Baby's first finger foods

I have an adorable 9-month-old niece who is ready to start finger foods. This process can seem scary to new moms as they navigate the world of introducing new food to their babies. It's really not difficult if you start thinking in terms of transitioning the baby from breastmilk or formula and baby food/purees to the same table food that the whole family eats.

At some time between 4- to 6-months of age we start feeding our babies purees and baby cereal. During the next several months parents carefully introduce many fruits, vegetables, grains, meats, beans, and dairy to the baby, watching for any preferences and food allergies.

After a while babies get the hang of being fed, and you can introduce safe finger foods so they can practice picking up food, putting it in their mouths, chewing (or as close to it as they can get without back teeth) and swallowing.

My sister wanted ideas of finger foods to introduce, so I suggested the following:

Baby “puffs,” or Cheerios

Small pieces of soft fruit: peaches, plums, grapes, bananas, apples or pears cut into tiny “matchsticks”

Small pieces of soft cooked veggies: carrots, sweet potatoes, green beans, beets, squash

Tiny shreds of tender meat: chicken, beef, turkey

Beans (cut in half if large)

Shredded cheese

Whole wheat toast that has been cut into very small pieces

Scrambled eggs

French toast that is cut into very small pieces

Small pasta
Tofu

You get the idea. You can really feed your baby small pieces of any food that he/she has already been eating as a puree. You can also introduce any new foods they are ready to try this way, just be careful to keep an eye out for signs of food allergies.

Please be careful and watch your baby as they try new things. Some babies are fine with new textures while others gag more easily. Start out cutting food into the smallest size they can pick up. I remember sitting at the kitchen table with a knife just chopping food into tiny pieces for Ned, thinking he would never be able to handle anything bigger than a speck. I cut grapes into sixteenths. Slowly he has advanced (and gotten more teeth) and at 17 months he eats what we do – I am happy to hand him a piece of toast or bagel and watch as he chomps away!

Today's tip: Once your baby has the hang of being fed purees you can slowly introduce finger foods.

Salsa chicken

Here's an easy weeknight meal: salsa chicken. It's perfect because it was easy to prepare, used inexpensive ingredients that I had on hand, and made everyone happy.

1. Take 2 large split chicken breast halves (still on bone), remove the skin, and place them in your crock pot.
2. Add 1 jar of salsa, making sure to coat the chicken.
3. Cook on low for 3-4 hours until the chicken is tender and shreds easily. Remove meat from bones (throw those away), shred it, and return it to the crock pot to mix with the “sauce.” Add 1 can of beans or 1 ½ cups of pre-soaked and cooked dried beans, combine and heat through.
4. Serve with brown rice or tortillas and your family's favorite toppings.

Some versions of this recipe call for cream cheese to make the sauce creamy. I didn't care for that, preferring instead to add yogurt and cheese to my own meal to make it creamy. However if you want to try it I would recommend adding about ½ a block of reduced-fat cream cheese at the end of the cooking time and mixing it into the shredded chicken, salsa, and beans.

We ate this meal over rice the first night. The kids love any meal where they can add toppings to their food – we had shredded cheese, plain yogurt (you could also use low fat sour cream), sliced black olives, and green onions.

Here is my bowl:



Here is Lila's plate (I had an extra chicken breast in the package, so I roasted it so she could have plain chicken, too):

Later in the week I sauteed fresh corn and tomatillos from our farm share, then added the leftover chicken/salsa/bean mixture and made soft tacos from it, which we enjoyed with the leftover brown rice.

I love that we enjoyed two healthy feasts made from inexpensive ingredients: 2 chicken breasts (that I bought on sale), beans, a jar of salsa, brown rice, tortillas, and whatever toppings and extra veggies I had in the house.

Today's tip: Make salsa chicken for your family... you may enjoy it twice!

Summer tomato pasta

It's tomato season! All year I look at the sad tomatoes in the grocery store and long for the end of summer when ripe red tomatoes are abundant. Now's the time, so grab them from your farm share depot or farmer's market, harvest them from your backyard garden, or hit up a neighbor who grew too many.

I needed a quick family dinner last night, so I mixed up this pasta. The longest part of the preparation process was waiting for the water to boil!

