November Baby Food Calendar

Month 4

This month is all about the finger foods! Babies, get your pinchers up and lets dive in to the following finger foods.

Check out the first, second, and third months of baby food and see how the food prep magic happens here.

Note: Some of these foods have been previously introduced in the mashed or pureed form. All foods listed below are finger foods intended for consumptoin by 9+ month old babies ready for stage 3 solids.

November 2013

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
					1 Blueberries	2
3	4 Avocado	5	6	7 Whole wheat pasta	8	9
10 Puffs	11	12	13 Peas	14	15	16 Cheerios
17	18	19 Bananas	20	21	22 Carrots	23
24	25 Scrambled egg yolks	26	27	28 Black beans	29	30

October Baby Food Calendar

Month 3

This is our third month of baby food. They just turned eight months old but were one month premature, so I'm just now venturing into some finger foods and mixed purees. If you missed our first and second months of baby food, check them out here and here and see how the food prep magic happens here.

Here's what we'll be introducing this month:

October 2013

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
		1 Pumpkin	2	3	4 Tofu with bananas and blueberry	5
6	7 Butternut squash and pears	8	9	10 Pumpkin with bananas	11	12
13 Peas (whole - finger food)	14	15	16 Bananas (whole - finger food)	17	18	19 Acorn squash
20	21	22 Plums	23	24	25 Broccoli	26
27	28 Cantaloupe	29	30	31 Cherries

Make It

Baby Food Edition

Zucchini

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Yields: 12 ounces

Le Zucchini

 

Chop off ends

Optional: Peel skins - this is a good idea for younger infants (4-6 month olds or to ease digestion issues)

Chop and steam

Blend and add liquid (milk, formula, or water)

Get more baby food ideas on the recipe tab!

Make It

Baby Food Edition

Butternut Squash

Prep time: 1 - 1.5 hours
Yields: approximately 30 ounces

Butternut squash - found in the produce section of your grocery store... just in case you didn't know ;)

Rinse and cut off the ends.

Cut the sqush in half. Be very careful -- butternut squash is difficult to cut before it's cooked.

Cut the halves into half again. You'll now how four pieces.

Remove the seeds with a spoon.

Place face down on a baking sheet.

Bake at 400 degrees for about an hour or until squash is soft.

Here's what you get after an hour in the oven!

Blend, add milk, and serve!

Side note: Yes - a lot of these pictures were taken in my girls' play room. I was majorly multi tasking this weekend! So if you're not making your own baby food, there truly are no excuses!

Get more baby food ideas on the recipe tab!

Make It

Baby Food Edition

Peaches

Prep time: 1 hour
Yields: approximately 16 ounces

Le Peaches - I used three.

Remove pits.

Cut into sections and cook. I chose to steam them in the microwave.

Here they are - cooked to optimum mushiness.

Remove skins - this was a daunting (timely) process. I am definitey looking for a better option. Any suggestions?!

Food processor (before)

Food processor (after).

I didn't even add milk to this - plenty of liquid - but not too much! Perfection.

I'm on the look out for an easier way to make peaches and will report back with my findings!

In the mean time, check out more homemade baby food recipes here!

Make It

Baby Food Edition

Bananas

Prep time: 2 minutes
Yields: approximately 8 ounces

This recipe is so easy, it's almost insulting (or maybe it actually is...) What's your excuse?

Peel the banana and mash it with a fork.

Add breast milk to desired consistency and voila. It really is that easy!

Check out more homemade baby food recipes here!

Make It

Baby Food Edition

Carrots

Prep time: 15 minutes
Yields: approximately 16 ounces

I bought a bag of carrots for $.78 at the grocery store.

Rinse under cool water.

Remove ends.

Peel the skin off the carrots with a vegetable peeler (even though a knife is shown in the above picture, I did actually use a peeler.)

Cut the carrots into three equal sections

Place in a steamer.

