The Homemade Baby Food Recipes Blog

A friend of ours once described colcannon as ‘posh mash’ (mash being the common name in England for simple mashed potatoes). And her description was quite accurate, in that colcannon IS a step above regular mashed potatoes, steeped in rich Irish tradition!

We thought we’d post about colcannon today for two reasons – one, because we suggested a visitor to our site try it out on her little boy who refuses to eat anything green – and two, because October 31st is almost here and colcannon is historically a typical Halloween dish in Ireland.

Now, traditional colcannon is made with Savoy cabbage, but you can also use curly kale, a wonderfully nutritious veggie that’s almost dripping with anti-oxidants! We lightly steam it in preparation for this recipe, but you could – if you prefer – saute it briefly in olive oil instead.

The kale (or cabbage) is then mixed in with the other ingredients and – if you’re lucky – may be much more readily accepted by your baby than if you try to serve it on its own.

Another difference between the ‘real’ colcannon and our baby-friendly version is that colcannon is usually served with copious amounts of butter. Whilst we don’t mind using some butter in our recipes, we think this one tastes great with the addition of virgin olive oil instead – we hope your little one agrees!

To Make Colcannon for Your Baby You Will Need…

around 12 oz (1 1/2 cups) white potato (Yukon Gold or Russet are perfect)
4 oz (around 1 cup) curly kale (or Savoy cabbage), shredded and cooked
1-2 tbsp olive oil
2 fl oz (1/4 cup) whole milk (or full cream milk)
2 scallions (spring onions/green onions), finely chopped
pinch of thyme

Peel the potatoes and boil them until tender. Mash until completely smooth.
In a small saucepan, heat the milk. Add the chopped scallions and simmer for a minute or two, then tip the milk/scallion mixture into the mashed potatoes.
Stir in the cooked kale/cabbage, olive oil and thyme.
Your colcannon is ready to serve (when sufficiently cool, of course). It can be used to accompany a main meal, but it’s also tasty served all by itself!

Although it’s not traditional, we like to pop a garlic clove in with the milk, simmer it for a few minutes before adding the scallions, then remove it when the milk is poured into the potatoes. It adds a nice little touch of extra flavour!

Need more tips to get your little one to eat his veggies?

Then please see…
Help – my baby won’t eat vegetables!

Homemade baby food isn’t just good for your baby… it’s good for the environment, too.

The most obvious benefit is that there is no need for all the packaging that comes along with commercially prepared baby food – not all of which can be recycled. Plus – if you buy organic produce – you’re also contributing to reducing the amount of toxic chemicals entering our soil, air and water. And by controlling the portion sizes of the meals you preare for your baby, you’re cutting down on food waste, too.

Another way in which you can help protect our natural resources is by selecting only sustainable fish to cook for your little one and the rest of the family.

Sustainable fish are those that are responsibly harvested to minimize impact to the environment – this includes using preferred methods to catch the fish, avoiding catching other fish than those targeted (which leads to waste, as the ‘bycatch’ is simply thrown overboard) and only catching fish with a population abundant enough to support their harvesting.

Although many of us understand the principle behind the need to cook with only sustainable fish, many of us are not quite sure exactly which types of fish are the best to buy… and which ones we should be avoiding.

So we’ve put together this simple list of sustainable fish to help you make the best choices for your family AND for the environment in which your little one is growing up!

Please note: This list is intended only to provide a guide to the ideal fish to buy for your family’s meals and not all these types of fish may be suitable throughout your baby’s first year.

