When your baby is ready to start experimenting with solids you can start him off well with baby rice and/or vegetable and fruit purées as first foods. It may sound boring but it needn't be, as Amaya's weaning recipes show, it can be simple to combine a selection of foods to really give baby's tastebuds a treat. So put on a pinny, whip out the blender and read on. And if you're not yet sure how to get started with weaning then make sure you read our weaning introduction first.
Vegetable Purées
Carrots with Rice
Peel, wash and chop three carrots. Try to use small, thin carrots as they have a sweeter flavour - better still, the organic variety that have far more taste. Cook them in water for around 20 minutes until tender. When cooked, drain and blend in a liquidiser, or use one of those handheld gizmos, until the lumps have disappeared. Mix in some baby rice (the cereal recommended for weaning) and add a little baby milk (breastmilk or formula) until you're satisfied with the consistency.
Carrot and Sweet Potato
Peel and wash two small carrots and a sweet potato. Then chop, cover with water and boil lightly together until tender. Drain the vegetables and blend until you have a nice smooth texture, adding baby milk or cooled boiled water if you find the mixture a bit too glutinous.
Carrot and Cauliflower
Peel, wash and chop one large floret of cauliflower and a couple of small carrots. Place in a pan of boiling water and simmer for around 15 minutes. Drain and zap through a blender until silky smooth. Add a little bit of baby milk for a creamier texture.
Green Peas and Potato Purée
Boil three medium-sized potatoes for 15 minutes and then add about 40g of green peas for a further five minutes - fresh peas when in season are great, although frozen will do fine, and the petit pois variety have a lovely sweet flavour. Place them in a blender and add cooled boiled water or baby milk to achieve a smooth consistency.
Spinach and Potato
Wash a small bag of spinach well and remove coarse stalks. Then chop roughly. Wash, peel and chop three medium-sized potatoes and place all the vegetables in a saucepan with enough boiling water to cover the vegetables completely. Simmer until tender, drain well and purée with a blender. Sieve the purée in order to get rid off some of the stringy spinach bits. Sometimes the mixture can seem too thick, so just add cooled boiled water or baby milk to achieve the right texture.
Fruit Purées
Apple and Pear
Wash, peel and core an eating apple, preferably of a sweet variety, and two pears. Slice the fruits and place in a small saucepan with enough water to just cover them. Simmer for around 15 minutes, by which time the fruit should be soft. Blend until smooth and add a little baby rice if you would like to thicken the consistency.
Apple and Apricot
Wash, peel and core an eating apple and chop into small pieces. Place in a small saucepan with two chopped dried apricots and enough water to cover the fruit. Then simmer until tender and blend to a smooth texture. Push the mixture through a sieve to eliminate the bits of apricot that haven't been puréed to a pulp.
Papaya and Mango
Peel the mango, slice the flesh and cut into chunks. Slice the papaya in half, scoop out the seeds and cut into cubes. Pop all the fruit into a blender and zap it until it has a lovely, velvety texture. The flavour is perhaps slightly more intense than some of the other recipes, as you'd expect from more exotic foods, but you can always tone it down by adding baby rice and a little cooled boiled water.
Banana and Avocado
A strange-sounding concoction perhaps, but one that tastes a lot better than you'd expect. Scoop out the innards of a ripe avocado and mash them very well together with a soft banana. This recipe is quick to prepare but must be eaten immediately, otherwise the banana and avocado start to go brown.
Some mums like to add a little natural yoghurt or fromage frais to the mixture too. Furthermore, this combo is packed with potassium from the banana and fat from the avocado making it a great energy-giving food.
Banana and Orange
This dish has a wonderful flavour, especially when the orange is juicy and sweet. However, do avoid giving orange juice to babies under six months, as their digestive systems are probably too immature to cope with it. Once they are able to, it's a great source of vitamin C.
Peel and squeeze the juice from half an orange, and then add to a very well mashed banana and mix together. This is another dish that requires minimal preparation - although, again, it must be eaten straight away to avoid the banana going brown.
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And finally, here's a top tip… |
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| Fill an empty ice cube tray with your purée and stick it in the freezer. Every time you want your baby to try some purée, you just pop out however many ice cubes you need and warm them. This way you avoid the nightmare of chopping and blending minute portions of food. Be warned, though, you cannot freeze bananas or avocados. | |
