Nine Vegetable Baby Purées: Preparation & Taste Rankings

Recently, I've done a few posts about baby foods - first attempts, do-overs and cereal - and now it's time to recap on some of the purées I've made.  A few people have asked how to prepare them, and how they went over with Quincy, so this may help answer those questions.  As another great resource,  check out Momtastic's Wholesome Baby Food website, which was recommended to me from a friend; it has been a wealth of information to find out what foods are appropriate for which age, and different methods of preparing and storing the foods.

On a side note, for those of you that read about The Promise (La Promesa) I made to Quincy, I've decided to give the names of the foods in English and Spanish.  Hey, who said you couldn't learn some new vocabulary from this blog?!

1. BUTTERNUT SQUASH - La Calabaza Moscada

* Preparation: Wash, Peel, Scoop Seeds/Gunk, Cube, Steam 10-12 minutes, Puree with Water.

* Quincy's Rating: Yu-Yu-Yummmm.

* Note: Warning - may cause Squash Hands


2. PEAS - Los Guisantes

* Preparation: Steam 8-12 minutes, Puree with Water.

* Quincy's Rating: Gross Enough to Gag.

*Note: Frozen peas are WAY easier than fresh unshelled peas!

3. ZUCCHINI - El Calabacín (Verde)

* Preparation: Wash, Peel, Slice, Steam 8-10 minutes, Puree (without Water).
* Quincy's Rating: Eh, They're Alright.
* Note: This is a runny one, especially since you do not add any water when pureeing; great to mix with thicker purées.

4. CARROTS - Las Zanahorias

* Preparation: Wash, Peel, Slice, Steam 10-12 minutes, Puree with Water.

* Quincy's Rating: Gross Enough to Gag.

5. YELLOW SUMMER SQUASH - El Calabacín (Amarillo)

* Preparation: Wash, Peel, Slice, Steam 8-10 minutes, Puree (without Water).

* Quincy's Rating: Eh, They're Alright.

* Note: This is another runny one, especially since you do not add water when pureeing; it's great to mix with a thicker food like sweet potatoes.

6. EGGPLANT - La Berenjena

* Preparation: Wash, Peel, Cube, Steam 8-10 minutes, Puree with Water.

* Quincy's Rating: Great when mixed half-and-half with sweet potato; not so great on its own.

7. PARSNIPS - Las Chirivías

8. TURNIPS - Los Nabos

PARSNIP + TURNIP COMBO

* Preparation: Wash, Peel, Cube, Bake in Pan with Water, Puree with Water.

* Quincy's Rating: Run Away!! Mommy & Quincy agree - definitely not a tasty food.  It reminded me of a slightly sweeter radish, thanks to the turnips.

* Note: Bake at 375˚ for 30-45 minutes with water covering the cubes 2/3's of the way.

9. SWEET POTATO - La Batata

* Preparation: Rinse, Poke Holes with Fork, Rinse Again (to get water in the holes), Wrap in Foil, Bake 45-60 minutes, Scoop out Guts from Skin, Puree with Water.
* Quincy's Rating: Yu-Yu-Yummmm.
* Note: This can be a thicker purée, so I've used either extra water or a runnier vegetable like zucchini or summer squash to thin it.

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What are Squash Hands?  Glad you asked.  You may find, especially with Butternut Squash, that your hands get really dried out when handling it after peeling.  Your skin will feel taught and possibly peel.  You'll know what I mean if you give it a try.

Squash Hands

Clean Up! If you're doing multiple vegetables at a time, be sure to clean your cooking gear in between each vegetable so as not to contaminate your final purée with other veggies.  If your baby ends up having an allergic reaction to one of the vegetables, it'd be horrible to have it accidentally mixed in with another!  That being said, I know I did a mixture of the turnips and parsnips without cooking them separately, but having the mix was intentional - too bad it didn't taste so good!

Cleaning in Between Batches

Storage:  Freezing the food into cubes, and then storing the cubes in freezer bags helps save on space in your freezer.  When you're ready for baby to have another portion, either thaw them in the fridge for a day or defrost them in the microwave (be sure to use a Defrost setting and not cook the food).

White = Parsnip & Turnip Combo
Green = Eggplant
Yellow = Yellow Summer Squash

Freezer Stock-up: Three vegetables (listed above)
waiting to freeze into cubes and other frozen cubes
stored in freezer bags

El Vocabulario: I have to admit that I found looking for the Spanish equivalents for some of the foods a bit puzzling.  By following a friend's advice, I was able to find a lot of the names by first looking up their Latin name, and then looking up the Latin name in Wikipedia en Español.  For the variety of squashes, there seem to be two main words: calabaza and calabacín.  Calabaza seems to be the bigger gourd-like squashes, such as Butternut, whereas calabacín is more typical of slimmer and softer squashes like zucchini.  My best guess for the yellow summer squash and zucchini was to differentiate them by color.  If there are some Spanish-speakers out there that have better words to use, I'm all ears!

Got any other foods you've heard of that are great to purée?  Share below!

¡Buen Provecho!