Sustainable fish – the best fish to buy

• Atlantic/Spanish mackerel
• Atlantic herring
• Arctic char
• Pacific cod
• Pacific black cod
• Hake
• Pacific halibut
• Bluefish
• Alaskan pollock (also known as pollack)
• US farmed catfish
• Wild Alaskan salmon
• Pacific sardines
• Pacific albacore tuna
• US farmed tilapia
• Farmed rainbow trout
• Mahi-mahi (also known as dolphin fish)
• Alaskan plaice

Fish to avoid…

• Atlantic cod
• Atlantic halibut
• Atlantic haddock
• Hoki
• Grouper
• Monkfish
• Atlantic pollack (pollock)
• Bluefin tuna
• Rock cod
• Red snapper
• Farmed salmon
• Skate
• Chilean seabass
• Yellowtail flounder
• Turbot

Unfortunately, many supermarkets and grocery stores continue to sell species from the ‘Fish to avoid’ list, although Greenpeace say that some leading chains (including Whole Foods, Ahold USA and Target)  are becoming more environmentally responsible in their fish purchasing choices.

Nevertheless, it’s down to US – the consumers – to be aware of the types of fish we should be shunning in the stores and markets – and to make our opinions known to those who continue to stock them!

If you’ like to learn more about sustainable seafood, then visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch section, which is packed with useful information and tips for helping increase awareness of these issues within your community.

Tags: cod, fish, grouper, halibut, herring, mackerel, plaice, pollack, pollock, salmon, sardines, skate, sustainable fish, tilapia, tuna, turbot

Chicken nuggets… the name just conjures up images of unhealthy, greasy, ‘junk’ food, doesn’t it?

But chicken nuggets don’t HAVE to be unhealthy – with a few modifications, a standard recipe for chicken nuggets can produce a wonderfully tasty and nutritious finger food for your baby!

Our recipe calls for baking the nuggets instead of frying them. Another thing that makes this recipe so good for tiny diners is the fact that the chicken breast is chopped – most homemade chicken nuggets require you to cut a chicken breast into pieces and coat it with breadcrumbs – but a whole piece of chicken may be difficult for your baby to cope with, particularly if he doesn’t have any teeth! Chopping the chicken makes each mouthful very manageable for your little one – and the sweet potato used to bind the little pieces adds a few extra nutrients, too!

To Make Healthy Baked Chicken Nuggets You Will Need…

1 skinless, boneless chicken breast
around 2 tbsp cooked, mashed sweet potato
1-2 tbsp natural yogurt
1-2 oz (1/4 to 1/2 cup) dry breadcrumbs
1 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
little pinch dried basil leaves
little pinch dried thyme

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees deg F (200 deg C).
Line a baking sheet with foil and spray with cooking spray.
Chop the chicken breast into little pieces (if using frozen chicken, try chopping it before it’s fully thawed – it’s much easier! Make sure it’s thawed before you mix it with the other ingredients, though).
Mix the chopped chicken with enough mashed sweet potato for you to be able to form the chicken into nugget-sized balls (don’t use too much sweet potato, or the ‘nuggets’ will be squishy and hard to coat with breadcrumbs).
Place the chicken/sweet potato balls in the natural yogurt, stirring to coat. Set aside.
Take a large zip-top plastic bag and put in the bread crumbs, cheese, basil and thyme. Shake thoroughly to mix.
Add the chicken nuggets, a few at a time, to the crumbs. Then close the bag and give it a gentle shake to coat the pieces.
Put the coated nuggets on to the foil and place in the oven.
Bake for 10 minutes then carefully turn the pieces over.
Bake for another 10 minutes.
Check that the chicken is cooked through, before cooling and serving.

Serve as they are, or with a dip. Applesauce goes with these baked chicken nuggets amazingly well!

If you want to freeze some for future use, we recommend doing so BEFORE baking. They are much nicer if ‘baked to order’, as it were!

More chicken baby food recipes
Getting started with baby finger foods

Tags: basil, cheese, chicken, chicken nuggets, finger foods, herbs, Parmesan, recipes, sweet potato, thyme, yogurt

Here’s some interesting news – if you bought a Baby Einstein DVD for your little one from June 5, 2004 to September 4, 2009 because of claims that these DVDs were ‘educational’ for babies, then you can now receive a refund or exchange.

This unusual situation has arisen thanks to the action group ‘Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood‘, which – after a 2006 complaint to the FTC – prevented Disney from claiming that Baby Einstein DVDs are educational.

