It wasn't that long ago...

...when both Baby1 and Baby2 took to their first bites of food. I should have realized, when I was pregnant, that my eating habits paralleled both palates: with Baby1, I ate everything, and couldn't get enough of fresh fruits and vegetables; and with Baby2, I had this ongoing nausea the first 5 months, that I really didn't want to eat anything at all - and especially not meat. Just the thought of meat would make me sick to my stomach. But then... there was Thanksgiving... and suddenly I couldn't get enough to eat.

So now, here we are, as Baby1 makes her own choices about food (OK, I will try it) and Baby2 ventures into the same (Nah nah nah!!). Both have fallen into the bad bottomless pit of junk food heaven, from wanting only goldfish at each meal to getting on our bar stools to open upper cabinets for granola bars and tortilla chips. But there are moments when both kids really surprise me, by being willing to try new things or showing excitement over healthy options. Like, my vegetarian Baby2, who surprised me by delving into tandoori chicken this evening, eating his sausage tortellini with sauteed kale last night, and loving the peas in his curry butternut squash soup as last night's starter; or Baby1, who gets excited by apricots on the store shelves (so do I!), tries everything we serve her at least just once, and gets excited to see freshly-cut fruit as dessert.

So now, as friends hold new little ones in their arms, I figured I'd repost some oldies but goodies for the newest little palates as they venture into the big huge world of food. Making your own baby food is not difficult, and at least you'd have a fairly good idea as to what exactly goes into baby's food.


A general rule of thumb: whenever you try new foods with baby, try it for 7 days to confirm that there are no allergies to the food.


The three basic processes I used:

STEAMING: Orange vegetables usually are the way to go for first foods for baby. Steam chopped carrots, and let cool. Reserve the steaming water - it holds a lot of nutrients which may have leached out from the steamed carrots. Once both carrots and steaming water have cooled down, puree in a food processor to a fine and even puree. Use this same process for:

Sweet potatoes
Peas (you won't believe how green the pea puree will be against store-bought jars!)
Zucchini, peeled
Beets
Spinach (food process finely first to break up the fibrous stems)

BAKING: any squash under the sun, with the exception of spaghetti squash, which is immensely fibrousy and may be difficult for baby to ingest. Split squash in half, and bake cut-side down in about 1/2" of water, for about 40-60 minutes at 350 degrees. Once squash has cooled, you should be able to easily scoop out the supersoft flesh and serve just as is. You may elect to serve the squash sans water - it's up to you. I've typically found that the baking water just doesn't give much to the puree flavor.

STOCK: make any vegetable or meat stock, but keep the sodium down. Impart more flavor into the stock by adding a variety of vegetables and mushrooms. Do take care, however, to not put in too many vegetables that can cause gas - babies will protest. Avoid large quantities of onions, garlic, cabbage, or strong herbs until later in baby's first year. You may elect to food-process the meat if you make a meat stock, and add to the stock to expand the meat side of the palate if you so wish. Stock will help give the veggies a different dimension in flavor and help expand the possible combinations of foods you give to baby.

For storage, we filled ice cube trays to 3/4 full for each cube, and once the cubes froze, we emptied the cubes into freezer bags for extended storage. After the initial weeks of food trials, we found that we could take a cube from each of the bags we had, and be able to present baby with a multi-dimensional meal whenever we sat down to eat.

To supplement the veggies, stock, and meat, we also steamed quite a bit of rice. I would make the rice a little more sticky, and freeze in the same ice-cube trays. The rice would defrost quite nicely, and add a textural, albeit soft, dimension to baby's meals.