Zucchini Quinoa

This recipe is simple, nutritious and full of great texture.

Peanut loves it.

It's incredibly easy and a fantastic base for tons of combinations.

I used zucchini but you could easily substitute any summer squash.

Typically I roast summer squash, as steaming it makes the puree very liquid-y but 

we need that extra liquid in this recipe.

I overcooked my zucchini slightly because I was too busy using Pinterest
 but it still worked out perfectly. 

:)

Zucchini Quinoa

3 medium zucchini, ends removed, cut into chunks
1/2 cup quinoa
1 cup water (or unsalted broth)

Rinse and drain your quinoa in a small saucepan and then add 1 cup water.
Bring the water to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cover with a lid.
Let it simmer for about 10 minutes or until all the liquid has been absorbed.

Place your cut zucchini in a steamer over 1 inch of water.
Steam until tender, about 7 minutes.
Place zucchini in a food processor, reserving liquid and puree.

Once both have cooled combine, adding reserved cooking liquid if needed.

Enjoy!

*Variations

Can you see all the possibilities?

-Add just about any vegetable, cut into small chunks or hand mashed.  

Try carrots, parsnips, winter squash, sweet potato, peas, green beans, tomato, etc.

-Combine with cooked and pureed or diced chicken, turkey, pork, beef or fish

-Stir in herbs like cilantro (Peanut loves this), basil, mint, chives, or even dill

*Storage

Refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 3 months.

*Benefits

Quinoa is not actually a grain but a seed and is packed with protein and essential amino acids. 

It's far more nutritious then rice and has more calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, copper, manganese, fiber and zinc than many other grains.

Zucchini is high in potassium, vitamin A, beta-carotene, lutein and manganese.

Simple Peas

Have you ever noticed that 90% of baby foods are all in the orange color range?

Sometimes they are orange or yellow or beige or brown

but there really isn't that much green (or grayish/brownish green in stores).

Did you know that when you eat to much orange food your skin (think nose, palms, soles of feet) can take on an orange tinge?

It's not really a big deal but it does help to offer your baby a rainbow of colors when it comes to food.

Peas were one of those recipes that sounded super easy but I was a little confused about.

I read a bunch of recipes that just said to cook 'em and blend 'em but

as a first food I was a little concerned about the skins being a choking hazard.

I ended up straining it, which yields a lot less but makes me feel good about introducing peas early on.

I think peas were the third food we gave Peanut and to this day are one of his favorite.

Simple Peas

2 cups frozen (or fresh) peas

Place your frozen peas in the steamer basket while you get your water going.

Bring about 1 inch of water to boil.

Meanwhile, rinse your peas with cool water to help rid of any ice.

Steam your peas until bright green and easily mashed, about 5-7 minutes.

When you remove your steamed peas, reserve the cooking liquid and

run the peas under cold water to stop the cooking.

Puree the peas with enough cooking liquid to make a nice smooth puree.

At this point you could serve this to a baby.

If you are introducing this as a very first food I suggest placing the mixture in a fine mesh sieve

and pressing it thru with a spoon or spatula.

What you press thru will be perfect for a baby just learning to eat solids.

Enjoy!

*Variations

-mix with pear or apple or puree with pear, apple or white grape juice

-add some rice or other grain

-fantastic with sweet potato

*Storage

Refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 3 months

*Benefits

Bright green means they have retained the healthy chlorophyll and other nutrients haven't been destroyed during the cooking process. 

Peas are a great source of fiber, vitamin A and protein.

Oh and vitamin K which will help your baby absorb the calcium in his/her diet.

Creamy Coconut Kabocha

Have you thought about introducing your baby to coconut?

Well, if you haven't, you should.

We're not talking about chunks of hard coconut or strong imitation coconut flavoring, 

or even coconut flakes loaded with sugar.

We talking about simple coconut milk.

It has a natural sweetness and mixed with the kabocha will give a mild coconut-y flavor.

It's also nutritious and there are loads of ways to use it.

Although I love kabocha squash, you could easily something like acorn squash.

As you see in the pictures I used acorn squash because I had an extra.

This blend is so good that B and I started brainstorming dishes for us around the combination.

This in itself is easily served to happy adults.

Creamy Coconut Kabocha

1 kabocha squash, cut in half with seeds & pulp removed

coconut milk 

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Place your kabocha squash, with the cut sides down on a baking sheet.

Bake for about 40 minutes or until the skin is fork tender.

Shake your can of coconut milk before you use it.

