baby's first foods

When it was time to introduce solid foods to our daughter at 6 months, our pediatrician unsurprisingly recommended rice cereal and/or oatmeal as a start and then told us that we could introduce just about anything except for honey and peanuts after that.  I guess we started with cereal mixed into formula but that didn’t seem like a true “solid food.”   It was October.  We had gotten a pumpkin for Halloween.  I had just returned to working full-time again so I decided to start my foray into home-cooked baby meals with our massive festive pumpkin since the flavor was mild, puréed pumpkin is pretty and I would be able to prepare a large quantity and freeze it without much fuss.  If cooking and puréeing an entire pumpkin is too much for one cooking session (it was for me!), freeze the uncooked, peeled and cubed pumpkin pieces for cooking and puréeing when your first batch is depleted.

Puréed Pumpkin

First, here's what my smart friend Bettina RD says about pumpkin:  

What makes pumpkins orange is also what makes pumpkins so healthy for baby. Pumpkins are orange because of beta-carotene, alpha-carotene, and lutein, all protective anti-oxidants.  Plus, it doesn't hurt that pumpkins are also low in fat and calories and high in fiber and potassium. Additional nutritional Information: Pumpkin is a good source of Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol), Thiamin, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Folate, Iron, Magnesium and Phosphorus, and a very good source of dietary fiber, Vitamin C, Riboflavin, Potassium, Copper and Manganese.  Source and more info.

Equipment:

• Large sauce pot with lid
• Steamer insert
• Food processor
• Silicone ice trays – I use silicone because the food is easier to pop out, but you can use an ice tray made of any material.
• 4 oz. small single-serving containers. Good for storing fresh food or frozen food that you want to take with you.  Ice trays aren’t practical for to-go situations.

Ingredients:

• Whole or half a raw pumpkin

Instructions:

Cut, peel and seed the pumpkin.  Reserve the seeds for baking later.  These are a bonus for you, not your baby! 

Cube the pumpkin into one inch cubes.  Try to cut the pieces into uniform sizes so that they will cook evenly.

Add water to the bottom of the sauce pot.  Bring to a boil. 

Drop a layer or two of cut pumpkin into the steamer insert.  Don't crowd the steamer.  

Cover and steam for 5-7 minutes.  Use a fork to check its doneness.  If the fork easily pierces the pumpkin all the way through, your pumpkin is ready.  If not, cook for another 2 minutes and check again until the pumpkin is cooked.  You can turn off the heat and leave the pot covered to keep steaming without continuing to boil the water, just keep checking the pumpkin every 2-3 minutes for doneness. To yeild highest nutritional value try to minimize your steam time as the pumpkin will lose nutrients if it is overcooked.  

Cook all of your pumpkin pieces following these steps.  You may need to add more water, but you do not need to replace the water as you add new batches.

Allow the steamed pumpkin to cool.  Drop batches of cooked pumpkin into the large bowl of your food processor and purée with the large metal blade.  If the purée looks too “stiff” add a small amount of reserved water from the steam pot to thin the mixture. Be sure not to over-fill the food processor bowl as it will make it difficult to achieve a fully puréed result.

If you want to thicken the purée (and give it additional nutritional punch) with baby cereal, you can.  I love and continue to use Happy Bellies brand (available at diapers.com and Fresh Direct).  It is a powder-like probiotic and mixes beautifully into purées, formula and milk.

Spoon purée into ice trays, cover with freezer-wrap and freeze.  

If you are an on-the-go type of person or you send your child to day-care, you’ll want to have some fresh and frozen purées saved in the single-serving containers so that they are easily packed up.  The ice trays are great, but not so practical for when you are out and about or need to pack a set of meals for day-care!  I also recommend storing meal-sized batches of food you plan to serve your child for that week in single-serve containers that you don’t freeze.  That way baby will get super-fresh nutrient-rich foods (that have never been frozen) on a weekly basis.  The small single-serve containers also provide you with the benefit of monitoring (and communicating) how much food is to be served to your child at each meal if you're not the one feeding them all the time.

I do not use a microwave to defrost.  I simply take a cube out the night before, place it (or them) in a 4 oz. single-serving container and let the food defrost gradually in the refrigerator. Our daughter started eating ½ a cube at a time, then progressed to one cube.  When she moved to two cubes per meal, I started making and freezing more than one vegetable at a time so that she would have a little variety at each meal.  

Posted via email from citybaby