Breakfast ideas

I try to keep P's breakfasts wide and varied so that she is not the type of kid who eats the same cereal day in and day out.

When P was first weaning, she would always have some sort of fruit puree for breakfast. Being obsessive compulsive, I would ensure that she wouldn't have the same puree more than once a week. Fruit purees are often the easiest to do I've found, as many are soft and don't need steamed/boiled beforehand. A lot of fruits cannot be cut/peeled prior to the meal either, thus neccessitating immediate preparation.

After she was a bit more confident with textures and chewing, we introduced crushed organic Weetabix with mashed banana, which P has a few times a week for breakfast now. I don't always just add banana, but any other fresh fruits I have to hand. I should think that there are quite a few other low-sugar cereals that are similar if you can't get Weetabix, for instance, Shredded Wheat.

We are also lucky enough to have a new product available here called My First Muesli, by Cow and Gate. It's a muesli (go figure) with just enough texture, plus it has no added sugar or salt. I remember looking for low-sugar muesli for myself a couple of years ago, and I was appalled at how much sugar content most of them had! I'm glad that P can gain all the nutrients that muesli provides without all the sugar. For flavour I add fresh fruit to this too. For extra calcium, some plain Greek yoghurt.

Another handy breakfast food, especially as we are entering the winter months, is porridge, or as Americans would say, oatmeal. I buy a really cheap pack of porridge oats, just add milk, heat it up, and then add either fresh fruit, or fruit puree. Depending on the fruit, I sometimes add a little cinnamon as well. P loves it, and it seems like such a lovely, cosy meal to start a cold day.
If the oatmeal is too textured, just whiz it in the food processor/blender to achieve the required consistency.

Are there any specific breakfasts your babies/toddlers adore?

Turkey-Banana Puree

One of the first things I read about making baby food at home was the importance of putting aside adult preconceived notions about what foods taste good pared together. Babies have no such notions, so if you're able to set aside the gag reflex that immediately comes into play at the thought of avocado and yogurt mixed together, you'll realize that two foods that taste great separately might just mean heaven for a baby's virgin taste buds when mashed together.

This recipe for turkey-banana puree is from Connie Lindardakis' Homemade Baby Food: Pure and Simple. I found that the straight meat purees I was making for Isabella were thick and pasty. Adding the banana made the turkey puree moist, and since Isabella (and most other babies) loves bananas, this puree made perfect sense to me.

Ingredients

One boneless turkey breast, cut into 3/4-inch pieces
1/2 ripe banana, peeled

Directions

1. Remove any visible fat and skin from the turkey breast, place it into boiling water, and cook it for 20 minutes or until turkey is cooked through.

2. Strain the turkey, and keep about 1 cup of the broth.

3. Puree turkey in the food processor, and add banana.

4. Stream in the broth and pulse the puree until it has a smooth and creamy texture.

Mango and Fresh Apricot Puree

See, I told you that I would a) post more and b) put up some introductory purees, and here I am. In fact, assuming young P continues to nap (2hrs 15mins so far), I'll even put a few up now. Just for you, lovely readers.

One of the ever-present fruits in our house is the mango. I confess, despite my love of fruits, I never bought one single mango prior to P's weaning. I'm a pretty whitebread fruit eater - apples, oranges, bananas, cherries, raspberries, blueberries, and the like. I think because I'm not a fan of a lot of tropical fruits in general, I avoided the poor mango. No more, as P adores them.

Here is a lovely little puree that you can make for the baby and also eat yourself on the sly. This recipe is courtesy of the Baby Healthy Eating Planner (link to the left)

Mango and Fresh Apricot Puree

1 ripe mango
2 fresh apricots

1) Slice the mango, peel the skin off, and cut the flesh into cubes
2) Stone and peel the apricots and cut the flesh into small pieces
3) Put the mango and chopped apricots into a pan. Add 4 tbsp water and cook gently until the mango has broken down and the apricot pieces are sot (approx 5-10 minutes). Cool.
4) Whiz the fruits together with a blender/food processor until smooth
5) For a just-weaned baby, pass the puree through a nylon sieve

A note on fruit purees - even if your baby is past the puree stage, I often use fruit purees for a couple different purposes. Sometimes P has toast, and as jams and jellies are loaded with sugar, I spread some fruit puree on toast with (no salt) butter, and she loves it. Additionally, I often buy plain, full-fat Greek yoghurt and mix in the fruit puree of choice. If some of you have a large freezer reserve of purees you think you won't need after your baby moves onto more textured foods, you're wrong, there are plenty of ways to incorporate them later. In fact, P is in the rejection stage with so many vegetables, the only way to get them in her is to puree them and add them to other meals.

Happy eating!

Corn Avocado Soup

Ages and ages ago we had our first Mush contribution from EJW of the late blog Wiscadoo. As I am a huge slacker I neglected to put it up here before now, sorry EJW!

