multiple ingredient puree – The Simple Elements

Once your babe has gotten used to eating single ingredient foods, mixing multiple flavors and textures together is a new, fun culinary adventure for your little one. The easiest way to start this is by mixing your little one’s favorite foods together. Gradually, you can introduce new ingredients and textures into various mixtures. This is a great way for your child to become accustomed to new flavors. Not sure what flavors to mix together? Really, anything. But for some inspiration take a look at pre made purees at the grocery store, or buy a baby cookbook. I love my Cooking for Baby by Lisa Barnes book. Lots of great recipes and inspiration and you can change things up a little as you see fit to cater to your baby. I found this recipe in the book and Marielle loved it. It was a great way to introduce another healthy grain into her diet as well as some fresh herbs. Marielle already loves zucchini and apple on their own, so I thought this was a perfect combination. Millet is a small , easily digestible, nutritious grain, about the size of couscous. It takes about 35 minutes to cook, so plan ahead. You can make a batch and freeze any leftovers for mixing into various purees for a new texture. I found organic millet at Whole Foods.

I prepared my apple and zucchini purees in my Beaba and prepared the millet on the stove. You can buy the grain basket for the Beaba, but I find it is just as easy to put it in my own saucepan. I combined them into one mixture and finished it off with fresh chopped basil. She loved this combination! She also thought playing with it was a lot of fun…the texture was something new for her.

Millet, Apple and Zucchini Medley

1/2 cup organic millet, cooked in 2 cups of boiling water for about 35-40 minutes. Simmer the millet on low heat. You will get about 2 cups of cooked Millet.
4-5 Tablespoons apple puree
1 cup zucchini puree
chopped basil

Mix all ingredients together. Use the cooking liquid from either the zucchini or apple to thin out mixture if needed.

Mixture can be frozen for up to 3 months.

Bon Appetit!

Making Marielle’s baby food has become a lot more interesting in the past week. Now that she basically eats anything that’s put in front of her, we’re going from single ingredient purées to multiple ingredient purées. It’s always best to use foods your baby has already tried when mixing purées together. Marielle loves sweet potatoes and apples, and I wanted to make sure she learned to like proteins as well. I call this recipe, Baby’s Thanksgiving. Why? It’s a turkey, sweet potato and apple purée parfait. Why parfait? I don’t know, aesthetically it’s more appetizing to layer the ingredients and then freeze them than mix them together 🙂 This way, she can have varying amounts of each food with each bite. I mean, as appetizing as baby foods can possibly look, right?

Ingredients

1/2 pound of organic ground turkey, cooked on the stove with 1/4 cup of water and blended in a food processor until smooth. You may need to add additional water to get to the right consistency.
Organic Apple Purée
Organic Sweet Potato Purée

Bring all finished purées to room temperature and layer them in 4 ounce baby food containers. Freeze for up to 1 month*

*Fruit and veggie purées may be frozen up to 3 months, but meats should be eaten within 1 month.