Adventures in Baby Food Making

Strange Tofu Combination

...that my girls' can't seem to get enough of is tofu with bananas and blueberries. It smells as terrible as it sounds but my girls inhale it like it's ice cream. Wut?!

Source

Here's how you make it:

• Tofu, firm
• 2 bananas
• 1 small carton of blueberries
• (optional) breast milk

Slice the tofu and lay flat on paper towels to absorb excess water. The boxes of tofu I buy yields approximately six slices. You can place paper towels on top of the slices as well to sop up maximum amounts of water. I recommend making the extra effort.

That's a tough as it gets.

Afterward, combine all ingredients with a food processor until fully incorporated. The bananas can be stubborn and might need a little help making their way to the blades.

Add breast milk if you would like the consistency to be a little more liquid.

The end result is going to be a gorgeous purple color. Fun!

Side note: I have one baby who is a vacuum cleaner. She eats everything. My other little one? She's the pickiest little thing I've ever met but this combination is probably her all time favorite meal right now.

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What Was Your Baby's First Food?

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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!

Things I Never Thought I'd Say

Source

"You need to take your cow out of your mouth if you want more bananas."

Context: Lily was chewing on her cow teething rattle while I gave a bite of bananas to Aubrey but was complaining like she wanted another bite, too.

Btw - Add that cow rattle to the 'products I love' category. It's called Bright Stars Dancing Teether Friends and it's rated 3+ months.

Baby Food

Adventures in Homemade Baby Food Making

Bananas and Sweet Potatoes

The girls hit six months old at the end of July. For us, this meant starting SOLIDS!! I swear it feels like I've been waiting years for this day. Pushy relatives hoped we'd start solids much sooner and wondered allowed if our girls were eating enough. GRRRR. Being my stubborn self, this motivated me to wait until they were exactly six months to start solids.

Side note: EXCLUSIVE consumption of breast milk is awesome for your babies until as late as 9 months of age. The practice of starting solids at 6 months is solely to introduce the idea; not for nutritional value.

I digress... After much research, we decided to skip the rice cereal and go straight to solid food (fruits and veggies). This decision was made based on the fact that rice cereal offers no health benefits and is usually just a 'filler' food. Ain't nobody got time for that! In an attempt to hype up my husband, I asked him what he wanted their first solids to be. He chose bananas.

Another side note: Most experts say to introduce vegetables before fruits but I am picking my battles and I don't think the girls are suffering too much for this oversight.

Bananas are simple enough. You mash, mix in some breast milk (or formula, as the case may be), and serve. One of my girls loved it... the other did what we like to call the 'full body shudder.' 1 out of 2 ain't bad!

A few days later, it was time to try out the next food. I carefully planned a full month's worth of offerings to introduce a healthy balance of fruits and vegetables, then meats and legumes. See bottom of post for sample calendar. (yes... I'm super type-A)

Food #2 was a veggie: sweet potatoes. Considering this was my first real adventure in baby food making, I'll give myself a B+. There are things I'll do differently in the future, but it went okay. To begin, I cooked the sweet potato on the stove until soft (in the future, I'll cook a little longer). Once done, I peeled off the skin (surprisingly very easy to do!), cut into cubes, and throw into the food processor. Pulse the potatoes until fully 'processed.' Adding liquids will help with this process. If using breast milk, you may want to wait until the potatoes have cooled a bit, so as not to disrupt the makeup of the breast milk.

Tip: Breast milk will keep in the fridge for up to five days. Here are some options:

• Use up whatever baby food you've premixed with the breast milk in five days.
• Immediately freeze anything you won't use.
• Wait to incorporate any breast milk until you're ready to serve the baby food to your infant (if possible.)

This is our first month of solids - feel free to use and adapt this schedule.

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
July 28 Pureed bananas	29	30 Pureed sweet potato	31	1	2 Pureed pears	3
4	5 Pureed avocado	6	7	8 Applesauce	9	10
11 Pureed carrots	12	13	14 Pureed chicken	15	16	17 Pureed black beans
18	19	20 Pureed squash	21	22	23 Pureed peaches	24
25	26 Pureed beef	27	28	29 Pureed chickpeas	30	31