An easy way to make a puree, any puree, is to peel and chop the vegetable or fruit and place it in a steamer until tender. Then, puree with a hand blender or mash with a fork depending on the age of your baby. You could thin this out with a little water or breast formula if needed.

Please remember that all babies are different, and what your friends baby likes might not necessarily be what your baby likes. If your baby doesn’t like something, wait four days and then try again.

All recipe quantities have been left blank for you to use as much or as little as you need.
Weekly menu:
Day one:

• Banana baby porridge
• 2 ice cubes spinach, carrot, pea puree
• Caribbean pork casserole
• Carrot/cucumber sticks as finger food if still hungry
• Feeds/formula as necessary.

Recipes:

Banana baby porridge: Mush up a banana with the back of a fork. Add this into your normal baby porridge mixture. You could also use baby rice and make it into banana rice pudding.

Spinach, carrot, pea puree: Steam the carrots and spinach until tender. It is easiest to use frozen peas, so blanch these in hot water for 5 or so minutes. Blitz everything together. You could also add something like a sprig of mint.

Caribbean pork casserole:

Cooking time: 20 minutes, Preparation time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

Pork, onion, sweet potato, courgette, carrot, apple juice, tin of chopped tomatoes.

Method of Preparation:

Use about 200g of each vegetable and 500g pork. Use 150ml apple juice.

Lightly fry the onion in sunflower oil. Add the pork until browned. Finely chop the rest of the vegetables and add back into the pan.Add the tomatoes. Cover with the apple juice and simmer until the other vegetables are soft. Serve with baby rice.

Blend to a puree or a lumpy mixture.

Author is an expert article writer contributes for Free Indian Recipes and other recipes.

You could also try this with veal if you are feeling more adventurous, and if you don’t eat red meat, turkey mince works brilliantly. Try a pinch of hot chilli in with your mixture to spice things up a bit, or alternatively try patting down half a burgers worth mixture in your hands, add a square of cheese, and then add the other half. When your burger is cooked, the cheese will be melted and delicious in the middle.

Ingredients:

• 2lb of beef steak mince (You can use stewing steak, this is cheaper but just as tasty)
• 1 large onion
• 3 thick slices of stale bread
• 1 tsp. dried caraway seeds
• ½ bottle of a good quality ale at room temperature. If this is straight from the fridge, it will not work properly.
• Pinch of salt
• Pinch of pepper
• One large egg
• Handful of chopped parsley

Method of Preparation:

Tip the beef into a bowl and loosen it up with your hands.

Peel the onion and wash it to get rid of the skin. Chop it very finely so there are no big chunks of onion as these are not nice to bite down on in your burger.

Add in the caraway seeds.

Add in the salt and pepper and give another good mix with your hands.

Pour in the ale and give everything another mix.

Give everything a good mix and allow the ale and the flavours to combine with the meat and for everything to soak up. Break the bread up into pieces and add these too. Give everything a final mix, and before you cook make sure you squeeze out the excess liquid as the burgers will not hold their shape.

Using your hands, create burgers from the mixture. Don’t make them too big.

Before cooking, brush each one with the egg white.

Grill cook or use a saucepan on a medium heat. Try to avoid turning them too many times.

When they are cooked, serve with thick onion rings on a nice crusty white bread roll.

Ingredients:

• 60g chicken (use breast as it’s less sinewy)
• 30g grated cheese (use cheddar)
• 2 or 3 broccoli florets
• 2 or 3 cauliflower florets
• 1 carrot
• 15g butter
• 1 tbsp. plain flour
• 125ml milk

Method of Preparation:

For this weaning recipe, put the vegetables in a saucepan full of boiling water. If you would like flavour, try a tiny bit of chicken stock, but use proper chicken stock and not a cube as these are salty.

Cook this until tender and not hard. It needs to be soft to puree properly.

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the flour in and mix together to form a paste. Pour in the milk slowly, stirring all the time, until everything is fully combined and not lumpy.

Take this off of the heat and mix in the cheese. It will melt on its own.