~M

First Tastes: Food for Baby, Food for Thought

Instead of buying jarred baby food, I thought I'd give making my own baby food a try.  Pictured above is some of my "finished product" of baby food - steamed, pureed, frozen in cubes, and then stored in freezer bags.  It's recommended for babies to start solids between 4-6 months of age, beginning with pureed basic foods like veggies or fruits or baby cereals.

In our case, we had decided we would wait until Quincy turned six months old before starting solid foods.  In speaking with our pediatrician, we had also decided to start with vegetables, as some babies can enjoy the sweetness of fruits and then have difficulty liking vegetables.

Despite what we may have planned on ahead of time, Quincy had a slightly different idea in mind for a start date.  For the week before we began giving him solid food, he had this face after nursing:

Much like the Very Hungry Caterpillar, I came to the realization that he was still hungry.  So instead of waiting out the remaining weeks, we started Quincy on solids.

I've realized I have a certain pattern for parenting, and the H-G Parenting Model might work for you, too.  It goes like this:

Here goes....

READ. 
I browsed a few books to figure out what foods would be good, and how to actually add in meals...

This is a great book for all things baby/children.  It reads like a textbook, but it's very informative 

Great book for gourmet recipes for being a super fancy cook (Quincy will eat better than I do, ha!)

Great book of easy recipes AND really good insight on how to start food and which foods to avoid

PREPARE. 
This is where you gather up all the stuff you'll need - in the case of making baby food, you'll need produce, something to puree the food, and something to store the food.

Picked up fresh veggies from the local farmers' market and grocery store.
Asparagus, Butternut Squash, Carrots, & Peas

I had heard from a few friends that make their own baby food, that freezing the pureed food in ice cube trays was the best way to go.  Each cube was like a portion, and you just pull out what you need and leave the rest frozen.  We purchased these ice cube trays because they were dishwasher safe, made of silicone (no risk of BPA's), flexible, and looked cool.

Flexible Ice Cube Trays to freeze pureed foods.

To puree the food, I used a Baby Bullet and a regular blender.  Any kind of food processor should work, too.

The Baby Bullet

The Blender

After getting all the gear together, I got to peeling, slicing, steaming, pureeing, freezing, and storing.  It was a grand old time!

Carrots

Fresh Peas (with the shell) vs. Frozen Peas (without shell)

Top Photos: Fresh Peas from the market - FAIL!  Notice the stringy appearance of the cubes; I wasn't able to get all of the little pieces out when blending it.

Bottom Photos: Frozen Peas - SUCCESS!  These blended much better and had a much brighter hue after freezing.  Use shelled peas, not the whole pod!

Butternut Squash

You may notice I didn't include asparagus in the prepared foods above - we instead opted to grill it with olive oil and lemon juice for a cookout on Father's Day.  Boy, was it good!  Quincy, unfortunately, did not get to try it.  Maybe next time!

When pureeing the food, use the water leftover from steaming the veggies to thin out the mixture.

I poured the water used for steaming into a measure cup,
and then added 1/4 cup at a time to the veggies until it was the right consistency.

I'll admit, you have to set aside some time to get everything together, but once you have it all cooked and then frozen, it's easy to just take a cube out of the freezer, place it in a container to thaw for the next day, and then serve it up when he's ready!




IMPLEMENT.
We started on a Saturday with butternut squash, and it went pretty well!  (Side bar here: Squash is referred to a vegetable with cooking but is actually considered a fruit, in case you were wondering).  With his first meal in the morning, he was very puzzled by what we kept putting in his mouth, but he eventually figured it out.  By the third meal of the day, he knew what to do.

First Tastes of Butternut Squash

Each feeding I started with the solid food, then followed it with nursing.  He still kept up his regular schedule of nursing every three to four hours, just with three meals of solid food added at the beginning of those nursing times.


QUESTION EVERYTHING.
Everything was going great.... until.... teething struck again (I've shared a few woes of teething before).  No, Quincy still hasn't actually had any teeth come in, but they sure like to move around.

Here is what Quincy was like on Day Three of Butternut Squash - note the happy snorting a few seconds into the video clip:




One quick note: I won't make a habit of uploading videos of every meal Quincy eats, but wanted to use this to demonstrate how things can change with babies.  You may have something figured out, and then the next day it's as if it never happened.

The following day, he wanted nothing to do with solid foods (I tried squash, then carrots for a few days, then peas just two days ago), and all it did was upset him.

New Talent - Crying with Carrots in One's Mouth

So many questions have run through my mind: Did he not like the food?  Was it too cold, too warm, too thick, too thin?  Should I have started him on a less-sweet food?  Should I try baby cereal?  Ultimately, it became obvious that his gums were bothering him (heavy drool, fussier than usual, Tylenol/Ibuprofen helped...), so I'm chalking this one up to another battle with incoming teeth, and hopefully it ends soon.


ADJUST & EXPECT NOTHING TO GO AS PLANNED
I'm a bit of a planner (I'm sure there are a few of you out there laughing at the phrase "a bit"), but there comes a point where the plan goes out the window and you just see how things play out.   I'm hoping his gums calm down soon, and we can get into a rhythm with solids, but for the meantime I'll keep trying a little bit at a time until he's ready again.  I might also use the H-G Parenting Model and start over with some more reading...

Bon appetit!

~M