Spaghetti

This is a recipe that I recently made for Andrew because I wanted to start introducing chunkier foods to him to get him ready to eat cut up adult food. Andrew has been eating most of the grain snacks that are out there on the market –so it’s time he works on eating some more adult foods! I saw spaghetti on the shelf at the store, so I thought I could easily make that for him and get a lot more yield for the money! There is a cheat version and more wholesome version!

Cheat Spaghetti

Ingredients:

1 box Ditalini Pasta
1 ½ Large Can on Del Monte Traditional Pasta Sauce
Boiled or Purified Water

Directions:

Boil the pasta until it is past al dente and is soft and squishy. Drain pasta, rinse and put into a blender, pour sauce over pasta and stir with a long spoon. Add 4 ounces of water to start and use the mix button or a lower speed on the blender so that the pasta becomes mixed, but still has small bits of pasta left. You can puree the mixture smooth if you have a child who still likes food smooth, but if your baby is ready for chunkier foods, leave the chunks in! You may have to add more water to create the consistency that you want.

This recipe cost me about $4 to make four trays of cubes and some left over to serve for dinner that night. I would call this meal and steal compared to what it would cost in the jar!

More Homemade Version

Ingredients:

1 box Ditalini Pasta
3-4 Cans of Tomato Sauce
Diced, Cooked Green pepper
Diced, Cooked Carrots
Basic herbs – parsley, basil – things that your baby has already tried
Basic Spices – Onion or Garlic Powder – things your baby has already tried

Directions:

Follow the same instructions as above, but you may want to add some other veggies into your sauce other than the ones listed above to give more flavor. This recipe includes just the basics for sauce. If you have a family recipe for pasta sauce you can make that and tone down the spices and herbs a little so it’s not too intense for your little one! Puree just the same as the above recipe and your baby will be eating spaghetti with you in no time!

Don't Worry....There will be new posts soon!

As some as you know already - Andrew and I took a vacation back to Ohio to visit our friends and family. Since we have been busy traveling and getting things back in order since we got back there has not been much time for blogging!

Check back in a few day and hopefully there will be some new recipes posted. I have been working on several new ones and am ready to share them with all of you!!!

Teething Biscuits and Sticks

So, we’ve entered a new realm of food in our household. Andrew is teething and although toys to chew on are great, I felt that a teething snack would be good also.

I made two different teething treats for Andrew to try out. I made a basic teething biscuit with no allergenic ingredients and then a teething stick that had a little more flavor in my opinion, but did have eggs in it. I know that some parents are very concerned about putting any allergenic ingredients or dairy into their child’s diet. I felt that these sticks would be ok to try since the eggs are fully cooked and we have no allergies in our family. I would not recommend using the sticks if you do have any family history of allergies, try the biscuits instead!

Basic Teething Biscuit

Ingredients:

2 Cups Flour
2 Cups Rice Cereal (May need 2 ½ cups)
2 Cups 100% Apple, Pear, or other Juice

Directions:

Mix all of the ingredients together into a very sticky dough; you may add more flour to get the mixture less sticky and more condensed. Flour workspace and hands before starting, either roll out dough and cut shapes or roll in hand to make tubes of dough. Place shapes or tubes onto cookie sheet covered with parchment paper. If making tubes, press each one to flatten into an oval shape.

Bake in oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, flipping halfway through. Take off sheet and place on cooling rack, pack in an airtight container to store or into freezer bags to freeze.

Andrew really loved these biscuits, he actually got mad when I took it away from him because it was getting a little too messy and he was rubbing it all over his clothes and blanket!

Sweet Potato Teething Sticks

Ingredients:

1 Cup Sweet Potato Puree
½ Cup Oil
2 Eggs
¼ Cup Packed Light Brown Sugar
1 ¾ Cups Flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:

Mix all dry ingredients then add all wet ingredients mixing until smooth and creamy. Pour batter into a greased loaf pan or 9X9 pan. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 1 hour or until the bread is firm and set. Take out of oven and let cool in pan for 15 minutes, take out of pan and let cool for 20-30 minutes. Once cool, slice bread into sticks – cut into slices, then cut each slice 4-5 times to get sticks.

Place sticks onto a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper, spacing them out so that none are on top of each other. Bake sticks in a 250 degree oven for 1 hour or longer to get crispy, checking each 20 minutes and turning so each side is evenly baked. Once sticks are crispy and hard let cool and pack in an airtight container or place in a freezer bag to freeze for later use!

Both of these recipes yeild at least 30 biscuits or sticks. You can use some to eat and some to freeze for later. Not only are these treats good to chomp on for a while, but they also keep your little one entertainted for a while! Make sure your baby is sitting up and keep an eye on them while they are snacking on these because they can potentially be a choking hazard.

Garbanzo Beans

The most recent food that I have whipped up for Andrew is Garbanzo Beans! You might think…really, Garbanzo Beans? Yes, these beans are very nutritious and are great to mix with so many other foods. Andrew is fine just eating plain vegetable purees, but I really like to mix together little dinners for him that combine a vegetable or two and some kind of grain or protein. Since he is not eating meat yet, I like to use beans that contain protein in them so that he is getting that nutrient. The other great thing about beans is fiber! What baby could not use a little more fiber in their diet!!!

