Mac & Cheese & Peas!

Yes... my daughter eats macaroni & cheese. I made it by accident one day, decided it was actually quite healthy, and now it's one of her favorite meals!

I boil some whole grain pasta for about ten minutes. After draining it, I add some grated organic cheddar cheese and stir it over low heat. I then throw in some cooked peas, mix it up well, and serve it to her with the pasta cut into small pieces and the peas smashed just a little. She loves it!

Now that we think she isn't allergic to wheat after all, I alternate between whole wheat pasta and quinoa-corn pasta. It also works well with brown rice pasta, but that's less nutritious. The cheese is Trader Joe's Organic New Zealand White Cheddar -- surprisingly affordable. And organic frozen peas are very easy to cook - I just simmer them in a few spoonfuls of water for about five minutes. You can also toss them into the pasta during the last few minutes of its boiling time, but then you risk losing some of the nutrients when you drain the water. It would also be easy to change up the vegetables -- use broccoli, carrots, green beans, or something else.

I often make a triple-batch (which is still pretty small), then divide it into BPA-free tupperware and serve it for three days in a row.

Baby Stir-Fry

In search of a combination of finger food, vegetables, protein, and grains? Try a baby stir-fry. Easy and nutritious!

For protein, I have used cubed tofu and halved black beans. I think other beans would work as well.

For grains, I have used brown rice, brown rice spaghetti, and assorted quinoa pasta shapes. Her hands-down favorite is the brown rice spaghetti, despite its nutritional deficiency as compared to the quinoa pasta. I think she likes it because it clumps together nicely and she can actually get it into her mouth.

For vegetables, I like carrots, broccoli, green peas, onions, and green beans. Last night she had a bit of red bell pepper and mushroom. I keep the vegetables at an adult bite-size for the cooking, but cut them smaller before I put them on her tray.

I found a wheat-free tamari sauce (San-J brand) at Safeway. Of course, not wanting her to have too much sodium, I try to keep the tamari to a minimum. But she seems to really like it, especially on the tofu.

1) Cook rice or pasta according to package directions.

2) Chop all ingredients to desired size. (For stir-frys, a thin slice or dice is appropriate.)

3) Heat canola oil over medium or high heat. Fry tofu (if using) until golden. Spoon out and set aside.

4) Fry vegetables. Start with the hardest (e.g. carrots) and add additional vegetables every minute or two. End with the softest.

5) Mix all ingredients together. Let cool before serving to baby.

Lentil Balls

We're still not 100% sure Nora has a wheat allergy, but a nurse at our pediatrician's office told us to hold off on giving her any more wheat until we have more info. So, I'm now on a quest to find ways of offering the kinds of foods I'd like to see her eating -- things she can pick up, bite chew on, pull apart, etc -- without using any wheat. It's a challenge.

Last night I made a tray of "lentil balls." I put organic instant oats (no salt or sugar added -- just straight up oats from the bulk food bin at Whole Foods) in my mini-blender and ground them to a powder, as I often did when making her porridge. I then mashed it together with some cooked lentils, a little salt, and sauteed onion and carrot. I baked the lentil balls for 20 minutes. She loved them! She enjoyed being able to control the food by herself, though she did drop a lot down the sides of her chair. I gave her another this evening and it was a hit again.

The amounts below are approximate as I didn't do a good job of measuring, but I think different proportions could work as well.

2 cups lentils, cooked
2 cups instant organic rolled oats (before grinding), ground into a coarse powder
1 small onion, diced
1 carrot, diced
1/2 tsp salt
olive oil for sauteing

1. Saute the vegetables in the olive oil for about 5 minutes, until softened.
2. Leaving aside about 1/2 cup of the oatmeal powder, mix the remaining oatmeal, lentils, vegetables, and salt together in a large bowl.
3. Form the mixure into balls about 1 1/2 inch in diameter. Roll each ball in the leftover powdered oatmeal before laying it on a cookie sheet.
4. Bake the lentil balls at 350 for 20 minutes.

They can be frozen after cooking -- I would guess they'd keep well for 2-3 months.

Mama's Girl

My grandfather (my father's father) ate pasta with marinara sauce every night for the last couple decades of his life. I inherited his love for it. Given the choice, I'd eat spaghetti nearly every day. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, whatever! Anytime is fine.

Nora has decided that it's near the top of her list, too. We suspect a possible wheat allergy, because Robert had one as a child and because after her first wheat last week she developed red cheeks and a rash. More to come on that when we have more info, but in the meantime she's enjoying quinoa-corn pasta. A bit pricy, but what can you do? I dust it with rice cereal to make it a little easier to pick up. She gobbles it down every time!

Tip: When I used part of a jar of organic spaghetti sauce to make pizza for Robert and myself over the weekend, I froze the remainder in my baby ice cube tray and now have a bag of baby-size pasta sauce portions, ready to heat and serve.

Porridge!

Life has been very busy lately, with little time for blogging. But I will try to do some more baby food entries before Nora becomes a toddler! She's now a very busy 9 1/2-month-old. Crawling, climbing, and dancing are some of her favorite activities!

There have been many new foods over the past couple of months, and a daily staple is "porridge." Porridge takes many forms, but always includes one or two grains*, a protein, and at least one fruit or vegetable. I mix it all together and serve it warm, and she usually loves it.