They didn’t stop there, however – and continued their campaign until Disney agreed to reimburse parents who had already purchased these DVDs in the belief that they were of some educational benefit to their little ones. The American Academy of Pediatrics, of course, says that children under the age of 2 years should receive NO screen time at all.

You have until March next year to claim your refund, exchange or coupon – and full details of how to do so are here.

Tags: recalls

Waitrose own-brand semi-skimmed milk is being recalled because it might contain a small amount of cleaning solution.

The recalled milk is “essential Waitrose semi-skimmed milk (1.7% fat)”, 1.136 litre (2 pint), with a ‘Display until’ date of 1 November 09 and a ‘Use by’ date of 2 November 09.

Although semi-skimmed milk is not recommended for babies because they need the fat that full cream milk provides, you may still have semi-skimmed milk in the house for other family members.

If you have THIS particular milk, then please stop using it (of course) and take it back to Waitrose for a refund. If you need more information, please contact Waitrose Customer Services Department, tel: 0800 3134522.

Source: www.food.gov.uk/news/newsarchive/2009/oct/waitrosemilk

Tags: recalls

If you’re in the US, you may be thinking that this is a trick question – after all, a sweet potato IS a yam, right?

Wrong!

Although sweet potatoes are often referred to as yams in parts of America, sweet potatoes and true yams are actually completely different things!

Yams grow from tropical vines and are usually bigger than sweet potatoes. Their skins tend to be scaly, pink and thicker than the skins on sweet potatoes. But the easiest way to tell them apart is probably from the colour of their flesh – sweet potatoes generally have orange flesh, whereas the flesh in yams tends to be white, yellow or pink!

They taste different, too. Yams are usually starchier and drier than sweet potatoes, which are usually moister and sweeter (the orange ones in particular). We think yams are actually closer to white potatoes in terms of taste and texture!

In the United States, you’ll find that sweet potatoes are labelled with both yam AND sweet potato – a requirement of the USDA to help avoid confusion!

Once you start looking, you’ll probably find that ‘real’ yams are somewhat hard to come by at your local grocery store. However, if you’d really like to give yams a try for yourself, you should be able to find them at ethnic markets instead.

So are yams good for my baby?

One big difference between true yams and sweet potatoes is that sweet potatoes are high in beta-carotene (as you can tell from their orange colour) – whereas yams contain none.

But whilst yams don’t attain the ’superfood’ status of the sweet potato, that’s not to say they are entirely without nutritional merit!

Yams are actually a great source of vitamin C, vitamin B6 (which supports a multitude of functions in your baby’s body) and important minerals, including some calcium and iron. They also contain plenty of fibre.

In addition, yams are not a common allergen, so you may – with your doctor’s consent – introduce them to your baby from around 6 months of age.

Using yams in your baby food recipes

The good news is that yams can be prepared in the same ways as sweet or white potatoes and can be used more or less interchangeably in your homemade baby food recipes.

That being said, yams are not as good (in our opinion) as sweet potatoes when pureed and served alone. We don’t cook yams very often,but one thing we HAVE found to be a hit with our little ones is mashing cooked yam with pure, unsweetened apple juice and nutmeg – it’s very good and can double up as a meal for baby and a side dish for the rest of the family.

You can also try adding yam to your baby’s soups and casseroles, or use it as an alternative to pumpkin in our Pumpkin Baby Food Recipes.

Here’s a simple and tasty yam baby food recipe that would make a unique breakfast or a delightful dessert….

Sweet and Yummy Yams (6 months+)

4 tbsp diced yam
1 tbsp raisins
apple juice
1 tbsp unsweetened coconut milk
pinch cinnamon
little drop of vanilla (optional)

Steam the peeled, diced yam until tender.
Whilst the yam is cooking, simmer the raisins in a little apple juice to soften them.
Mash or puree the cooked yam with the raisins, then stir in the coconut milk, cinnamon and vanilla (if using).
Serve just warm, thinning with a little more coconut milk if necessary.