Corn Avocado Soup

"I made this soup (stolen from Rachael Ray) for the grownups last night and gave my son (almost 9 months) a taste and he ended up eating half a bowl! Jalapenos and all! It was quick and easy and good and good for us and not a bland, boring, baby puree. We all win!"

4 avocados
1 jalepeno
1.5 C corn kernels (patted dry- this seemed weird, but made sense later)
2C. chicken broth or water
garlic
cilantro
salt and pepper

"Chop garlic and cilantro, doesn't have to be too fine, it's gonna get blended. Cook the garlic until it smells good. Toss in the avocado and jalepeno and broth/water. Use a hand blender to puree (or do the whole thing in a food processor). Cook the corn kernels until they roast a little bit, then toss into the soup. I blended these, too, but you could keep them whole for some texture. Season and serve with a little reserved corn and cilantro for garnish (or not, if you're lazy like me). We made some feta crostini and it was the perfect summer dinner."

Thanks EJW, it's 9.30am and I'm already hungry now. If anyone tries this yummy recipe, let us know how it's received by your baby/toddler.

Have a recipe you'd like to see in lights here on Mush? Let us know at mushblog at gmail dot com.

Butternut squash risotto

First of all, I must thank my co-blogger Kristi for being such a dutiful Musher. I, on the other hand, suck. Work is calming down a bit now and I'm getting my house in order, so hopefully I'll be able to post regularly now. I have so much in my head that I want to put up here and the plan is to do that soon. Huzzah.

So butternut squash. Yuck. I'm not a great consumer of vegetables, but I hope P will feel differently. However, she has recently been rejecting most vegetables, but thankfully girl still adores her fruit. One exception to the veggie hatred has been butternut squash, which I guess some could argue is a fruit, I don't know. P loves her butternut squash, despite her mother's views that it is quite possibly a demon veggie/fruit which will eventually lead to the downfall of man.

Behold, butternut squash risotto, courtesy of Annabel Karmel's "Superfoods for Babies and Children", as usual, the link to which can be found to your left.

50g (2 oz) onion, chopped
25g (1 oz) butter
100g (4 oz) basmati rice
150g (5 oz) chopped, peeled, butternut squash
450 ml (1pint) boiling water
3 ripe tomatoes (approx. 225g/8oz) skinned, de-seeded and chopped
50g (2 oz) cheddar cheese, grated

Saute the onion in half the butter until softened. Stir in the rice until well coated. Pour over the biling water, cover and cook for 8 minutes over a high heat. Stir in the chopped butternut squash, reduce the heat and cook, covered, for about 12 minutes or until the water has been absorbed.

Meanwhile, melt the remaining butter in a small pan, add the chopped tomatoes and saute for 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the cheese until melted.

Combine!

Any rice will do really, though basmati is one of the healthier options. The rice used in the risotto in the photos is basmati and wild rice. Pearl barley is another excellent substitute, and something worth keeping in your cupboard anyway. Mine is packed with various pulses, grains and the like, and they are often interchangeable. A post on pulses & co is forthcoming. How exciting for you all.

As usual, you can prepare this in varying textures to accommodate your baby. P has it nice and chunky, and aside from picking the bits out of her mouth to examine before swallowing (as Mum is clearly trying to poison her), she gets on well with it.

Next time I think I might throw some first stage baby purees out there for you, as I know a couple readers of my primary blog have some babies new to the solids game. I wouldn't want these children to wallow in jarred food just because Mush has failed them, now would I?

California Chicken

One of Isabella's go-to foods, which has never been spit out, batted away, or otherwise discarded is avocado. She's loved it since I first introduced her to it when she was 7 months old. Technically considered a fruit, avocado is great for babies because it's high in potassium and in the "good" monosaturated fat.

This recipe comes from Annabel Karmel's First Meals, and combines avocado with my daughter's other great food love: cheese. And the chicken provides an excellent source of protein. Best of all, you can hide other vegetables besides the ones listed to your heart's content, because if your baby is anything like mine, she'll be so preoccupied with the avocado and cheese, she won't even realize what else is in there. I served this meal to Isabella when she was 9 months old, and it's still one of her favorites. I just serve it straight up now, without pureeing it.

A word to the wise: This recipe is best served right after preparing it. The avocado can turn a funky grayish-green color if you leave it for too long in the refrigerator. While I've given leftovers to Isabella the following day, I wouldn't keep it much longer than that.