Some common combos include:

oatmeal - egg yolk - squash
oatmeal - egg yolk - banana
barley - tofu - broccoli - squash
millet - tofu - pumpkin
barley - tofu - broccoli - sweet potato
millet - garbanzo bean - green bean - peach (yes, really, she ate it!)
barley - lentil - green pea
barley - lentil - carrot

As long as you've got the basic ingredients on hand, you can make a quick, healthy meal in a short amount of time!

* I usually sprinkle a tablespoon or two of Earth's Best organic iron-fortified cereal into the porridge to increase its iron content.

Thanksgiving Tofu

The vegetarian baby turned 8 months on Friday, so we decided to give her her first "protein" food for Thanksgiving dinner. I mashed up some organic extra-firm tofu with organic canned pumpkin and added a pinch of cinnamon. She seemed to like it! I also gave her a few tiny cubes of tofu for finger-food practice, most of which ended up somewhere in the depths of the high chair.

Little Bird

I always thought of millet as "bird food," since it's a primary ingredient in many birdseeds. Today, I fed it to my own "little bird." This baby is spreading her wings! She crawls all over the house, can go up and down a single stair, and is starting to try to climb. We love to watch her.

I bought organic pearled millet in bulk from our nearby co-op grocery store. According to WholesomeBabyFood.Com, millet is rich in a variety of nutrients, including B vitamins and iron. I then used the recipe for "Millet Baby Cereal" on that same webpage. I cooked up half a cup of dry millet, and it made far more than she'll ever eat in three days. Next time I'll make less. I then pureed part of it in my blender, mixed in a little more hot water and some breastmilk, and served it up. She liked it pretty well!

Update: Since writing this entry, I have changed my millet-making procedure. I now grind the millet to a powder in the blender before cooking it. I had been afraid of doing this, but it's actually much easier than trying to blend cooked millet. It takes about a minute to do one cup of millet, and the powder can be stored for a few weeks, covered, in the refrigerator. To cook, I bring one cup of water to a boil with a tablespoon of olive oil, whisk in 4 tablespoons of millet powder, lower the heat, and simmer -- stirring frequently -- for ten minutes. I then divide the cooked millet into three portions, serve one portion that day, one the next day, and the rest the day after that. (The millet thickens as it cools, so if I am serving it a day later, I warm and thin it by stirring in spoonfuls of very hot water until it reaches the right consistency again.)

A Typical Meal

At 7 1/2 months, we have at least two and sometimes three solid meals per day, depending on naps. Each meal includes a serving of grain and 2-4 vegetable and fruit servings. I try to rotate the different fruits and vegetables so that she gets a variety every day. She has one serving of avocado every day for healthy fats.

Shown in this photo, clockwise from top-left, are: homemade oatmeal, peaches, avocado, butternut squash, and green beans. Other foods regularly on the menu are commercial rice cereal (for iron), sweet potatoes and yams, green peas, mango, carrots, prunes, bananas, and occasionally applesauce and plums. She has also had commercial baby barley cereal at a friend's house but we haven't been able to find any of our own yet.

I located BPA-free ice cube trays and bowls with lids at BabiesRUs and prepare most of her food in those. It's really a lot of fun!

Mama's Little Pumpkin

Of course, a vegetarian baby ought to dress up as a giant fruit for Halloween...

Butternut Squash Cubes

What does it take to make your own baby food? I've been asked this by several people lately. It's really quite simple. And, I think, it's kind of fun, too.

To be fair, I'm not making all her food myself. As mentioned earlier, she's having commercially prepared oatmeal because it's fortified with iron. Also, when she came down with a virus last week, the nurse recommended rice cereal and bananas, so I went ahead and got commercial rice cereal (Earth's Best Organic) as well. I also use jarred organic applesauce and frozen organic peach slices. But so far I have made everything else myself.

Shown in the photo is a tray of butternut squash. I purchased one squash -- organic -- for just under $3. It made a total of 35 cubes. I figure that if you account for the water that's added to the jars, one of my cubes is equal to 1 - 1.5 jars of food. That means my $3 got me the equivalent of more than 23 jars of food, depending on how you count it. Not a bad investment! Even if you aren't concerned about the price of jarred food, though, preparing your own baby food when you can is also environmentally friendly. I saved at least 23 glass jars from being used!

1. Slice a butternut squash in half. Scoop out the seeds and pulp. (Save the seeds for roasting, described below.)
2. Place the two halves face down in a baking dish with about 1/2 inch of water.
3. Cook in a pre-heated, 400 degree oven for about 40 minutes, until soft. (You can check by stabbing it with a fork.)
4. Peel the squash and let it cool for a few minutes.
5. On a large plate, smash the squash with a fork. Make it very smooth.
6. Press blobs of squash into a clean ice cube tray. Freeze overnight. If you have more squash than fits into your tray, the extra can be placed in a tupperware in the refrigerator until there is room to freeze it the next day.
7. Pop the squash cubes out and store them in a plastic freezer bag. Be sure to label and date the squash. It's good for up to two months in the freezer.

Roasting squash seeds:
Rinse the seeds. Toss with a little olive oil and salt. Roast in an oven with something else you're cooking until the oil is all soaked in, stirring occasionally.

Feeding the squash to your baby:
Take a frozen cube from the plastic bag. Heat over low heat in a small saucepan with a few spoonfuls of water. Stir frequently until all the squash is thawed and warm, adding water as necessary.