Mix the chicken and the vegetables in the sauce. Make sure they are cut into small pieces, if you are pureeing this for a very young baby, 4 months to 7 months. It makes it much easier to puree if they are in small pieces already.

If you are serving this to a baby over 7 months, you can keep the chicken and vegetables whole, but chopped up small.

You could also try substituting the chicken for turkey. It is similar texture and taste to chicken, but a slightly different flavour. It is as lean as chicken. Again, use breast meat as it is less sinewy.

You can serve this cool, or you can serve this warm. Try it with warm rice for those slightly older babies, and if you want to incorporate a carbohydrate for the smaller babies, you could puree some cooked rice in with the chicken mixture, or you could puree a small new potato or two to thicken out the mixture.

Another variation is to try a couple of different ingredients. You could add a few chestnut mushrooms, or maybe try some small amounts of spinach.

This uses Indian spice and herbs. You could experiment with different flavours and different spices to get more Asian themed dishes. With this dish you will not be using jams, but you could use a fruit like pear, or passion fruit, or pineapple. This is called kheer. You could add chopped nuts to the top, or mixed through the dish for some more flavour.

Ingredients:

• 250g pudding rice or short grain rice
• 1litre whole milk
• 3tbsp sugar (this doesn’t seem like much, but the flavours make up for it)
• Pinch of saffron
• 1 tsp. cardamom powder
• A good handful of nuts, whatever you fancy
• Good handful of raisins if you like them
• 1 tsp. ghee

Method of Preparation:

Heat up the ghee in a saucepan. Add the nuts and raisins and cook them through till the raisins are plump.

Add the rice to the saucepan and cook for a few minutes. This will absorb the nutty flavour.

Pop the milk in and give it a mix around.

DON’T LET IT BURN! If the milk burns, it is really not nice and you will have to start again.

Mix the sugar back through.

Reduce the heat and cook slowly until the milk has halved in volume, it will be thick and creamy by this stage.

This will take around thirty minutes.

Add the spices and about half of the nut mixture, and stir this round.

Pour this into your serving dishes and add more sprinkled nuts on top. You could add a couple of raisins on top too.

Have this hot or cold, up to you! You could also give it a quick sprinkle of cardamom on top.

A lovely way to serve is to also add some edible gold leaf, or silver leaf. You could also brush the nuts with the gold leaf and serve these on top of the rice pudding – you can also keep these in an airtight container and use in future on top of other desserts. Instead of cardamom powder, you could infuse the milk with a couple of open cardamom pods for a fresher flavour. Add vanilla, and infuse for about half an hour, careful not to let the milk burn.

Author is an expert article writer contributes daily for Free Indian Recipes and other recipes like Homemade Recipes.

Try adding chocolate chips, which will melt for a delicious flavour. You could also put a spoon of jam in the bottom before baking for a lovely fruity surprise at the bottom. For a very decadent take on the dish, you could add a couple of sweets like Rolo’s, or a mini Mars in the bottom of the dish, and this will melt and give you a delicious creamy texture and chocolaty finish!

Ingredients:

• 110g of pudding rice or short grain rice
• 500ml evaporated milk
• 500ml whole milk
• 40g brown sugar, or muscavado sugar
• 1 nutmeg
• 25g sugar
• 2 egg yolks

Method of Preparation:

Easy. Mix the milks together.

Mix in the sugar, and rice, and pour into your ovenproof dish or dishes.

A nice touch is to beat the two egg yolks together and stir this through the mixture, it makes it extra creamy and rich

Grate the whole nutmeg over the top – this seems a lot, but the dish does need it.

Dot the butter up into little flecks and sprinkle on the top.

Cook for thirty minutes in the top of an oven at 150C. Mix everything through, and then put back in for another half an hour. Stir again. Leave in the oven for another hour, with no stirring.

This will be lovely, creamy, with a yummy skin on top! If you don’t like the skin, just stir it through and it will get rid of it.
Variations:

This is lovely served with compote fruit. Chop rhubarb roughly into segments, add a good shake of sugar to cover – this isn’t exact measurements, use however much you want. Cover with a little bit of water – a nice thing to do is cover it with strawberry juice. Cook slowly for about an hour. You could add some cinnamon, or a vanilla pod to this. Cook until stewed and thick. Spoon this on top of the rice pudding to serve, or spoon the rice pudding out of the bowls to serve runny.