It's more of a method than a recipe, use as much of each ingredient as you like. You can make this recipe for one person or for ten. Here's what I did:

1. Put on water to boil.
2. Chop tomatoes and add to a large bowl with finely minced garlic, chopped basil leaves, cubed mozzerella, olive oil, salt and pepper.
3. Boil pasta according to package directions. Add beans to last few minutes of pasta cooking time. Drain, reserving a little of the cooking liquid.
4. Toss hot pasta with tomato mixture. If the pasta seems dry to you add the reserved cooking liquid.

You can choose the ingredients and amounts you like. I used plum and grape tomatoes (it amounted to about 3 cups when chopped) from the farm share, part-skim mozzerella (about 4 oz), and whole-wheat pasta (the whole pound), plus about ¼ cup of olive oil, about ½ cup chopped basil, and about 1 ½ tsp salt and ½ tsp pepper. I added about 1 ½ cups of precooked/frozen white beans. I used one garlic clove and thought it was very garlicky – you could try ½ a clove if you aren't a fan of strong garlic flavors. We topped our pasta with parmesan cheese and it was delicious!

Today's tip: Grab summer tomatoes and enjoy them while they are at their best!

Fun Pop Quiz: What culture invented boiled pasta?

Lunch snapshots

Sometimes it's hard to come up with new ideas for lunch. Here are pictures of recent lunches the kids have enjoyed.

It's a classic for a reason! Peanut butter on whole wheat bread, served with a small apple and baby carrots. I buy natural peanut butter to avoid the sugar and hydrogenated oils that are added to most brands. Whenever possible, I also buy tote bags of small apples, so the each kid can have their own without too much waste. They love to chomp into whole apples!

Another kid classic: macaroni and cheese. I make the traditional packaged version very occasionally for a quick lunch. I'd prefer the organic box, but my kids won't eat it. I served a scoop of mac alongside an apple and baby carrots on this day, too. One note about the carrots: I served them raw and crunchy to Lila, who is almost 5 and beyond the risk for choking on hard foods. I boil them for a couple of minutes to soften them up a bit for Deacon (just turned 3), and chop the boiled carrots for Ned (1).

Beet hummus on a whole grain english muffin with baby carrots. Yummy and colorful!

Leftover grilled chicken drumstick with brown rice and tomato/avacado salad. Lila is picky about meat, but recently discovered drumsticks and loves to munch on them. My kids are big fans of rice, too.

Black bean soup with a wedge of cornbread -- so delicious! There are tons of beans and veggies pureed into this soup.

The day after Deacon's birthday party we had leftover pickies, so the kids enjoyed "party lunch": whole grain crackers, cheese, fruit and farm fresh cucumber slices.

This was Ned's chopped party lunch: crackers, leftover grilled chicken, cucumbers and fruit.

Today's tip: If you are in a lunch slump try something new today. Feel free to borrow one of our ideas!

Kid Superfood: Black Beans

If you follow this blog you already know that I love to add beans to meals. Beans are a great source of protein, fiber, B-vitamins, and a wealth of minerals: iron, phosphorus, magnesium, manganese, potassium, copper, calcium and zinc. As with fruits and vegetables, the darker color the better for beans, too.

They have a very mild flavor so even my pickiest child enjoys them. Because of this they tend to take on the flavor of whatever you are adding them to so you can flavor beans the way your family will like them.

Beans are also incredibly inexpensive. Stock up on dried beans, soak and cook them when you have time, and freeze them for easy meal preparation (see this earlier blog post for details).

Try whipping up this yummy black bean soup. The Vitamin C from the peppers makes the iron in the beans easier for your body to absorb. Serve it up with lots of topping choices so everyone in your family can prepare it their own way.

Black Bean Soup

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, roughly chopped
2 carrots, roughly chopped
1 rib of celery, roughly chopped
1 red pepper, roughly chopped
1 green pepper, roughly
4 15-oz cans of black beans, drained and rinsed
4-5 cups of vegetable or chicken broth
1 ½ Tbsp chili powder
2 tsp cumin
salt and pepper to taste
Optional spices: chipotle chili powder, cayenne pepper, or crushed red pepper

1. Heat olive oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Add onion, carrots, celery, and peppers and cook for about 10 minutes until the onions are softened, stirring occasionally.
2. Add beans, broth and spices and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover pot, and simmer for about 15 minutes or until carrots are soft.
3. Remove soup from heat. Use an immersion blender (or work in small batches in a blender) to blend soup until smooth. Taste to make sure spices are okay, and serve.
4. If you want to spice this up, you could add some crushed red pepper to the vegetables in step 1, or a bit of chipotle chili powder (which adds a smoky spice) or a tiny bit of cayenne pepper with the other spices in step 2. Adjust any of the seasonings to make this the way your family likes it!
5. Serve soup with toppings like: shredded cheese, chopped green onions, plain lowfat Greek yogurt, chopped tomatoes, avocado chunks and crushed tortilla chips.