Scoop the flesh into a food processor and blend with coconut milk to a nice creamy consistency.

The amount of coconut milk you use will depend on how much squash you are blending.

Enjoy!

*Variations

-This is really fantastic with cinnamon

-Add in nutmeg, ginger, curry or even herbs like cilantro

-Mix with chicken, turkey or pork

-Instead of kabocha you could try this with sweet potato or yam

-Use that leftover coconut milk in dishes for yourself.

It's popular in curry but 

I can't wait for it to chill down so I can whip it like this or

make this pie.

*Storage

Refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 3 months

*Benefits

Kabocha squash is a great source of beta-carotene which becomes vitamin A.

It also has iron, vitamins B & C as well as fiber.

Coconut milk is incredibly undervalued.  

Although it does have fat, the type of fat included easily breaks down in the body and is more easily used as energy providing instead of storing... and really, our babies do need some fat.

The healthier the fat, the better.

It's known to increase the immune system as well as providing vitamins A & E, 

potassium, calcium and chloride.

Simple Grains (Cereal)

Although there are just a handful of baby cereals (oatmeal, rice and multigrain) on the market, 

you can make your little one a variety of different grains to try.

We skipped the rice cereal phase completely and jumped straight into veggies but I find myself using

grains all the time now to add to Peanut's meals.

In the first row you see brown jasmine rice, brown rice medley, red quinoa

and then pearled barley and regular quinoa.

For some reason I didn't show oats but I use those all the time as well.

Don't limit yourself or your baby to the same grains all the time

and don't assume that your little one won't like something.

It's amazing what they will eat when you expose them to knew things.

Also remember that just because they don't immediately dive into something that they don't like it.

Try and try again.

If you don't want to buy an entire box or bag of grains try out stores like Whole Foods or Sprouts that

have the option of scooping from a barrel. 

It's a great want to try something out and deciding if you like it.

These grains aren't going to be the same as their store bought counterparts.

These have a really creamy consistency similar to Cream of Wheat or Malt-O-Meal.

Simple Grains (Cereal)

1/4 cup grains of your choice

1 cup water

Grind your grains to a powder.

I use a coffee/spice grinder but you can also use a blender.

Bring your water to a boil and sprinkle in your ground grains, 

whisking constantly.

Turn the heat down to low and whisk occasionally, letting it simmer for about 5 minutes.

The mixture will get thick and creamy and all the water will be absorbed in the grains.

Alternatively you can sprinkle 2 tablespoons of the ground powder 

into 1/2 cup boiling water for a smaller portion.

Store the remainder of the powder in a sealed container in a cool, dark place.

Serve this warm (cold rice/grains aren't the best texture) and thin it down to the desired consistency with

breast milk, formula or water.

*Variations

-Add fruit purees or mashed fruit like banana

-Use this as a thickener for runny purees

-Add this to any of your veggie or vegetable and meat purees to complete the meal

-Serve this with breakfast, lunch and dinner

*Storage

This is best served warm and freshly made

 but really who has the time to make fresh cereal all the time?

You can easily refrigerate it, just be sure to heat thoroughly, mixing in additional liquid if needed, and let it cool to an luke warm temperature for your little.

Heating thoroughly brings back the creamy texture.

Yes, you can freeze it.  It comes out a bit rubbery.

When this happens just heat it, then add your liquid and stir it up as you would the refrigerated grains.

I would suggest making small batches vs. huge batches for this reason.

When used with other foods, the heat thoroughly rule still applies.  

Noone likes to eat cold rice.

*Benefits

Brown rice still has it's bran layer which allows it to retain more fiber (4x more then white rice)

as well as nutrients like niacin, iron, vitamin B6, magnesium and manganese.

Quinoa is not actually a grain but a seed and is packed with protein and essential amino acids.  

It's far more nutritious then rice and has more calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, copper, manganese, fiber and zinc than many other grains.

Barley has loads of fiber, iron, selenium and niacin.  Typically you see pearled barley but dehulled barley is unprocessed so get it if you see it.

Oats are a great source of both soluble and insoluble fiber. 

They also have tons of manganese, vitamin E, zinc, and protein.

Cherry Peach Sauce

Although this is actually the consistency of a lot of store bought purees, 

I find it too thin to serve it by itself.

Oh but flavor is really, really delicious and there are approximately 5,893 ways to use it.

I'll name a couple below.

Cherries are awesome, have great flavor and color but I don't use them enough.