You could also serve this with cake. Seems like a strange combination, but it makes a lovely alternative to using cream or custard.

Luckily all of us enjoy cheese sauce, and sometimes I’ll just make a white sauce if we don’t want the taste of the roasted vegetables overpowered, but on any given day, this is a real life saver!

Notes

• Great for vegetarians
• Preparation and cooking  15mins

Ingredients

• 25g/1oz Butter
• 25g/1oz Flour
• 250ml/10 fl.oz milk
• 75g/3 oz strong (or medium, depending on taste) Cheddar, grated
• A pinch of dry mustard
• A pinch of Cayenne
• Salt & pepper

Instructions

1. Melt the butter in a pan but do not allow it to brown then add the flour and stir until smooth. Cook over a gentle heat for 2-3 minutes stirring all the time.

2. Remove from heat and add the liquid, little by little, stirring after each addition to prevent any lumps forming. Bring the sauce to the boil, stirring continuously until thickened.

3. Remove from heat and stir in the cheese and seasonings. DO NOT RE-BOIL, just stir until the cheese has melted.

Serve with vegetables, pasta, and poultry.

Hint

Substitute Cayenne with Paprika for a different taste.  For children with more developed taste, a small amount (half a flat teaspoon) of chopped chillies folded in, gives a great kick.  Obviously not recommended for the smaller child, we allow the chilli version for ages 9 and over.

About Author

Wendy is a single Mum who works from home, looks after her two kids and is in awe of the awesome and aw(e)ful things parents and kids can get up to!

Basically She is a MUM IN AWE. She loves being a Mum, She loves writing articles, and she loves cooking!

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Ingredients

• 500g lean stewing steak
• 2 red onions
• 3 carrots
• 2 celery sticks
• Glass of red wine
• Equivalent to a glass beef stock
• 3 or4 garlic cloves
• 250g mushrooms
• 4 potatoes
• 35g butter
• Salt and peppers
• Mint

Method of Preparation:

• First, chop the onion, celery, garlic, and carrots very finely. Cook them in some olive oil, salt and pepper, for about ten minutes until completely soft.
• Add the stewing steak in, and cook until it is browned on the outside. Add the wine, and the stock. If needed, add some water to top it up.
• Simmer with the mint, and add the chopped mushrooms. Simmer for around 2 hours.
• Cut the potatoes into squares, add to cold salted water. Simmer for half an hour, or until fluffy. Pass through a potato ricer. Add milk, salt, and pepper- and lots of butter! Mix together until smooth.
• Spoon your stewed steak mix into four individual casserole bowls. Spoon the mash on top, cover with cheese, and bake for 30 minutes at 180C.

Serve: Serve with cabbage – chop an onion finely, and two rashes or bacon, and add to a pan. Cook gently. Chop the cabbage finely, and add to the bacon and onion. Wilt for about 3-4 minutes, and serve with a knob of butter on top.

You could always substitute the beef steak for beef mince for a more traditional taste – this also works beautifully with spring lamb. If you do this, marinade the meat in red wine and mint first. Preferably overnight, in the fridge, covered in cling film. This makes it lovely and juicy, and really brings out the flavour. You could also add thyme, and if you want to experiment further, add a finely chopped chilli, for a little bit of heat! This is a great twist, and so very simple.

A nice way to serve this is in a big dish at the table – get your guests to help themselves!

