Baby food at home

I promised one of the girls in my mothers group to send through all the different, slightly off beat things I have been doing in regards to feeding my baby girl.

All the suggestions below, are suggestions, princess A handled it all really well and enjoys her food, whenever introducing something new or different ensure you try it slowly and if unsure always ask your health care professional.

4.5 Months - 7 Months

I started solids a little earlier than other mums, because princess A was ready and it seemed to make sense.

 Some of the foods I introduced where - (recipes below)

• home made rice -cereal
• home made millet
• home made barley
• home made quinoa
• home made porridge (oats)
• veggies - pumpkin, sweet potato, spinach, beetroot, avocado
• fruit - pear and apple (both cooked and raw), papaya,
• dairy - yoghurt, cottage cheese
• other - chia seeds
• tea - fennel tea, chamomile tea, rooibos tea

Home Made Rice Cereal

Ingredients
short grain rice (arborio) the same rice you use for Risotto
Water

Method - stove top
on the stove, boil the rice till really soft and then puree

method - thermomix
cook the rice in the thermy and then blitz on 10 for a few seconds

Storage
at the start you may want to store the rice in ice cube trays, I found Tupperware ones with lids the most suitable. Once baby is eating more you might like to start using pods or larger tubs for freezing excess.

Home Made Millet

Ingredients
Millet (whole if you can cook it and puree it very finely) if not use millet flour (I used organic first)
Water

Proportions are about 1 cup millet to 2 cups water - but i found that mostly i added more and do it to what works and is easy to put into the containers.

Method - stove top
on the stove, boil the whole millet till really soft and then puree. I would taste it to see when it is no longer gritty,
If using millet flour, add flour and water together, keep stirring till it is cooked and no longer bitey.

Method - Thermomix
place the whole millet or the flour into the thermy, add the water, cook on 100 degrees for about 10 minutes, blitz on 10 for 10 seconds or till pureed to the consistency you like

I always made enough to store a few meals in the freezer. To thaw, I take the tub out, let defrost in the fridge, but if I am out of time, I actually put the frozen contents of the tub in a small saucepan, with a little water and heat through. all pre-made frozen food I heat through before giving to princess A.

Home Made Barley, Oat porridge & Quinoa

same method as for the Millet and rice. Quinoa took ages to cook, but seems to be quite filling and nutritious.


I don't make the Oats in advance, I just soak some the night before with water so they are already soft and then just boil them up in the morning.

Princess A particularly enjoyed the Barley

Chia Seeds

the best way  to prepare these is to make them into a jelly, this jelly can be used with everything else - banana, pear, apple etc or added to rice cereal etc.

a bit more about chia  

To prepare the Chia, I found the easiest way is to put a table spoon into a jam jar, add boiling water, stir that they are all covered and then you have a jam jar of jelly, keep in fridge and add a teaspoon to the food per day.

Some people like to sprinkle a teaspoon over the porridge or other cereal in the morning.

Tea

I  have personally always enjoyed herbal teas, and after doing some research found that there are some benefits for babies.

Fennel tea, Chamomile and Rooibos are the choices I made.

Fennel tea

Place a few fennel seeds in a small saucepan, add water and bring to the boil. let it steep and then put in bottle or sippy cup, diluted with some water

Chamomile tea

as above, can be made with fresh chamomile flowers, or otherwise a good quality tea bag

Roibos tea

I started this one at 6 months. Princess A loves it and it seems to be really good for her. I prepare this with a teabag in a cup, i put some in a sippy cup diluted with filtered water and give it to her all day.

A drinks about 100 - 150ml of other fluid a day.

Apple & Pear 

Pear and apple were the first fruits I introduced. At the start I pureed them with a little bit of water and froze the excess in ice cube trays and later on in the larger tubs.

I still have pureed fruit for A, but just don't blitz it as much so that it still has some consistency.

I also started to introduce Apple and pear raw.To do this, I grate the apple / pear with a very fine grater and either give it to her by itself or mix it in with her cereal.

 Other foods

other foods mentioned above, yoghurt, cottage cheese etc are all pretty self explanatory.


I regularly give A rusks which she loves. Today I also gave her a slice of ripe pear, she thought it was terrific.