Cook the crap out of them until extremely mushy. I steamed my carrots for about 10 minutes.

Load carrots into your food processor and allow to cool for a few mintes. (Note: if you're using breast milk, it's important the carrots aren't too hot, as the heat can alter the nutrients in your milk.)

Blend carrots, adding milk or formula to reach desired consistency.

Behold the beauty of these carrots. I wasn't using flash so you can't fully appreciate the rich orange color but it was awesome.

Throw in your OXO Tot baby blocks and store in the fridge and/or freezer.

Get more baby food ideas on the recipe tab!

Spice Up Their Lives

Baby Food Edition

Cinnamon

The idea that baby food has to be bland is a thing of the past! Add a dash or two of cinnamon to baby's favorite foods (apples, pears, or even sweet potato).

Wholesomebabyfood.com suggests the following as good 'baby's first' spices to try:

• vanilla
• pepper
• garlic - minced or powdered
• basil
• rosemary
• dill
• oregano
• lemon zest
• ginger
• cinnamon
• mint
• nutmeg
• anise
• curry powder (yes, you may offer your older infant a dash of curry powder in her foods. You do need to watch for any reactions as some components of curry or even chili powder may give baby a rash)

Make It

Baby Food Edition

Black Beans

Prep time: 3 hours
Yields: approximately 50 ounces

The first legume we introduced to the girls was black beans. Although simple, this method took forever. On the bright side, it did make enough beans to last us for pretty much forever. I don't think I'll ever need to make another batch. ...Seriously.

This process was so long and boring I didn't even take my own pictures. You'll just have to trust me on this...

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Sort beans - remove any rocks (seriously, the directions say this... I've never made dried beans from a package before so this seemed weird to me)

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Pre-soak beans according to package directions. Mine said to boil in two inches of water for two minutes. Then cover and let sit for one hour. Drain and rinse. Initially, I thought the beans were done after this step, but then I realized this was just the precursor to the actual cooking of the beans. Omg...

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Next, put beans in a pan with six cups of water and simmer for 1.5 - 2 hours. I simmered mine for the full two hours to ensure they were tender and easily mash-able by the food processor. Drain and pour into food processor (or blender, in my case).

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I ended up using my Ninja (blender) to puree the beans because my large food processor decided it was not going to work today. I added quite a bit of milk to fully incorporate the beans and to reach desired consistency.

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This is pretty much what it looked like in the end. I added quite a bit more milk so my puree is much smoother.

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Finally, I loaded up my OXO Tot baby blocks and froze most of the beans to be eaten at a later date, as my girls didn't quite take to the taste right away. After about a week, they're starting to prefer this a bit more.

Make It!

Baby Food Edition

Applesauce

Prep time: 5 minutes
Yields: approximately 12 ounces

After successfully making pureed pears (or pearsauce, as I like to think of it), it's time to conquer apples! Here's how:

Here's what an apple looks like, for those who are really starting from square one...

Peel and slice. Remove core, seeds, and stem

Dice into 1" cubes and toss into your food processor (or blender)

Here's what one apple yields (it's a VERY small food processor and was purchased before I knew I was carrying a litter of children and not just one)

Pulse on high. Initially, I assumed there would be enough natural liquid to fully blend the apples into a sauce but I was very wrong.

See? No amount of blending and pulsing was going to make these chunks disappear...

I added some breast milk and voila! That did the trick.

Throw the applesauce in the OXO tot baby blocks. These are 2-oz blocks, which means one apple and milk yielded just under 12-oz of applesauce.

Tip: The same methods can be used with pears to create a pearsauce for baby.
Tip 2: Once you've introduced the applesauce and are ready to try something new, add some cinnamon!

Products I Love

OXO Tot Baby Blocks

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I use the OXO Tot Baby Block Set to store my homemade baby food. I have 12 2-oz containers and 4 4-oz containers. So far this quantity is working out well!

Update: Read about my experience with their customer service team here.