Ingredients:

• 6 flour tortilla’s
• 250g cheese
• Vegetable oil
• 2 tins tomatoes
• 2 red peppers
• One onion
• 250g mushrooms
• 1 carrot
• 1 stick of celery
• Basil
• Paprika
• 3/4 cloves of garlic

Method of Preparation:

• Firstly, you need to brown the tortillas slightly. Heat a bit of vegetable oil in the pan, and cook the tortillas for a couple of minutes each side, or until golden brown. Once you’ve done this, set aside.
• Next, make the sauce. Cut the onions and garlic finely, or use a food processor, and cook gently for ten minutes or so with olive oil and butter. If you have the time, roast them in an oven first – slice into the onions, whole, and drizzle with olive oil and salt. Take the cloves out of the bulb and do the same, and cook for about 30 minutes. You can also do this with your peppers. Once cooked, peel the peppers, and stick the onions, peppers, and garlic into a food processor, and whiz. Roasting these brings out all the natural sugars and flavours, and is just delicious.
• Chop up the celery and carrot finely, and cook out. You could always blitz these at the same time as everything else. Once everything is cooked and chopped, add back into a saucepan with your tomatoes. Add the basil and paprika, and simmer for a little while. If the sauce is a little vinegary, add sugar. It brings out the sweetness of the tomatoes and dials down the sharpness.
• You’re nearly there! Spread a little of the sauce over the bottom of a big oven dish.
• Next, roll your tortillas. Fill them two thirds with cheese, roll up, and pop in the oven dish, the join facing downwards. Continue until all of your tortillas are filled, rolled, and in the dish. Pop the rest of the sauce over the top.
• Finish with a sprinkle of cheese, and cook in the oven on 220C for 35-40minutes.

Enjoy!

Following recipe is “Fish Potato Casserole” for babies. This is a very good third stage weaning recipe. Try it out and include it in your baby food recipes.

Ingredients:

• 1 tilapia / cod fish fillet
• 1 cup boiled potato
• 1/2 cup grated mozzarella cheese
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 tbsp cream
• 1 tbsp butter
• Milk

Method:

Cook the fish in plenty of milk then flake it and set aside. meanwhile, pre-heat oven at 350 deg F. Mix fish along with milk, cream and ground black pepper then pour over a greased casserole dish and set aside.

Mash the potatoes and mix with 1 tbsp of milk then pour over the fish as an uniform layer. cover the baking dish and place it inside the oven. Let it bake for 20-25 minutes then take it out. Apply butter and spread grated cheese over it and again put it inside grill and allow it to cook until turns golden brown. Yummy fish potato casserole is ready.

Ingredients

• 750 g potatoes
• Knob butter
• 3 tbsp milk
• 2 (350 g) salmon fillets, cubed
• 250 g cod fillets, cubed
• 100 g peas
• 200 g crème fraiche
• Chives

Procedure

Heat the oven to 200 C. In the meantime, wash and peel the potatoes. Cut them into large chunks. Put them in a pan of boiling water, and cook for 10-12 minutes or until tender. Drain and mash with butter and milk. Also, add seasoning according to your taste. You can use any type of seasoning, such as pepper, bay leaf, etc. Now, keep the potatoes aside.

In a pan, pour some water and cook the salmon and cod for 5 minutes. Drain the fishes and put them back into the pan. Now, add the peas, chives, crème fraiche and seasoning into the pan. Let them cook for 2-3 minutes. Remove from the fire and cool for sometime.

First layer a casserole with the fish mixture and then layer the mashed potatoes over the fish mixture. Put into the preheated oven and bake for 10 minutes or until it is golden brown in color. Remove from the oven and serve piping hot with any thing you like.

As you probably know, make your kids to eat vegetables is not always an easy task. And you probably run out of ideas. Pasta with vegetable sauces can be a good way to make the kids like some vegetables.

So pay attention to these recipes that you can make as an everyday meal.

Here is a simple recipe of pasta with Alfredo sauce. The key ingredient here is cream cheese.

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 package cream cheese
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 2 cups milk
• 6 ounces grated Parmesan Cheese
• 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

Preparation

Melt butter in a medium, non-stick saucepan over medium heat. To prevent burning the butter, you can add a bit of vegetable oil. Add cream cheese (at room temperature) and garlic powder, stirring with wire whisk until smooth. Lower the heat a bit. Add milk, a little at a time, whisking to smooth out lumps. Stir in some Parmesan and pepper. Add salt if necessary. Sauce will thicken rapidly if you overcook. Add some cream or milk to lighten. When sauce reaches desired consistency add to the saucepan the boiled pasta. Serve and add more parmesan.

