Wholesome Baby Food Recipes Blog - A Homemade Baby Food News Blog

Many parents believe that they cannot start their babies on “table” foods or finger foods until their little ones have teeth.  It’s a logical assumption because afterall, we chew with our teeth!  Did you know that the teeth we chew with are molars and not the front teeth or cuspids?  Now that you’re reading this and thinking about it, of course you know that!  It seems so silly  to remind ourselves of this!  Yet  we parents always forget that foods are not really chewed with the front teeth.

Babies won’t get their molars until sometime between the 13-19 month age range!  That’s quite a long time!  Despite the lack of molars, babies have very strong and tough gums that are capable of mashing and grinding soft cooked foods easily.  Just ask the nursing Mom how it feels when baby clamps down!

Our May newsletter included a Baby Tooth chart to show you the age range when baby’s teeth may start appearing.  We thought you might find it interesting and useful too!  You may download this chart by clicking here.

Learn more about Introducing Baby Finger Foods and Baby Finger Food Ideas within our main site pages.

With the summer months fast upon us (Hoooooray!!!), it’s time for cookouts and camping and vacationing. Did you know that the same food safety rules apply for all of these summer activities? If you haven’t found the Food Safety and Inspection Services website yet, please do go and check it out! This site has all the information you will ever need about all aspects of food safety.

One of my favorites that I often refer people to is the “Four Messages” This highlights the 4 key food safety issues: Clean, Separate, Cook and Chill.

Whether your making homemade baby food or making a potato salad for a cookout, these 4 items are the most important to pay attention to when it comes to food safety. Please check out this wonderful 6 page brochure highlighting the 4 most important food safety items!

If you will be taking your homemade baby food on vacation, you might be interested in visiting our Traveling with Homemade Baby Food tips page as well.

Jolene sent us an email today to tell us about her new method of storing homemade baby food.  She calls it the “drop & blob” method!  Unlike the conventional “drop” method where you put spoonfuls of puree onto a cookie sheet and freeze, Jolene’s method saves space and helps combat ice crystals!  Jolene tells us the following:

This weekend, my Mom was wrapping hamburger meat in these Press & Seal sheets.  As she was making the patties and sealing them individually,  I kept wondering if these sheets would work for homemade baby food.   She is a big supporter of homemade baby food (unlike Dad who thinks Gerber knows best and wonders why his grandbaby can’t be a Gerber baby…..*sigh*) so I asked her what she thought.  She said she thought it would work well and sent me home with a box of the wrap.

I made sweet potatoes and pureed them (not too thinly because Peep is 8 months old).  I tore off a small length of the wrap and did the drop  & blob.  I dropped the sweet potatoes into little blobs on the small portions of the wrap.  Then I pressed and sealed them.  It was fast and easy and tonight, the blobs are frozen and look really great!  And the best part, I can toss them in all parts of the freezer and they use less space than my ice trays.  Ok, that’s not the best part really; the best part will be not having to wage war with the ice trays to get them to give up the food cubes!

What a great idea Jolene!  Thanks so much for sharing this!  I’m going to get some of that wrap too because I hate to wage war with my long industrial size wrap - the cutter-thingy always falls off and I am left with yards of the stuff…..not to bore you all or anything

In case you are wondering, Glad plastic products are not made with polycarbonate and BPA is not used in the manufacturing of any of their products.  You can check out the Press & Seal here

I’ve been trying to post my <cheap> Organic food finds when I have gone grocery shopping. 

 Just this Saturday I found Organic Avocados for a pretty smooth price.

Yep, Organic avocados were selling for $3.79 for 4 avocados.

Conventional avocados were selling for $3.69 for 4 avocados.

While there was no bargain here, the cost differential makes buying the Organic avocados pretty cheap!

Learn all about Avocados and what a great first food they make for babies!  We have many avocado “recipe” ideas as well as information about selecting avocados and storing them too!  Visit our  Avocados page!

Soft and juicy and so fresh and tasty; this is one of baby’s first fruits and often one of the most loved! the versatility of this little gem is amazing! You can bake with it, make a butter or a sauce with it and even make ice cream with it! Yep, it’s the peach! We have seen these yummy fruits at the grocery store in more abundance and not imported! (It’s important to note imported fruits into the U.S. often contain higher levels of pesticides)

Peachy Rice Custard - 8 months + due to egg yolks

What you need:

4 soft and ripe peaches
Dash of vanilla, pinch of cinnamon, pinch of ginger
4 egg yolks
1 C. milk or 1 cup whole milk yogurt
1 C. cooked rice

Peel, halve and pit the ripe peaches and place in baking dish with inner-sides up. You don’t have to peel if you don’t want to. (Peeling will let you serve this without having to really puree or ensure the peels do not pose a choking hazard!) Sprinkle with ginger and little cinnamon to taste.

Beat egg yolks lightly and mix with the milk, and cooked rice. Pour rice custard over fruit and bake in a moderate oven for 10 minutes. Serve with yogurt if desired. Make a think puree of peaches and use that to dribble over the pudding as a peach sauce! This would also make a good finger food when cut into manageable pieces for your little one!

Read more about peaches and get more peach recipes on our Peaches for Baby Food page

For the big kids - serve warm with frozen vanilla yogurt! Heavenly!