baby some giggle wiggles with coconut milk (which naturally has lots of coconut oil) and fruit juice. |
Edited by - ivmeer on Jul 16 2007 9:00:53 PM |
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La Patite Ferme
True Blue Farmgirl
623 Posts
Jenn
CA
USA
623 Posts |
Posted - Jul 16 2007 : 9:05:33 PM
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I think you're on the right track. Start with the good stuff now and you will never have to worry about them being a junk food junkie. My DD, now 14, was on homemade in her younger days. I had a food grinder (a little plastic thing from Target - I think) as I cooked dinner for DH and myself the veggies and meat went into the grinder. She ate what we ate - no short order cook in our house. It was a nice little size that I could take it on trips with me. I could order plain veggies and baked chicken and grind it at the table then rinse it out in the room.
The only challenge I had with her was in the hot weather she didn't want to eat at all. We went to VA one spring and it was unseasonably hot and humid. For a week she only ate fruit and ice. Later on I started making her fruit smoothies, just frozen fruit and ice. If it was really hot I could add a little protein powder to make sure she got all the nutrients she needed.
The avos are good because they have the right kind of oils in them. DD liked lamb (which we raise) and it's a great source of iron. I would grind it with plain white rice. She preferred it to beef - maybe because of the texture. I even put cottage cheese through the grinder when she was old enough.
Looking back the only thing I did'nt include was fish. But, I think if you just poach or bake it then grind it would be okay.
Hope this helps.
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Aunt Jenny
True Blue Farmgirl
11381 Posts
Jenny
middle of
Utah
USA
11381 Posts |
Posted - Jul 16 2007 : 11:41:18 PM
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I used one of the little baby food hand grinders when my oldest sons were babies too (long time ago...they are grown now) and always fed them mostly a version of what we ate. I agree..baby food stinks and yuck..I wouldn't want to eat it either. Besides that fact that I couldn't have afforded it anyhow. One thing my boys loved was a baked sweet potato (fresh) mashed with a little butter and cinnamon..I like it too!! I tried to never feed my babies anything I wouldn't eat myself..of course they got theirs before seasoning very strongly. THey are all good eaters and no picky eaters here. It is so worth it.
Jenny in Utah
Inside me there is a skinny woman crying to get out...but I can usually shut her up with cookies
http://www.auntjennysworld.blogspot.com/ visit my little online shop at www.auntjenny.etsy.com |
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ivmeer
True Blue Farmgirl
409 Posts
Amanda
Pawtucket
RI
USA
409 Posts |
Posted - Jul 17 2007 : 07:09:33 AM
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Well, these days there are so many restrictions on what babies are allowed to eat. Fish is one of those foods that they always delay, because it's easy to get food poisoning from it, and something that you or I could fight off with no symptoms might make a baby very sick.
I usually cook a meal specially for him because of these restrictions, and because I don't want to have to give too much thought to whether whatever we're eating has too much salt or spice or one of the ingredients he's not supposed to have. However, one of my rules is that if I wouldn't eat it myself, he shouldn't have to either. Last night, he got shredded beef, mashed sweet potato, sauteed zucchini and elbow macaroni mixed together in a bowl. I would be happy to eat that myself.
I don't feed him lamb, because I almost never eat it myself. I keep kosher, and kosher lamb is prohibitively expensive.
So far, I've never had to deal with pickiness. He rejected millet, I think because of the texture. Also, once I gave him some lentils with a little bit of tomato mixed in, and it was a bit too acidic for him, and he made faces. I just mixed some sweet potato with it, and he was suddenly gobbling it down. Other than those two times, he's never rejected food. |
Edited by - ivmeer on Jul 17 2007 07:13:20 AM |
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BarefootGoatGirl
True Blue Farmgirl
1495 Posts
Corrine
North Carolina
USA
1495 Posts |
Posted - Jul 17 2007 : 1:30:32 PM
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Amanda,
Remember that you are the mommy and sometimes you will disagree with "what babies are allowed to eat." For example, I transitioned my children from breast milk to whole cows milk (before I had goats)because I am not convinced that formula is a healthy choice. Also, mine ate tuna and salmon all the time as infants, it depends on what YOU are comfortable with. You are the mommy and God gave you, not the doctors the intuition to know what your baby needs.
Trina
http://glitteringgoat.blogspot.com/
If you would know Love, you must know pain too. -Hannah Hurnard |
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ivmeer
True Blue Farmgirl
409 Posts
Amanda
Pawtucket
RI
USA
409 Posts |
Posted - Jul 17 2007 : 3:43:14 PM
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| Well, I breastfeed, and my baby occasionally gets a scoop of formula in his cereal in the morning, but that's all. As much as I'd love to believe that mother's intuition trumps all, I know that some things are not safe for babies, like raw honey, lunch meats, etc. It's not uncommon for babies to die if these items are contaminated. |
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ivmeer
True Blue Farmgirl
409 Posts
Amanda
Pawtucket
RI
USA
409 Posts |
Posted - Jul 23 2007 : 6:54:22 PM
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| Update: Now that my baby is better able to gum things, I've been grating veggies like zucchini and carrots rather than pureeing them. My food processor has a grating attachment that works wonderfully. |
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Farm Kitchen: Cooking for babies |
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Cooking for babies
