Baby food making mamas - recipes/combinations

[pinktartan9]

Hey everyone!

Looking for some new recipes for fruit/veggie/grain combos you may be doing currently or have in the past that have gone over well with your LO.

We have had a few stars in my house!

Kale, blackberries and gala apples
Peas (eeww), blueberries and gala apples

I also tried strawberries and banana together and DD was NOT impressed. She is not a fan of banana.

Ultimately I am looking to get more veggies into her diet. She loves carrot and sweet potato. Seems fine with Kale and spinach. Hates peas and green beans unless I sneak them in with fruit.

Any other combos or suggestions are welcome! I like to keep a variety going

[Lollipop]

I've been avoiding leafy greens because they make M gassy. So far I've just been grabbing whatever fruit and veggies sound good to me (except banana, M loves it, but I can't stand them). So far she's liked everything.

We've done:
strawberries
bananas
apples
nectarines
plums
raspberries
and kiwis in various combinations

and
sweet potato
carrots
squash

Also, she hasn't tried it yet, but I just bought pears, mangoes, and a different kind of squash

Our doctor says it's not a big deal if they mostly eat fruit, instead of veggies, since they're part of the same food group. As for grain, I've just been doing the store bought cereal

[pinktartan9]

Thanks for your list Lollipop

kelltothekell I have a cusinart 2 in 1 bottle warmer and baby food maker. I have never used the bottle warmer part but I love the baby food maker. The machine steams the food in the same basket that it puree's it. So all you need to do is wash/peel/core the fruit/veg and throw it in the basket/bowl. Then add an appropriate amount of water (there is an instructions manual with info on how to do this) and the machine steams and then you pulse/purée to desired thickness. I would highly recommend the machine except that it is a smaller bowel than a normal food processor and therefor you can only make so much food at a time (totally fine but do need to make food a good few times a week)
I typically only do one fruit or veg at a time but recently have been doing the combinations and it seems to be going over well

Ps DD was okay with avocado until she tried sweet potatos! Haha sweet potato:1 avocado:0

[Lollipop]

I just use a blender. The fruit I just toss in and puree. The veggies I cook before hand and then toss in the blender. I bought the infantino fresh squeezed system, so once I have it pureed, I put it into squeeze packs and toss them in the freezer. I don't add water or anything.

I'm also not a big cook. I had to google how to cook the butternut squash last week lol

[14joa31]

@loonylove - I'm on the same page as you are! I'm doing the baby led weaning. I HATE spoon feeding with a burning passion as bright as a thousand suns. However, BLW is proving more stressful than I thought because DD is so adept at using her two teeth at hacking off big pieces of whatever I give her - I am constantly fishing stuff out of her mouth.

I give her pieces of quesadilla, apple slices (skin on) that have been slightly boiled, orange slices, cantaloupe (some of the rind still on). Last night I gave her a strip of pork and she managed to bight some off of it. I don't know yet if the stress of fishing stuff out of her mouth is better than my hatred of spoon feeding. I haven't started up spoon feeding yet again though, so ...

[pinktartan9]

14joa31 this happened to us today! I am doing primarily puree's but am also trying to give bits of food since DD is much more interested in what I am eating. She has had bits of toast, Cheerios, a little bit of some home made banana bread. Today I had a hash brown for the first time in forever and DD was very interested. I gave her a little bit and she started choking. I was awful!

[14joa31]

pinktartan9 - does she eat the Cheerios ok? I may just start giving her those ... lol!

[NellieOleson]

pinktartan9 - have you tried scrambled eggs? They are a nice, soft, healthy food. My dd1 loved them at this age.

Poor dd2 gets very limited food because of her vomiting issues. We started with BLW, but after a few weeks went totally backward and put her on rice cereal only. She only wants to hold the spoon herself, though, so it's a huuuuuge mess. She also gets the occasional single fruit or vegetable purées, but I've just been buying the Earth's Best stage 1 jars.

So far, the only thing she doesn't throw up is rice cereal.

[NellieOleson]

14joa31 - I know it's stressful, but a big part of BLW is letting the baby maneuver the food in their own mouth. They are very good at pushing things out that are too big, and gagging is usually not related to any actual choking. What happens if you don't fish the food out of her mouth and let her do it herself?

That being said, I would be too worried about chunks of meat in her mouth, and would have to get them out myself, too. That is way too much of a choking hazard.

I remember being so stressed out when dd1 was first eating. I was like "Great. I'm never going to have a meal again where I'm not totally freaked out about my kid choking." So glad they grow out of that phase!

[14joa31]

NellieOleson - I have only yanked out those things where I have a real fear of her choking - like the meat or a huge chunk of quesadilla. When I give her really soft things, like roasted slices of squash, then I just let her work it out of her mouth on her own.

[scorpioscuba]

pinktartan9, I give DD organic whole milk plain yogurt mixed with fresh fruit for breakfast in the morning. It's easy to mash up the fruit in a bowl and mix in some yogurt. She LOVES it!