 Other easy ways to add beans:

• Melted with cheese and veggies in a quesadilla
• Sprinkled into salads
• Mixed into brown rice with salsa
• Mashed into hummus
• Combined in the meat mixture for tacos, burritos, or pasta dishes like lasagna or manicotti

Today's tip: Black beans are an easy way to add protein and powerful nutrition to your family's meals.

Ten superfoods for kids

An article in the June issue of Parenting magazine lists ten kid superfoods. While there are LOTS of healthy foods to serve your family, these ten pack the maximum amount of nutrition into each bite. There are many lists out there, but I really like these picks for kids.

blueberries

cocoa

tomatoes

tofu

low-fat Greek yogurt

cinnamon

cabbage

basil

black beans

salmon

Including these superfoods in your family's meals and snacks when possible guarantees an infusion of antioxidants, calcium, or protein for great health.

I'm planning to spend my next blog posts exploring each superfood – I'll let you know how I serve them to my family! Stay tuned.

Hot Pink Hummus

A general rule when selecting a fruit or veggie is that the darker or brighter the color, the more nutritious it is. So you can imagine how excited I get about beets. The color compounds that give beets their deep pink/red hue are powerful antioxidants and potential cancer fighters.
I found this recipe in the September issue of Parents magazine and have been meaning to try it ever since. I have beets in the house this week so it's time. The recipe is from Blogger Catherine McCord who has a great website: weelicious.com.

The combination of smooth pureed beans with sweet beets and garlic is so good I couldn't stop dipping whatever I could find in the resulting hummus!The kids were tickled by the fuschia dip – I served it to Lila with carrots for dipping and spread it on an English muffin for Deacon.

I used chickpeas instead of white beans, so here is my recipe. Be sure to check out the original recipe, too! The Parents magazine version noted that you can use 5 canned beets in place of the freshly roasted one.

Hot Pink Hummus

1 Medium Beet
1 ½ cups chickpeas, pre-soaked and pre-cooked
1 Large Garlic Clove, peeled
Juice of 1/2 Lemon (about 1/2 Tbsp)
1/4 Cup Olive Oil
1 Tsp Salt

1.Preheat over to 400 degrees.
2. Wash beet well and wrap loosely in foil.
3. Bake for 45 minutes or until beet is tender when poked with a knife.
4. Remove skin from beet.
5. Place all the ingredients in a food processor and puree until smooth.

Today's tip: Try this unique hummus recipe to add color to your meals.

Easy Beans

Beans are a great source of protein, calcium, phosphorus, folate, and iron. Beans contain soluble fiber (the type in oatmeal) which can help reduce cholesterol and insoluble fiber for “regular” bellies.

Canned beans are easy to keep on hand for quick cooking. Just open a can, drain, and rinse before adding to a recipe. Dried beans are also easy to keep around, cost less than canned, and are lower in sodium. They just have to be soaked and cooked before using them.

Here's a way to make dried beans as easy as canned: soak and cook them when you have time, then freeze them for quick use later. This is a trick I learned from Food Network's Melissa D'Arabian. There are two ways to soak beans –

Quick method: Put 1 pound of beans in a pot with 6-8 cups of hot water. Bring this to a boil for two minutes, then let it sit for about an hour. Drain and rinse.

Longer method: Use the same amount of cool water and let beans soak overnight. Drain and rinse.

To cook: Cover beans with water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and let them simmer until tender (each type takes a different amount of time up to 1 1/2-2 hours, I just try one every 10-20 minutes or so).

To store: Drain beans and let them dry off in a colander for a few minutes. Portion beans into small zip-top storage bags and freeze. I put about a cup and a half per bag, which is about the amount in a can.

My kids LOVE beans, and I will sometimes add plain beans to their plates as a side dish. Beans are also a great addition to soups, pasta, rice and casseroles.

Today's Tip: Add protein and nutrients to meals with beans.