California Chicken

Ingredients

2 oz (about 1/4 cup) boneless, skinless chicken breast, cooked

1 tomato skinned, deseeded, and chopped

1/4 cup avocado

2 TBSP mild, full-fat natural yogurt

1 1/2 TBSP grated cheddar cheese


Directions

1. Chop the chicken, and then combine it with the remaining ingredients.

2. Puree or chop the mixture to the desired consistency, or serve it as is for a toddler.

Couscous with mozzarella and tomato

This recipe is in Amanda Grant's Baby Healthy Eating Planner, linked on the left. I have actually tweaked this recipe to suit P a bit better, so hopefully it works for you as well. Grant includes this recipe in her Second Stage Weaning section of the book, encompassing the 7-9 month range. It is suggested by quite a few different sources (laregely American-based) that babies are not introduced to tomatoes until they are at least 10-12 months of age due to acidity rather than any potential for an allergic reaction. P has been eating this meal since she was about 8 or 9 months old with no ill effects. I have opinions on the paranoia of the American medical community when it comes to foods you should or should not feed your baby, but I'll get to that at another time.

Couscous with mozzarella and tomato

My apologies for the usage of the metric system. Believe me, it would make my life so much easier if they used measuring cups. I am no cook and yet I have a scale in my kitchen. A scale, people.

50g couscous

1 ripe tomato

2 slices mozzarella

Put the couscous into a bowl and add 50ml of boiling water. Cover and leave for at least 10 minutes. Fluff the couscous with a fork. Peel and de-seed the tomato.

Add the flesh (ew) to a pan with a little olive oil or low/no salt butter and cook over a medium heat until softened. Tear mozzarella into small pieces and stir into tomato mixture. I added a few pieces of mushroom to it this time, hence the little brown dots in the mix this time.

Once the mozzarella has melted sufficiently, pour the mixture onto the couscous and stir.

Depending on the baby's ability to chew, you may need to blend or mash the couscous. When I first started feeding this to P, I would blend the tomato/mozzarella mixture and add it to the couscous. Now I just give the tomatoes a quick mashing with a fork when still in the pan, which just serves to break up the tomato chunks a bit. Please note - mozzarella is a very stringy cheese, so blending the tomato and cheese might be recommended for most younger babies as it prevents stringiness but still maintains the flavour.

I love this recipe because it's not one you have to abandon once your child moves onto the next stage of foods. The texture is unique for a younger baby and makes a change from other textures they may have experienced, plus it's quite an "adult" food for older babies when there is no longer a need to mash or blend things.

YUM!

Lentil and Vegetable Puree

My daughter currently has a love-hate relationships with lentils in that she loves to hate them. I've tried preparing them every which way I can think of, with very little success. Lentils are a great source of protein for babies, and are an especially good protein source for those intermediate eaters who aren't too fond of meat or poultry yet.

That said, when she was younger, she did enjoy this lentil and vegetable puree, courtesy of Annabel Karmel's Healthy Baby Meal Planner (not to be confused with Pru's favorite Baby Healthy Eating Planner). I've made quite a few recipes from this book, and all but a few have been hits with She Who Must Be Obeyed.

Ingredients

2 TBSP butter

1 1/2 cups leeks, washed and sliced

1 1/2 cups carrots, chopped

1/4 cup split red lentils

1 1/2 cups vegetable broth or water

1 cup cauliflower florets

1/2 apple, peeled, cored, and chopped

Directions

1. Melt the butter and saute the leek for about 5 minutes.

2. Add the carrot and continue to cook for 2-3 minutes.

3. Add the lentils and broth, and bring to a boil. Then, cver and simmer for about 15 minutes.

4. Add the cauliflower and apple and cook for abother 15 minutes or until the lentils and vegetables are tender.

6. Puree to the desired consistency for your baby.

Chicken and Vegetable Soup

With fall fast approaching, it's the perfect time to make your young thing some soup to keep him or her warm. This recipe is courtesy of JooHee Muromcew, author of The Baby Bistro Cookbook.

Ingredients

1 can (14 ounces) low-sodium chicken broth
1 cup water
1 cup chopped leftover boneless chicken
1 carrot, chopped
1 rib celery, chopped
1/2 cup green beans, cut into 1/2'' pieces
1/4 cup tiny pasta (stars, alphabet, or orzo)

Directions

1. In a medium saucepan, bring the broth and water to a boil over high heat.

2. Add the chicken, carrot, celery, green beans, and pasta.

3. Reduce the heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 15-20 minutes to both cook the pasta and soften the vegetables.

4. Serve as is to older toddlers, or puree for the beginner eaters or young toddlers.

Makes about 4 cups. Freeze in ice cube trays, and you'll have soup for weeks.

Puree Tip:

I first gave this soup to Isabella when she was about 10 months, and served it with the consistency shown in the picture, which results after about 10 seconds in the food processor. When I serve it to her now, I pulse it about 5 times for a chunkier texture. You could certainly puree it much finer than I did and give it to a beginning eater as well.

Serving Tip:

The more you puree this soup, the more liquid its texture will be. Mix in a teaspoon or two of baby cereal or oatmeal before serving to give the soup a thicker texture, which will make it easier to feed to your baby.