Pureed Chickpea Soup- For You AND Baby

I've had some chickpea's sitting around for a while, and I kept meaning to try making "baby hummus" with them, but it never happened. Then today I found a recipe for making a pureed Chickpea Soup and thought that was the perfect idea--I can totally alter this to make it baby friendly for the boy-o! But I wanted to try it out too, so after making the soup base I split it into two and added some extra things to both.

Pureed Chickpea Soup

Ingredients:

- TBS oil
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 2 stalks of celery, diced
- 2 large carrots, diced
- 1 can, rinsed chick-peas
- 1 box sodium reduced chicken stock (900ml)
- 2 cups water

Directions:

1. Heat saucepan with oil, and add onion, carrots and celery to sauté for a few minutes.
2. Pour chicken stock, water, and rinsed chick peas into large pot. Add in sautéed veggies.
3. Cover and boil for about an hour. Remove from heat and let cool.
4. Pour soup into blender/food processor and blend till smooth.

NOW... for the baby version I left it at that and simply added a little Rice Cereal to it before serving to make it a little thicker.

For the adult version I returned the soup to the saucepan to heat it back up and added some red chili flakes and some garlic powder, letting it simmer for about 10 more minutes. Removed for heat and served!

It was super easy to make and both the boy-o and I both really liked it! It's nice to finally eat the same thing for once. After I finished making the soup I simply portioned his half out into an ice-cube tray to freeze into cubes for future use!

Adventures in Solids: Part II

So a while ago I posted that we had started the boy-o on some solids, and provided a how-to on making your own puree from Sweet Potato. Since then we've greatly expanded on the boy-o's eating repertoire and have now tried making our own baby food from Sweet Potato, Avocado, Apples, Pears, Squash, Pumpkin and Rice Cereal.

Squash and Rice Cereal Face

It's been really easy to make our own foods so far, and I know the boy-o is certainly loving his food! We've made all of them essentially the same way: the sweet potato, squash, and pumpkin have all been cooked in a little water in the microwave (the first batch of Sweet Potatoes were boiled!), and then were mashed into a puree and placed into the ice cube trays to freeze.

The apples and pears were both cut up into tiny chunks and boiled in a small amount of water. Once the fruit was tender the water was saved to add as necessary when they were mashed up. I added a pinch of cinnamon to the apples to make it similar to applesauce in flavour and the boy-o loved that!

 

Avocado is a little different because you don't need to cook it. (The only other baby food you don't need to cook is bananas!) So once the avocado was ripe I simply scooped it out, added a little water and mashed it up as well, then put it into the ice cube trays to freeze it. 

 



 

 

When the boy-o is ready to eat some of it, I take one or two cubes from the bag and microwave them for 30-45 seconds to melt them, mix them up, and add more water if necessary to achieve a smooth runny texture. Any baby-spoon is great, but we have a really handy one we got in a baby sample pack where the purple tip turns colour if the food is too warm!

 

Other than mixing the Sweet Potato and Apples together, which I think is the boy-o's current favourite, we haven't tried any mixes yet. Once we add in a few more veggies we'll start experimenting with some other mixtures.

 

 

 

What were some of your little's favourite baby food combinations? One of my cousin's little boys loved black beans and bananas together! I stumbled across a really great website the other day for making your own baby food with some great suggestions for combining foods. It's called: Wholesome Baby Food. I look forward to checking it out frequently as the boy-o grows and his appetite for new and exciting foods grows too!

Homemade Baby Food

Hubby and I decided that we wanted to make our own baby foods rather than buying the jarred stuff. This way we know exactly what's gone into the food, and when boy-o gets a little bit older he can eat the same things that we're eating rather than having to buy special foods for him.

Since boy-o is my first child I have of course never made baby food before, so armed with my Baby Bullet that we bought on sale at Canadian Tire, I set to it. One of the more commonly recommended foods to start with is Sweet Potato--so that's what we tried!

It was really quite simple and I highly recommend you give a go too! You don't need a Baby Bullet, which let's face it, is just a blender with a face. And a bit of a creepy one at that.

Sweet Potato puree:

1. Wash and peel sweet potato
2. Cut into cubes and cook in pot of water (you can also bake etc)
3. Cool chunks of potato and then add to blender
4. Add some of the cooking water/breast milk/formula to the potatoes as necessary to make sure they blend well in to a thin liquid consistency.
5. Store as required. Tada!

 

 

 

One medium sized Sweet Potato gave us 12 tablespoons (TBS) worth of food. We've kept two TBS out to try feeding him today, and we're going to freeze the other servings. To make life easier for yourself you can put a single TBS in each ice cube tray slot. If your tray doesn't have a lid, simply wrap with Saran-Wrap and place in freezer. Once it's frozen, you can pop them out and put them into a plastic Zip-Lock bag. Write the date on the bag and they can stay in the freezer for several months!!

 

This method of storing your baby food makes feeding time super easy! You can simply remove a cube or two from the Zip-Lock before mealtime and microwave for a minute to thaw. You can also combine different food cubes in one dish to make a more varied meal. My nephew used to love sweet potato and applesauce mixed together for example. Get creative!

 

 

This was the boy-o's very first attempt at real food, and it resulted in some pretty awesome faces!

 

"Gah Mum, what is this stuff?! This isn't milk!"

 

 

We're on day three of the Sweet Potato now, and although he still has some trouble with swallowing the food rather than it dribbling back out, he is definitely enjoy his Sweet Potato now!! The next item on our menu to test out is going to be some Avocado!

 

 

Note: Once you've warmed up your frozen cube, if the puree still seems to thick, simply add a bit more formula/breastmilk/water to thin it out as necessary and check to make sure food is not too hot!!