That's about the only thing I'm spoonfeeding her. Everything else is BLW. I do have some of those Happy Baby food pouches for on the go if she gets hungry since breastfeeding in public is basically a no go at this point.

She also loves the puffs and yogurt melts.

[Lollipop]

We try to do a mix of BLW and spoon feeding, but M is lazy, and won't feed herself. She CAN. She just won't. She will eat little bits of whatever we give her though.

[Lsquared]

We do a mix too. If we happen to be eating something I don't feel like I need to freak out about him dying I'll give him some. Otherwise he gets a pouch that he can feed himself. He gets so frustrated while being spoon fed...little piggy can't get it in fast enough with a spoon.

I could read you some of the purée combinations from the pouches I buy? I stopped making baby food with DD...it was such a process.

[tinydancer]

We've been doing BLW so far too. I once mashed up an avocado and tried to spoon feed baby and he wouldn't let me do it. He would take the spoon and put it in his own mouth, but he wouldn't eat very much off of it and then would wave the spoon all around and throw the avocado on the floor. Also, he gagged more with the thick puree than he did with finger foods. So we haven't attempted spoon feeding since then.

He's particularly liked eating scrambled eggs, sweet potato, broccoli, and green beans.

I'm a little nervous about how I'm going to fit in feeding him while we're living in the hotel though, since I'm not sure if I'll have foods around. If you do BLW, what do you feed your baby when you eat out? I might end up trying some pouches, even though I'm not sure how he'll feel about the texture. Which ones do you like? Do your LOs just eat straight out of the pouch at this point?

[silverspoon]

We did make some purees in the beginning, but it makes so much of one thing that we stopped because I felt like he wasn't getting enough variety. Now I just buy him jars of mostly Beechnut or Earth's Best. They have a big variety and a lot of fruit/veggie combos.

He's mostly moving onto the stage 3 jars except for the Stage 1 fruits that I buy just to add to his oatmeal. He is not ready for pouches. Even if I was the one squeezing the pouch, I know he would get his little hand on it and squeeze as hard as he could. It would end up with him wearing most of it.

For me, following the jars and the age ranges has been the easiest. It requires 0 thinking on my part. If we are going to be out, I just grab a jar and a spoon. It's also easy to pack for daycare.

[nikiswimr]

Sept 2, 2016 21:57:38 GMT -5 tinydancer said:

We've been doing BLW so far too. I once mashed up an avocado and tried to spoon feed baby and he wouldn't let me do it. He would take the spoon and put it in his own mouth, but he wouldn't eat very much off of it and then would wave the spoon all around and throw the avocado on the floor. Also, he gagged more with the thick puree than he did with finger foods. So we haven't attempted spoon feeding since then.

He's particularly liked eating scrambled eggs, sweet potato, broccoli, and green beans.

I'm a little nervous about how I'm going to fit in feeding him while we're living in the hotel though, since I'm not sure if I'll have foods around. If you do BLW, what do you feed your baby when you eat out? I might end up trying some pouches, even though I'm not sure how he'll feel about the texture. Which ones do you like? Do your LOs just eat straight out of the pouch at this point?

When we're out I just give her a little of what we're eating. Maybe I shouldn't with the sodium, but she's had hummus, guac, butternut squash soup, eggs usually go well, sometimes pieces of veggies and fruit.

[pinktartan9]

When you give eggs, do you give the whole thing or just yolks?

Sorry, I'm new :/

[NellieOleson]

Sept 12, 2016 12:49:44 GMT -5 pinktartan9 said:

When you give eggs, do you give the whole thing or just yolks?

Sorry, I'm new :/

Dd2 doesn't eat eggs, but with dd1 I just scrambled whole eggs for her.

[NellieOleson]

I gave dd2 a pouch the other day, mostly out of desperation to keep her occupied while I finished dinner for dd1 and myself. I didn't really anticipate it going great, and I was right. She mostly chewed on the bottom of it, pouring the contents into her lap.

She does eat fruit/veggies pouches occasionally, though. I just squeeze some into a bowl and hand her a spoon with some on it.

[scorpioscuba]

We do whole eggs scrambled as well.

I do pouches too squeezed onto a spoon. Sometimes I just don't have time for anything else. I do really like the HappyBaby Clearly Crafted pouches. They are super simple recipes with no added ingredients. Thy are great for on the go especially since it is pretty much impossible to nurse DD in public these days. She is too distractions and refuses the nursing cover.

[tez]

I have been trying to introduce one new flavour every couple days. I heard the more variety she gets now (before she starts walking and her adventurous eating habits go away) the less picky she will be later. I took a course on infant nutrition in Uni and also remember that they can reject something up to like a dozen times just because it's new so don't get discouraged. I have cooked/steamed pulses, beans, meat and veggies in single ingredient batches, froze them in ice cube trays, and now have enough variety that I just pull different combinations from the freezer out of the ziploc bags full of frozen food. Last night it was chicken, asparagus and black bean. Since I have the raw ingredients on hand, I just throw combinations of up to 4 ingredients in one bowl and microwave on low power. While that warms up, I put Cheerios and puffed wheat cereal (like 10) for her to chase around with her fingers (she's about 60% successfully in the mouth, the rest I find in her chair.

