Let's face it - food and eating is as important to us as the air we breathe and on top of that, it can be one of the worlds greatest pleasures. Having a little one to cater for can be both a challenge and a pleasure, and to pass on all your accrued culinary wisdom and watch them blossom into the wonderful little people that they are is the greatest 'thank you Mum' that you can get, from what might seem at times a bit of a thankless task. Making your own baby food is not as difficult as it sounds, in fact, it's extremely rewarding and you know exactly what is going into everything that they are eating as their staple diets. To be honest, it really daunted me in the beginning.....I had every baby cook book out on the bench and was quite intimidated by the gourmet delights some of these supermums were turning out. It doesn't have to be that way, this is really really easy. Babies are not born as mini Gordon Ramsey's or michelan star judges. All you have to do is have a few basic pieces of equipment and a reliable source of fresh ingredients.
In Portugal, they introduce bottle feed babies to solids at 4 months and breast feed babies at around 7 months. I know this is debatable, depending on which country you are from. For me, I found this a little strange, as in New Zealand the UK it is now 5-6 months, but I strongly feel that it is up to you as the primary care giver to do what you think is right and go with what you feel is an informed decision. As long as you start slowly, introduce one food at a time every few days or so, and go for fresh local produce then you are on your way to establishing a good eating pattern for your little one. The Portuguese approach is to have potato and carrot as a staple, the carrot makes it nice and sweet!
I invested in several small freezer containers, which held approximately 200ml of puree. I make batches every week consisting of a vegetarian base, beef or veal and veg puree, chicken and veg puree and fish and veg puree. I find it reasonably easy to make fruit puree on the day I use it, but this can of course be frozen and made in batches as well. I also use mineral water, but that is because I live in a country where the water is very hard, so that is optional.
This post will focus on what I am feeding my 32 week old boy, which I hope will help as a guideline. I had to trawl the internet to find just how much my baby should be getting and personally settled on this as my bible:
7.00am bottle
8.30am 4 tbsp baby cereal mixed with breast milk/formula/water then one pot of baby yoghurt
11.30am bottle
1.00pm 4 tbsp meat and vege puree and three tbsp fruit puree
3.00pm bottle
6.00pm fish and beg puree and three tbsp fruit desert
9.00pm sleep bottle feed (this works for me, but you might like to give a bottle earlier while awake)
For these recipes, I am going to give a basic outline of the quantity of ingredients for three to four days of meals and you can adjust to your requirements for bulk batches. You can use this as your base for everything....don't get sucked into the whole bake or grill or whatever they say in the cookbooks, it doesn't matter to babies - it WILL do your head in and the main thing is they just want the nutrition - the frills can come much later!
First Solids - Potato and Carrot Puree
Ingredients
3 medium sized potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
6 large carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
water to cover vegetables in pot
Boil or steam until cooked and blend with hand blender until very smooth. Pass through a sieve and freeze in small containers.
Then after a few days of this, introduce a new vegetable, such as beans, cabbage, peas, courgette, etc. I ALWAYS use carrot and potato as a base.
At around 6 months introduce meats. Do the same as the above, including the green vegetables and add a small chicken breast at first, then veal and at around 7-8 months add fish. Cook this for an hour or so for the meat to become really tender and easier to puree down. It will still need to be passed through a sieve and although this bit can be time consuming, it's worth the effort.
Fruit Puree
Start with apple, then add pear, banana
4 sweet apples, peeled, cored and chopped
water to cover
sprinkle of cinnamon
Cook apple and cinnamon in water and blend with hand blender. Freeze in single protions.
Fruitas com Bullacha
Break in a "wine biscuit" or "Maria bullacha" to the pureed fruit and mash till soft.
And...that's it! Told you it was easy!