You may also like to try our…

Sweet potato baby food recipes

White potato baby food recipes

Do you use yams in your baby food recipes? Please share any cooking tips or recipes you may have!

Tags: calcium, cinnamon, coconut milk, iron, nutmeg, pumpkin, purees, raisins, recipes, spices, sweet potato, vegetables, vitamin C, yams

Just to let you know that we have a new logo at the top of our blog and we’re currently in the process of changing all the pages of our site, too – so if you’re wondering if you’ve somehow ended up in the wrong place, then don’t worry… you haven’t!

We hope you like our new look!

Pigeon Silicone Pacifiers Step 2, 5 Months + are being recalled because the teat could tear and detach during use. You can find the code RKO6C stamped on the top right rear of the packet.

These dummies were sold from December 2008 – April 2009 across Australia at selected pharmacies and baby stores.

If you have one of these dummies, please stop using it and return it to the place you bought it from for a full refund.

If you need more information, please call Havenhall Pty Ltd on 02 9316 9810 or visit www.pigeonbaby.com.au

Source: www.recalls.gov.au

Tags: recalls

If your little one has been diagnosed with a milk allergy, then there are many foods he will need to avoid. Some – like dairy products – are obvious, but there are other foods containing milk that you may not have even thought about.

The following list includes many of the foods and ingredients that you need to be on the look-out for when preparing food for a baby with a milk allergy – and particularly when offering him any pre-made foods or snacks.

Please bear in mind that there may be other foods that contain milk – or milk ingredients – and there are just too many to provide an exhaustive list here. Whilst our list may help you avoid the most common culprits, please don’t give any food to your baby if you’re unsure about what it contains… if in doubt, leave it out!

BABY MILK ALLERGY – FOODS TO AVOID

• cow’s milk (this includes skimmed, dried, evaporated and condensed milk)
• goat’s milk
• yogurt and cheese (although please discuss these foods with your child’s doctor, as some people with milk allergy can still tolerate yogurt and cheese because the protein responsible for reactions is somewhat broken down in the fermenting and maturation processes)
• milk powder
• creme fraiche
• cream
• fromage frais
• buttermilk
• lassi
• whey
• butter
• ghee
• margarine
• canned fish (some brands contain casein)
• processed meats/deli meats
• some soy products
• some cereal products

BABY MILK ALLERGY – INGREDIENTS TO AVOID

Check the labels on any foods that you plan to serve to your baby. It may not be immediately obvious that all of the following ingredients indicate the presence of milk in some form – but if they appear on a label, then the food will probably not be suitable for your baby.

• acidophilus milk
• casein
• caseinate
• curds
• galactose
• lactalbumin
• lactate
• lactic acid
• lactoglobulin
• lactose
• malted milk
• potassium caseinate
• rennet
• sodium caseinate

Please remember – it’s important to seek a proper diagnosis of milk allergy before excluding milk or foods containing milk from your baby’s diet. Milk and many milk products contain important nutrients and it’s essential that you discuss your baby’s requirements with a medical expert. He or she will be able to advise you about suitable dietary alternatives that will ensure your little one continues to get all the nutrients he needs.

More information about milk allergy in baby

More information about introducing dairy foods to baby

Tags: allergy, butter, buttermilk, canned fish, cheese, cream, creme fraiche, dairy, fromage frais, ghee, goat's milk, lassi, margarine, milk allergy, soy, whey, yogurt

Did you know that green beans are packed with an amazing array of nutrients, including iron – the mineral that plays such an important part in your baby’s healthy growth and development?

If you haven’t yet introduced the humble green bean into your baby’s diet, then you might just want to give it a try after you read our brand new page all about this valuable veggie!

We give you tips for choosing, storing and preparing green beans for your baby, along with suggestions for tasty ways of serving them and a homemade baby food recipe for a nutrient-rich green bean soup.

Visit our Green Beans Baby Food Recipes page now!

Tags: green beans, iron, recipes, snap beans, soup, string beans