A magic bullet full anything makes about an ice cube trays worth of food, so I pour it in, freeze overnight and fill a labelled ziplock in the morning, freeing up the ice cube tray for the next flavour.
Here's a partial list: red lentils, chick peas, Romano beans, kidney beans, any other beans that come in a can ready to go (rinsed and puréed with a magic bullet with added breastmilk to thin it out), all kinds of meat (beef, moose, deer, pork, chicken, turkey, egg, light tuna, salmon, whitefish, broccoli, asparagus, butternut squash, spaghetti squash (which is now a good finger food just as it is without pureeing), celery, cauliflower (started out making super smooth for the first batch, but left chunkier for the second batch), Bokchoi, spinach (puréed and can be stirred in with anything else), avocado, turnip, Brussels sprouts (paired with pear or Apple), green beans, snap peas, split peas, regular frozen peas, all steamed and ground up so there's no long fibres left, all colours of bell peppers, sweet potato, mushrooms, parsnips, cabbage,
I put tofu slivers on her tray, grapefruit segments (skin removed), cantaloupe, honeydew, chunks of scrambled egg, steamed broccoli...
Next I'm going to look up how to cook some grains that I don't know much about, millet, barley, quinoa, buckwheat , etc and we will explore together whether they're better as a finger food or stirred together with another flavour.
I also give her her own spoon to hold so she can bang it without making a big mess.
I try to keep adding new things on a low GI to sweeter direction so she's more likely to try it and doesn't have many really sweet things to compare it to.
I don't care if she likes it or not, and don't make a big deal if she rejects anything (she's not forced to keep eating or anything) I keep it in rotation until the dozen cubes have been used up and by the end she seems to like it, and the empty bag is my cue to make more, but to level up the difficulty level from runny purees to mashed with small chunks. I keep the conversation about the texture of the food and the mechanics of eating it (this is the broccoli, it's chunkier than the lentils). Hopefully this eliminates the power struggle that comes down the line.

[pinktartan9]

Holy moly tez !! That's a great list. I have yet to give DD anything protein related other than tofu and peanut butter. I need to get on this.

For those following this thread, I have come up with a few other combinations:

Carrot/mango/apricot
Peas/kiwi/pear
Zucchini/kiwi/Apple
Kale/pear
Zucchini/nectarine

DD also gets a variety of cooked or uncooked food on her tray to gum on regularly.

tez how did your DD like grapefruit?!

[silverspoon]

Some of munchkin's Beechnut combos he likes:

pear/kale/cucumber
apple/greenbeans
apple/kiwi/spinach
butternut squash/black bean/cumin

He has quite a few turkey or chicken/veggie combos. I don't know how you would make that yourself and I don't think I would have the stomach to try.

I need to give him peanut butter, but I never think of it. Maybe I'll add it to his oatmeal and fruit.

[Lollipop]

tez, just so you know, variety at this age doesn't always correspond to being adventurous later. S would eat anything we put in front of him at this age, and we gave him a lot of different stuff. But he is just now coming out of an insanely picky phase. He just now started eating meat again, but only tiny amounts, other than burgers, and he still acts like we're trying to poison him when we ask him to try something new. It's ridiculous.

I am not saying that you shouldn't offer a wide variety of food, just don't be surprised if it doesn't work like you hope.

[tez]

Sept 15, 2016 9:31:12 GMT -5 Lollipop said:

tez, just so you know, variety at this age doesn't always correspond to being adventurous later. S would eat anything we put in front of him at this age, and we gave him a lot of different stuff. But he is just now coming out of an insanely picky phase. He just now started eating meat again, but only tiny amounts, other than burgers, and he still acts like we're trying to poison him when we ask him to try something new. It's ridiculous.

I am not saying that you shouldn't offer a wide variety of food, just don't be surprised if it doesn't work like you hope.

... Or I will turn my back for one second and they'll eat goose poop. True story.

[Lollipop]

Sept 15, 2016 20:10:04 GMT -5 tez said:

Sept 15, 2016 9:31:12 GMT -5 Lollipop said:

tez , just so you know, variety at this age doesn't always correspond to being adventurous later. S would eat anything we put in front of him at this age, and we gave him a lot of different stuff. But he is just now coming out of an insanely picky phase. He just now started eating meat again, but only tiny amounts, other than burgers, and he still acts like we're trying to poison him when we ask him to try something new. It's ridiculous.

I am not saying that you shouldn't offer a wide variety of food, just don't be surprised if it doesn't work like you hope.

... Or I will turn my back for one second and they'll eat goose poop. True story.

That too. LOL