Yummy Natural Baby Food Recipes Anyone?

[Merry]

Hiya,

I am looking for recipes for yummy baby food. I am still exlusively breastfeeding my nearly 10 month old and will probably keep it up exclusively for a bit longer yet, she certainly isn't fading away. But once I do decided to cut it back a little and introduce a bit more food, not really sure where to find decent recipes. We are both have an allergy to dairy (we all know that the whole world is dairy intolerant, durrrr) so recipes with milk, cheese etc are out. Any suggestions would be greatly received.

Cheers and have a great day.

P.S. the silly plunket nurse gave me a hard time when I said that I was still only BF my baby at 8 months, she said that they need to learn how to eat to exercise the muscles in her jaw so that she can talk. OMG!!!:thud: I said "that sounds like a bunch of crap, she has been suckling (jaw up and down) since she was minutes old, I think she will be OK"

[TanyaL]

Have you considered just letting your little one have the same food you're eating? I did baby food with my first, it hadn't ever occurred to me to just share what I was eating, but it worked out quite well with my son.

[Wonder-Full]

DD (my 2nd) tended to eat what we were eating as well. As I was fully cooking from scratch anyway, I just introduced "combos" of ingredients and kept note of what was going in as far as reactions.

If you did want an early recipe - with DS I had heard of making congee (it's an asian recipe and basically a savoury rice porridge). You can make a basic congee (overboiled rice where it goes soupy and porridgey) and then add grated veges, fish, chicken, meat or whatever you want.

[bbrandonsmom]

Wholesomebabyfood.com has a breakdown chart of when to introduce certain foods. Helpful if you have allergies. And stuff you might not have thought to give to a baby.
That said, we didn't do baby food either-have you tasted the stuff? Both my boys didn't eat solids until 8/9m, and then it was just mashed up what we were eating. They didn't do well with pureed stuff. I think maybe they just tried to swallow it, like a liquid.
I have this theory that baby food was invented, because most people don't eat right, and also for convenience. The only baby food we used was this organic banana, oatmeal, peach mix for a bit, and ds thought it was great stuff. But then I started making smoothies for him.

[Organic Fanatic]

Hiya
A topic that I have been working on alot lately as my little one 81/2 months 90% breastfeed other 10% solids I have been struggling to get solids into him until recently, he has no teeth still, and was worrying about it but then read "Breastfeeding Matters by Maureen Minchin" intro to solids section about exclusively feeding okay at 9 months so made me feel better.
Someone also told me a saying food is for fun up until one.
I've just had a chat with a friend last week for some tips myself as she is a few months ahead of me and did baby led weaning, they have a good website http://babyledweaning.com
Some of the ideas from my chat with her not recipes as such that have worked are steamed organic pumpkin or carrot cut into a long wide strip, Oliver loves chewing it right down and likes the being in control bit. If you have a countdown near year I notice that all the organic produce as it nears its expirey date is significantly reduced in price have been able to get pears, carrots, pumpkin and on occasion mandarins (as we lack an organic shop in this part of the world), I do the same with organic apple and pear but cut grooves into it so easier to hold.

My own ideas have been that I found a great bread recently, Venerdi, white and light Spelt sour dough, its organic and doesn't fall apart like the other gluten free ones in the same range and doesn't have big seeds or anything. I toast it and cut off the crust, cut into fingers and dip into all sorts, runny egg yolk, Lisa's organic hummus or homemade mashed food. For puree's I have just been using organic cooked pumpkin or carrots or beetroot as the base mashed and add juices from a roast (the jelly bit that sets) and herbs from the garden ie chopped mint, parsley etc then add either grated from frozen raw liver or add organic lamb, beef etc depends when we've had a roast recently. He liked Grapefruit triangles recently also as easily disintigrate. I'm a bit reluctant to just feed him what we have as our diet is still not 100% organic. I think Millet is an option with grated fruit with breast milk. I've got some in the cupboard but haven't used it yet. Another idea could be couscous, grated veges, herbs etc add some lemon juice or meat stock for flavour. Thats one I"ll try once I finally get into AKL central to an organic shop.
I look forward to reading the website suggested above wholesome baby food.