A perfect Pear

I bought a bunch of pears to try with our daughter and they had finally become perfectly ripe... of course when we had decided to travel down to visit our friends.  I figured Pears were easy to bring, and our friends had a high chair, so why not give it a shot!

I just cut off the side of the pear and gave her a big slice, figuring we'd see how she'd do with it.  Big surprise, yet another fruit she loved... she shoved the whole thing in her mouth and started sucking away, melting the flesh and skin into swallowable paste and bits!  She went through 3/4 of the pear with no problems at all!

Pear seemed so easy, that I brought a slice of it with me to Cambridge when I went to have lunch with my friends, I just handed her the slice which she cautiously took from me (normally she picks it up off a tray!) but then once it made it to her mouth it was all business!! She demolished the slice pretty quickly!

I didn't end up making the puree right away again.

Recommendation:
Pear: Wash, slice a hand sized chunk and give to baby!

Building up the Freezer Stash

I put together a list of a whole bunch of baby foods I wanted to make to have stashed in our freezer.  As I started in on the list, I found it kind of funny... most moms stockpile breastmilk when they return to work, I stockpile homemade baby food!! lol.  Well ok so it is my second return to work, and with my issues with breastfeeding, I knew I never stood a chance at building up a freezer supply... but fresh homemade baby foods?? Sure I could easily do that!!

I've been reading up in my Tyler Florence baby food book, and was eager to try some recipes and suggestions from that and my other baby food cookbooks.

So here in this post I will document the craziness that was my baby food filled day!

First I decided to pull together all of the fruits and veggies that needed to be roasted.  Some seemed obvious, others not so much!  I'll start with the roasting trays, but will give you more detail on each of the items in what follows.  All of these were done at 400 degrees to keep it simple.

Pears!
Yup you saw them in my previous posts, now its time to make the puree!  I wanted to waste as little of the pear as possible, so I figured out that I could use a spoon to scoop the little seed pod, and then peeled out the stringy core.

Roast the pears for 20 minutes, cut side down, skin on, and then slice and toss in your blender.  You can puree them without roasting, but the roasting gives them a slightly more caramel flavor.  Leave the puree slightly chunky, or puree until completely smooth, whatever works for your baby.  Pour into ice cube trays and freeze or store portions in airtight containers in the fridge for up to 3 days!

More Apples!
I had already done some apple puree.  This time I roasted them (30 minutes until skins split), cored & cut side down, peels on, and pureed them with skin and all.  Like last time I added a bit of nutmeg and cinnamon.  Only suggestion I have is definitely make sure you wait for them to cool a bit if you are using a nutribullet or something with a tight seal... the heat made mine expand and lock up, and I had a heck of a time getting the lid off!

Bananas That Will Blow Your Mind
Yes I said that!! This is the one I didnt quite believe from Tyler Florence, but I had to try it... He said roast the bananas whole with the skins on, and then puree them after roasting.  I roasted for 20 minutes, skins on, no other prep work, and OMG, these were no joke the best bananas I have ever tasted!! They were smooth and creamy but had this just amazing flavor profile that I cant even describe to you.  They were so good that I decided to try a few bananas I had frozen whole.  I thawed them in the microwave for 30 seconds, and then just threw them back in the oven for 20 minutes, and they were nearly as good! Not quite the pure color, but wow, the flavor was still good! This may be how I use up all of my overripe bananas from now on!  Our daughter is lucky that Im getting hooked on feeding her good food, or I might have just eaten them all myself!  Once the bananas have browned from roasting, allow them to cool, peel them and puree the banana to your desired consistency.  Freeze or use!

Green Onions??
Yeah ok its a little weird, but I had some in the fridge that I didnt want to go to waste, and I figure once we work our way through the foods, Im going to make some more flavorful combinations for our daughter.  Roasted green onions seemed like a good way to do that.  As I love the convenience of grabbing a few ice cubes of food and letting it thaw for the day (or tossing it in the microwave for a short time), I decided to experiment with breaking up some of the ingredients that I could throw together in fun combinations later.  The green onions were the start of this idea (I will probably also do some roasted garlic!).

I roasted them in Olive Oil for 20 minutes, and then sliced them a bit and tried to chop them in a mini food processor.  This was only marginally successful as they were pretty stringy, so I ended up having to cut them more with a knife.  I think doing more of them at once or maybe chopping more before processing might have helped, but eventually I got them down to small bits I could add to a meal's worth of food.