If you use light cream cheese and skim milk, you will get a light Alfredo sauce.

A variant to the before recipe, is changing garlic for broccoli trees and cream instead of milk. You will get a very nice and softly taste sauce. Ideal for kids who may like to eat broccoli, but in this preparation is delicious and easy to eat.

Preparation

In a sauce pan fry some very small chopped onion until it is transparent with low heat. Add chopped broccoli trees. When everything is hot add the cream and increase heat to medium. Add salt and pepper. Finally add the boiled pasta into the sauce pan and mix everything. Give the preparation a couple of minutes to warm the pasta. Serve with parmesan on top.

Here is another sauce recipe. This is not an “everybody loves” sauce, since it is strong in taste, but it is delicious too. It will take approximately 20 minutes to prepare and it is for 4 servings.

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup packed fresh spinach
• 1/3 cup packed fresh basil
• ¼ cup pine nuts
• 2 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons walnuts
• 8 small black olives
• 1-1/3 cloves garlic
• 1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese.
• 2 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons cup grated Romano cheese
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1/3 dash black pepper

Preparation
In a food processor, blend spinach, basil, pine nuts, walnuts, olives and garlic. Blend in Parmesan cheese and Romano cheese. Gradually add oil, processing until smooth; season with pepper and salt as necessary. Add the sauce on top of boiled spaghettis or pasta of taste. Serve at room temperature.

At first he will start with different vegetables puree, as carrots, pumpkins, sweet potatos, and spinach. At this stage, you can also add some fruits, like banana, apple, pears or peaches.

Always consult with your pediatrician or your health care professional before incorporating a new ingredient to the baby’s diet.

There are many weaning recipes this one is one of those simple recipes which is really easy to prepare:

Tri-colored purée:

Ingredients:

• ½ potato
• ½ sweet potato
• ¼ pumkin

Preparation:

Boil the potato, the sweet potato and the pumpkin in vegetable broth (if you do not have broth, boil the vegetables in simple unsalted water) until they are tender.

Once dried, mash them until you get a very soft purée. The first time, make sure there are not big pieces of the vegetables. Once the baby is used to the purée, near his 8th or 9th month, you can leave some so he can taste different textures.
Add little oil or cream cheese to make it more creamy and taste.

If you like, you can prepare the same recipe but with the whole vegetables. Place the purée in very little recipients (like those for preparing ice cubes) and freeze them. You can then use them one by one.

Banana and Muffin purée:

This is a must. All babies like it. It is simple to prepare and very nutritious in potassium.

Ingredients:

• 1 banana
• 1 medium vainilla only muffin
• 1 dinner spoon of Formula or breast milk.

Preparation:

Mash the banana and the muffin together making a very smooth puree. Add milk for soften. It is not necessary to add any sugar. The muffin is sweet enough.

Fruits mix and yoghurt

A very sweet and colorful recipe with plenty of vitamin c and calcium.

Ingredients:

• 2 apple dices
• 2 peaches dices
• 2 pears dices
• 1 tea spoon white sugar
• ¼ tea cup of natural yoghurt

Preparation:

Cook the fruit dices in a pan with soft heat. Add the sugar and some water until they are tender and the sugar have melted into the water. Mash the preparation until no big pieces are seen. Add some natural yoghurt.

Green chicken puree

This is a very nice start with meats. Chicken is taste, easy to digest, and easy to cook.
Your baby can start with chicken near the seventh month.

Ingredients:

• 1 chicken breast
• ½ lemon juice
• 1 small potato
• Handful spinach

Preparation:

Marinate the chicken breast in the lemon juice and some (but not too much) salt for 5 minutes each side. Bake or roast the chicken breast until it is well done (all parts of the breast must be white).

Boil the potato in unsalted water. Dry and mash until it is smooth. Add a little bit of oil to soften. Steam the spinach for a few minutes. You can put it over the potato or do it separately. Dry and mash too. Mix the two purée and add some cream cheese.

Chop the chicken breast in very small pieces and mix it with the purée.
If your baby is nine month old or older add some parmesan on top.