It might be because my awesome cherry-pitter, let's call her the Jordyn 2000 has gone back to 

Sacramento, and cherry-pitting just isn't the same without her.

It's also messy and it makes your fingers purple.

Well it does if you are using your fingers to pit the cherries.

If we're going to take advantage of summer fruit then we just can't ignore peaches, can we?

Lovely, luscious summer peaches.

Cherry Peach Sauce

2 cups of halved & pitted cherries

2 medium peaches, skinned and pitted

1/4 cup water

Lets start with the skinning of the peaches.

Bring water to boil in a pot.  It needs to be enough to submerge your peaches.

Take your clean peach and cut an X on the bottom.

Drop the peaches into the boiling water and let it sit for a few minutes.

When you see the skin start to pull away from the X they are ready.

Let them cool and simple peel the skin off.

Place your cherries in a small saucepan with 1/4 cup of water and bring to a simmer.

Cook until your cherries are fork tender, stirring if needed.

Drain the liquid into a container.

Keep that lovely cherry juice!  Cool it down and give it to your little to drink.

Serve it by itself or mix it with their favorite juice.

Place your cherries and peaches in a food processor and puree.

Now for the fun part.

*Variations/Uses

-Add it to:

cottage cheese, plain whole milk yogurt,

mashed banana, pears or apple,

oatmeal or other grains

-Use it as a sauce for pancakes, waffles or french toast

-Freeze it into popsicles

-Cook with pork (or chicken or turkey) and maybe some roasted squash

-Add cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg or pepper

-Mix in some mint

Use it for yourself too!  Warm a bit with real maple syrup and serve it with brunch or 

spike it and serve it with dessert :)

Or spike it and eat it for brunch.  I won't judge you.

*Storage

Refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 3 months

*Benefits

Cherries are a great source of potassium, have anti-inflammatory properties 

and are packed with antioxidants.

They also contain melatonin which is said to help regulate natural sleep patterns, 

and what mama wouldn't like that.

Peaches are loaded with vitamin C and K as well as potassium, calcium and fiber.

Little Pea by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

I picked this book up while browsing Barnes and Noble one day and have given it as a gift twice already.

B and I both immediately loved it.

Here you have a story of Little Pea who leads an ordinary pea life.

There is one thing that Little Pea doesn't like....

eating dinner.

You see, Little Pea has to eat candy for dinner and he hates candy!

Come on Little Pea, just 5 more bites and you can have dessert.

After choking down his dinner of sweets he finally makes it to dessert....

SPINACH!  Yay!

What a fantastic ending.

We love the simple illustrations.

The minimal background makes it easy for your little to focus on the illustrations and story line.

This story is just super cute and very fun.

Fig & Apple

Figs?

Here's the thing about figs.  

Yes, I've had them as an occasional accompaniment to a cheese platter 

but usually they are dried and it's just the tiniest portion.

For the most part when I think fig... I think Newton.

I know that's horrible but it's true.

Besides, have you seen how expensive fresh figs can be?

So when my friend Kelly pointed out her insanely large and beautiful fig tree, 

I jumped at the chance to steal some.

She sent me home with a bag and I started looking for things to do with them.

I didn't think stuffed with goat cheese and wrapped in bacon would work for Peanut... yet.

So I mixed them with apples and it's a fantastic blend.

Fig & Apple

6 ripe figs, stems removed, quartered

1 apple, peeled, cored, cut into chunks

Wash your figs thoroughly and make sure the stems are removed before cutting.

One of mine was really tough on top so I just cut the very tip off.

Add your figs and apple to a food processor and puree.

At this point it tastes fine and you could certainly serve it as is.

You'll notice the puree is pale with bits of that dark skin throughout.

However, I went a step further and placed this in a small pot over medium heat.

Cook it, stirring occasionally until those flecks of skin soften and the color bleeds into the puree.

The flavor, sweetness and even color really deepens with a bit of cooking.

Enjoy!

~Don't worry about the seeds, they are so small they aren't a choking hazard

 but they do add an interesting mouthfeel.~

*Variations

-This would be great with seasonings like cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice.

-Add a bit of mint 

-Mix with pureed prunes or apricot

-Add it to plain yogurt or cottage cheese

*Storage

Refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 3 months.

*Benefits

Apples are loaded with fiber, vitamins C, beta-carotene, riboflavin, thiamin, potassium,

phosphorus and calcium. 

Figs have loads of fiber, calcium, magnesium and potassium.