Gold & Red Beets
Beets while messy rank super high on the nutrition scale, and are somewhat sweet, so I figured I would give them a try.  I dont know if we are brave enough to let our little one try fistfulls, but we can certainly make some spoonfed versions.  From some of the readings, I decided to roast them, skin on.  Wash them slice them in half, and roast them cut side down for 25 minutes.  Allow them to cool, and then peel them.  For me this was pretty messy & time consuming.  Some things I read said the peel should just come off, but I didn't find it that easy.  I may experiment more with that later.  I chopped them up a bit, tossed them in the nutribullet with some water (these actually need water or they come out super chunky), and puree to desired consistency.  I think steaming might make them a bunch softer, but I think roasting might retain more nutrients.  Although the colors are very vivid, I did find it easy to clean up after them.  They didn't really leave stains like I expected.

Acorn Squash
I went through 3 Acorn squashes before I got to roasting one before it turned fuzzy!! I dont know what was up with the first two I got, winter squashes are supposed to be able to keep for months!! But anyway, I cut the squash in half, and roasted it with a half tablespoon of butter and a half cup of water, as well as some cumin and coriander in each half.  I roasted them for 50 minutes.  The squash I had still came out a bit dry, but I suspect that was the squash not being quite in season yet.  Once it cooled, I just scooped it out with a spoon, and then hand mashed it until smooth (just happened to use the nutribullet container), with the extra roasting water.  The result was pretty good, but my typical acorn squash is brown sugar and orange juice, so this was a bit more plain.

Potato
So there was a recipe for beets and potatoes that I thought might be fun, plus I read that while potatoes are not nutrient dense, when the kids start to get ravenous and eating a lot, they are a good source of carbohydrates.  So lets give this a shot...  I started with two Russet potatoes and baked them for 60 minutes wrapped in foil.  Allow them to cool in the foil, and the skin will peel right off!

Ok next DONT BELIEVE ANYTHING YOU READ!! Well ok except maybe this blog?!? Everything I read said just carefully puree the baked potato however you normally puree your baby foods, just make sure not to do it too long or it will get gluey.  Mine turned gluey even walking towards my nutribullet!! Ok maybe not that bad, but seriously why on earth with all of my cooking experience did I think I could PUREE potato?! DUMB.  DONT DO IT.  Just grab your favorite hand masher and add enough water, and carefully mash but don't whip! With enough water you can get them smooth, I PROMISE.  Don't puree... just dont do it. I swear if you try...

!!!!NO NO NONO NO NO!!!

YES!! YES!!

Recommendations
(will get this up later)

Broccoli & Carrots Take 2

Have you ever smelled what it smells like to burn water?? Ok what do I mean burn water, doesn't it just evaporate? Well apparently not when it is steaming water! Oops! I was as usual in the middle of prepping dinner and doing a million things.  I had already steamed up some broccoli and decided to steam up some carrot sticks and forgot about them.  I soon smelled what it smelled like if your pie overflowed in the oven and was burning on the bottom... It was a weird sweet burning smell.  And then I realized the carrots were out of water.  I quickly pulled out the steamer basket and drenched the pot in water, I dont think it was the first time as this is my oldest hardworking pot! Fortunately the carrots just had a slight smokey flavor, but didnt taste burnt. I figured Id see if our daughter would eat them.

So I hadnt given her broccoli since she really learned to chew/swallow.  This time she gagged a bunch on it.  It didnt seem to bother her much, but it had me back to watching her like a hawk.  She swallowed some and seemed to like chewing them apart, but between the mess it makes and the gagging Broccoli is not on my "foods to start with list" anymore.

We've been trying to give her a bunch of options, as we dont have a ton of new veggies to try, and dont want her to just have single fruits anymore.  Plus its time to start mixing up some of the purees and other things, so it was time to make the meals more exciting I guess!

Apricotz

I found some nice ripe apricots at Whole Foods, and Im not even sure if I have had a ripe apricot plain by itself.  But I figured they seemed soft and small and with the plum success, I figured it was worth a shot.  I just sliced them in half and gave them to her raw (RAWRRRRR she said...)

Totally easy and she loved them, as usual she nommed away using her gums and saliva to melt the flesh, and spit out the skin.  I am still amazed at how they figure out how to do that.  I guess instinct or its just hardwired into our little brains :)

I didnt end up making a puree right away, but I did use a spoon to swipe up some of the mashed leftovers on her tray/bib/face to mix in with some veggie puree we fed her afterward!

Recommendation:
Apricot: Wash, slice in half, and hand one half to your baby!