I found that pureeing garbanzo beans is easy, but the prep is more time consuming than most fruits and veggies. The pay of is well worth the extra time because you can get a bag of beans for a couple of dollars and you end up with 3 trays of cubes and a little extra to use for a few days after you make them!

Basic Garbanzo Bean Puree

1 1lb bag of Garbanzo Beans (dried)
16-24 ounces of purified or boiled water

Directions:

You must soak the beans for 8 hours before cooking them. Place beans into a large bowl or pot and rinse with water. Drain the beans, place back into pot or bowl and add 8 cups of cool water to beans and let set. You can let them sit overnight so they are ready the next day to cook.

Once beans have soaked, drain the beans and rinse once more. When beans are drained again, fill large pot with water and add beans. Bring the beans to a boil, turn down heat, add lid and let simmer for 2 ½ hours until they start to pop open. When they pop open, they are very soft and ready to be pureed.

Drain the beans and place half into blender. Add 8 ounces of water to begin with and puree until all blended, you may need to add about 4 more ounces of water depending on the thickness of puree you want. Once the first half is done, pour into trays and then puree the second half following same directions. You should get 3 trays of cubes and some extra to store in the fridge for a few days!

Add the beans to any veggie or veggie combo you want! Your baby will love the new taste and texture of these beans and you’ll love the nutrients they provide!

Cherry-Pear Dessert

Today I was trying to think of some new fruit mixtures for Andrew to enjoy because I am beginning to feel like he eats the same thing every day. This is hard to believe because my entire freezer is full of cubes of his food, however, it stills feels like he eats the same apple this or peach that each day. As I was looking at the freezer I saw cubes of cherries and thought that he needed a little cherry today. Now, the question was what to mix with the cherry…so I thought Cherry and Pear might be a good mixture. Since I have not posted a Cherry recipe yet or Pear, I will post those basic purees and then all you have to do is mix the two together. So Simple!

Basic Cherry Puree

1 Bag of Frozen Cherries (red sweet)

Directions:

Place frozen cherries into a microwave safe bowl and place in microwave for about 5 minutes depending on your microwave. Once the cherries are thawed and warmed throughout place them into a blender or food processer. Puree the fruit until it is a nice frothy mixture, cherries have a lot of liquid in them so there is no need to add any extra water.

Pour puree into ice cube tray. Normally one bag of cherries will equal one tray of cubes.

Basic Pear Puree

6-8 D’Anjou Pears

Directions:

Wash, Peel and Cut pears in half taking out core. Place cubes onto a baking sheet and place into a pre-heated 350 degree oven. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until soft. Once soft, take out of oven and let cool for a few minutes. Cut baked pears into cubes and place into blender and puree until soft. There is a lot of moisture in pears so normally there is no need to add any extra water.

Pour puree into ice cube trays, normally 8 pears is equal to two trays of cubes.

Once you have made these basic puree cubes you can easily make CherryPear Dessert! For a 7-8 month old baby, serve them 2 cubes of Cherry and 2 cubes of Pear. You may need to add some rice or oatmeal cereal to thicken the puree if your baby prefers a less runny mixture.

Cinnamon Apple Crisp

This recipe is very similar to the blueberry apple crisp that I have previously posted, but is a more simple fruit dessert recipe. You could serve this as a fruit course or as a dessert; I usually just serve as a fruit course, but normally at dinner time. Once your child has truly begun to eat more diverse foods you can begin to introduce simple spices into their diet. You should never add sugar and salt to recipes as they do not need them, but you can add spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg and sprinkles of thyme and parsley. You want to introduce new flavors, but nothing that is too strong or too powerful for your baby’s developing taste buds. Normally as a rule, you can start to introduce these flavors around 7-8 months.

Cinnamon Apple Crisp

2 Basic Fruit Puree Cubes defrosted
1 TBSP oatmeal cereal or quick cooking oats cooked
1* tsp of purified water
1 light dust of Cinnamon

Mix the previous ingredients together and add more or less water to create a consistency that your baby will prefer. If using quick cooking oats you can add a little more to make a good serving size. Make sure to only add a little dash of cinnamon as you do not want too much of the spice, just a little taste of it.

*may need more or less of ingredient.

When I served this meal to Andrew he really loved the new taste! It is a great recipe to shake up the normal everyday meals! Have fun with your baby’s meal and it will make meal time a blast everytime!

Apples and Apricots!

Using the apple recipe and the apricot recipe from previous posts you can make a great fruit blend to serve your baby! As your baby gets older, they will want to eat more complex flavors and tastes. It is very easy to accomplish this by just mixing the simple purees together.

One mixture that Andrew really enjoys is apples and apricots. Sometimes apricots are too strong of a taste by itself, so mixing it with a lot of other foods is a good way to keep it in your child’s diet. The apples make the apricot very sweet and tasty!

Apple and Apricot Mix-it-up

2 Cubes Apple
2 Cubes Apricot

Microwave or Thaw the fruit and mix together! Apples can be runny, but the apricot puree is very creamy and thick, so together they are a great mixture.

Have fun with your baby’s mealtimes and mix it up often by giving many different combinations!