Monday, April 20, 2009

Homemade baby food recipe

Just thought I would share this recipe, since it was easy to make and I was stumped for ideas before I made it.

I have been making our baby homemade food since he started eating solids. Don’t get me wrong, he still eats Cheerios and other pre-made baby appropriate finger foods, however I will make up some pureed sweet potatoes, peas, beans, etc, and freeze them in ice cubes for him to accompany some meatloaf or whatever other table food he would be able to eat.

But I had gotten into a kind of slump, because he is now in the meat phase, and sometimes we just don’t have table food meat that is appropriate for him (too difficult to chew for a molar-less baby).

So I went to the supermarket and got a few jars of pre-made baby food for inspiration. And one was Turkey with rice and vegetables. So I got home, opened it, and figured out it would be pretty easy to make…and it came out so well, that I thought I would share this online, in case anyone else was looking for an easy baby food recipe.

Homemade Chicken, Rice and Vegetable Baby Food

3 pieces of chicken (I used drumsticks, but small chicken breasts would work well)
1/2 a bag of frozen peas and carrots (the small chopped carrots) (about 8oz)
½ cup of rice
1 large sweet potato, already baked and peeled

Put the chicken, frozen vegetables and rice in a crockpot with about 3 cups of water.
Cook on high for about 3 hours (or until the chicken is done). Turn off crock pot and let cool until chicken is cool enough to handle.
Remove the chicken from crock pot and puree in a food processor. Add the sweet potato to the chicken in the food processor and puree some more.
Return the pureed mixture to the crock pot and stir with pea and rice mixture until combined.
Voilà…done! Now all you have to do is package and freeze.

The measurements aren’t an exact science. You can probably add another baked sweet potato, change the amount of chicken and maybe have some more liquid…it’s up to you.
The peas are so soft after all those hours of cooking that they are close to mush, but will still retain their form. And the rice is very well cooked. The baked sweet potato is something I usually do when the oven is already on for something else…in this case I was making dinner in the over the night before, and threw a foil wrapped large sweet potato in as well. It can keep in the fridge a few days, so you could make that part in advance. Alternately, you could probably throw large uncooked slices into the crock pot and fish them out with the chicken to puree, but I thought this was the easier way.

I think I am going to use this same technique to make something with ham next time. Another ode to my crock pot!

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2 Comments:

Blogger Snack-Girl said...

Your baby is so beautiful! She sounds like an adventurous eater. I use http://www.babyfood101.com to help me find great foods to introduce to my baby.
Happy eating!
Lisa

9:47 PM  
Blogger Stacy Kaye said...

Hey there, thanks for the recipe! I also make all of Rusty's food, so I will put this one aside. The other day I made him some green bean and brown rice cubes to use and he really likes them. I have a book with hundreds of Baby Blender Recipes for ALL ages so if you ever want me to send you some recipes, let me know!

5:04 AM  

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