Yo-Yo-Yo-Yooogurt

Since we figured parsnips weren't likely to be much of an allergen, we decided to introduce yogurt offset by a day.  Well ok I cheated, I was supposed to meet a friend for ice cream, and while that friend wasnt able to make it, I decided to share some of my yogurt from JP licks with her!  It was such a hit that she was slurping it out of the little taster cup and off of my spoon, and was making such a racket about it, that some people asked if they could take our picture for us!! lol.  Unfortunately I think I blinked or something weird because I look totally crazy... so instead I will share the "selfie" that I took of her :)  And apparently she was cute enough to attract a mom and her three girls to come and sit closer to us to say hi to the baby!!

Onto the real stuff.  Our pediatrician had recommended the yo-baby yogurt, and I had a BJs coupon, so I decided to just buy a bunch (worst case I could eat it right??).  So we started with the simple vanilla stuff, and decided to start for breakfast.  It got her typical "what is this" weird face for the first bite or two, but then she was lunging for the spoon, and finished off a half of a container no problem!!  The ensuing mess was plenty of lip smacking fun!  I guess yogurt will be on our best of list!

Sorry - no I am not brave enough to make my own yogurt for baby!!  Maybe when she's older :)

Parsnipities

For our next trick, we decided to try parsnips.  Figured they might be softer than carrots and maybe would go over well.  I had a few left in the fridge from when I did the huge baby food ice cube tray day, and figured I could just peel those up and steam them.  So I peeled them, cut the skinny end off, and then cut the thick end into four sticks (like carrot sticks), and stuck them in the steamer.  Steamed them for about 10 minutes, and then let cool in the steamer.

I thawed one of the ice cubes from before by sticking it in a glass dish and microwaving it for 15 seconds.

Well the first batch went over better than I expected.  She explored them like usual, and then proceeded to munch on them to the point where she would get all of the meat off of the parsnip, and leave the stringier inside center of the parsnip, just like she had done with the skin.  The puree also went over reasonably well.  I don't think she ate a ton this time, so we gave her a quarter of a plum to finish up with!

However, the second day of parsnip was a bit less successful.  She had loved the other ones so much that I didnt have enough left for the next two days, so I went and bought some fresh ones from the store and steamed those.  I believe I steamed them exactly the same, but I think with them being new they became a lot more mushy.  She would grab the parsnip and just squish the whole thing through her hand.  She would get a little in, but mostly it ended up like a pile of mashed potatoes on her tray.  Im not sure if it was taste or texture, but the third night was the same.  I gave her a couple of the old ones and those seemed to occupy her for longer, so maybe I just need to cook the fresher ones a bit less, or not let them cool in the steamer.

For the second and third night, I mixed some applesauce in with the parsnip puree and that seemed to be a major hit.  We also gave her a quarter plum again on the second night.  Third night she ate a ton of the puree so we skipped the plum.

Recommendation
Parsnips: Cut into stick shapes, Steam 8-10 minutes, remove from steamer immediately and allow to cool on the counter or in the fridge.  Older parsnips will be tougher, but may be easier for babies that have been eating for a bit.

Asper-Asper-grass-grass-grass

Sung to the tune of Amsterdam... :)
My dad was coming up to cook us some salmon he caught on a fishing trip, and I was going to make asparagus for us.  I was trying to decide if I would give it to our daughter, and ended up just getting "lazy" so instead of planning something for her, I figured I would just give her Asparagus too.  Worst case, she didnt like it.  I did think it would be too stringy the way we normally make it - grilled, so I decided to steam them.  I cut off the woody ends, broke the stalks in half, and put them in the steamer.  I steamed them for probably close to 10 minutes to make sure they were softened, and left them in the steamer once I turned the stove off.  I ended up pureeing the bottom halves, and saved the softer top halves to give to her.  In making the puree, I added some water, but the magic bullet had a hard time with how little was in there, so I think if I were to do it in the future, I'd make a lot more, just so it was easier to puree.

So we gave it a shot.  She seemed to like them, as per her pattern, the first night was very investigatory and somewhat uncertain, but she moved through them.  The second night she was actively reaching for them, and by the third night she was really reaching for them and nearly whining when we didnt get the spoon to her fast enough.

Because the asparagus was pretty stringy, I'm not sure she digested much besides what we pureed for her. She seemed to chew through the stringy-ness, and like the fruit skin, she just spit out the stringy parts and didnt really bother with them. It was certainly fun, but probably not a baby staple food in regular form.  We gave her some apple and plum to offset it.

Recommendation:
Asparagus: Steam tender stalks for 10 minutes.  Give top halves of stalk to baby.
Asparagus Puree: Steam stalks for 10 minutes, puree with some water, remove any super stringy parts.