Baby Food - Apple and Carrot Porridge

My babies are fed with savory meat and veggies porridge on weekdays. My 22M girl prefers rice noodle soup than savory porridge. Cooking up a meal for 2 babies pose new challenges, as both have different preference in taste. I was thinking of something else to feed them over the weekend to simulate their taste buds. With the available ingredients, I make a twist to cook up a sweet porridge instead of savory porridge. My girl didn't seem like it, but she still finished up her portion. As for my 11M boy, I fed him the puréed version. Seems like he can accept the taste.

Baby Food - Apple and Carrot Porridge
Serving: 2

Ingredients:
half of a corn, chopped into 2 pieces
5 red dates, rinsed and pitted
2 red apples, peeled, cored and sliced into 8 pieces each
3 ½ tbsp of rice, rinsed half of a carrot, peeled and cut into bite-sized
500ml of hot water

Steps:
1. Add rice, red dates, corn and hot water into slow cooker. Cook for 1 hour.
2. Add carrot and apple. Cook until you get the desired porridge texture.
3. Discard the corn and red dates.
4. Leave the porridge cool down a bit.
5. Mash the apple and carrot and serve together with the porridge.

Baby Food- Fish and Vegetable Porridge

I did a simple statistics on my blog posts. 

My effort on this blog reduced from 120 posts in 2010 to 78 posts in 2011. Then the post dropped tremendously from 78 posts to merely 33 posts in 2012. 

Assume my blogging effort is 100% in year 2010, I sacrificed 35% of my blogging effort on my daughter in year 2011. Again in 2012, additional 37.5% of my blogging effort is delegated to my son. So now at the beginning of 2013, my blogging momentum left only 27.5% compared to 2010. 

In return, I have less readers visiting my blog, I have very less comments in my latest posts. 

Okay, feel free to correct me if my statistic study is wrong. :P 

New year new resolutions. Ahem, my 2013 new year goal is nothing new, but to continue cooking healthy and delicious food for the family of 4. Each meal need to be as simple as possible, and as delicious as possible. Happy New Year 2013 to all my readers! 

To achieve my new resolutions, my first 2013 post is started with this Fish and Vegetable Porridge. It’s so nutritious, right?

 

Baby Food: Fish and Vegetable Porridge 
Serves 2 

Ingredients: 
fish fillet, skinned
4 tbsp of rice, rinsed
carrot, cut into thin strips
choy sum, chopped
hot boiling water

Seasonings (optional): 
half tsp of fried garlic oil

Steps:
1. Add rice and hot water to a small slow cooker. Cook it for 2 hours.
2. Add fish fillet. Once the fish is cooked, dish it out.
3. Add vegetables and cook for 15 minutes.
4. Mash the fish fillet in a bowl. Pour the porridge over the mashed fish fillet. Mix it up with fried garlic oil.
5. Leave it cool for a while and serve warm.

Baby Food - Purple Sweet Potato Millet Porridge 紫番薯小米粥

My girl is facing minor constipation problem. I try my best to add good sources of dietary fiber to her meal. This purple sweet potato porridge may help in digestion, improve her bowels movement and ease the constipation. Don’t panic when you see your baby’s excrement in dark purple color.

Baby Food – Purple Sweet Potato Millet Porridge

Ingredients:
1 ½ tbsp millet, rinsed
50gm purple sweet potato, peeled and cut into pieces
260ml of boiling water (add more if needed)

Steps:
1. Add millet and boiling water to the slow cooker. Cook for 30 to 40 minutes.
2. Add sweet potato. Cook until you get the thickness you want. Add more water if needed.
3. Mash the sweet potato. Leave it cool for a while and serve warm.

Baby Food - Kiwifruit Brown Rice Cereal

This is a scheduled post.

Daddy fed baby kiwifruit while he was having it. Baby kept on approaching her daddy asking for more after tasting it. This is the body language to express her liking to one food. Hence, this weekend, kiwi fruit is added to her diet. It is rich in Vitamin A, Vitamin C, fiber, potassium and folate. It is also contains dietary fiber and antioxidants.

Kiwifruit Brown Rice Cereal

Ingredients: 

5 tbsp of brown rice cereal
hot water (add accordingly)
half of kiwifruit flesh, mashed

Steps:
1. Mixed up brown rice cereal with hot water.
2. Leave it cool for a while.
3. Top up the cereal with kiwifruit.
4. Serve warm.

Spinach and Meat Porridge

This is a scheduled post.
A good way to add iron to baby’s diet is by feeding her spinach. The iron content in this green leafy vegetable is the richest among the others. From the info I got from a program, a newborn baby is having iron in her body through her mother. The iron will be used up for red blood cell production by the time the baby is 6M. So, it’s necessary to add this element to baby’s diet after you start feeding baby solid food since the source of iron in infant formula is no longer able to fulfill her needs. 

Spinach and Meat Porridge 

Ingredients: 

1 tbsp of white rice, rinsed
1 tbsp of millet, rinsed
5 pieces of soft lean pork (you can substitute it with another type of red meat or white meat)
spinach, chopped
200ml hot boiling water

Steps: 

1. Put all the ingredients into a small slow cooker, except the spinach and meat.
2. Add the meat when the porridge starts boiling.
3. 15 minutes before the porridge is ready, add spinach. Stir to mix up all the ingredients. Continue the cooking.
4. Off the power and leave it cool for a while.
5. You can either remove the meat from the porridge before feeding, or retain 1 or 2 pieces of the meat and puree the porridge before feeding.

Baby Food - Blueberry Cereal

Blueberry is suitable for baby who is above 7 months. High in antioxidants, vitamins and fiber, it is referred as "super-food". I introduced blueberry to my girl last week, when she was 10M2W. Blueberry cereal suits her taste buds. The color of blueberry cereal looks attractive too.

Tips for new mum: Introducing one new food at one time. You will need to monitor if your baby is allergic to it. My practice is introducing one new food to baby by weekly basis.

Baby Food - Blueberry Cereal

Ingredients:
4 tbsp of cereal
2 tbsp of infant formula
2 oz of hot water
12 blueberries, rinsed

Steps:
1. Mixed up cereal and infant formula with hot water.
2. Pour the cereal in a blender to blend with the blueberries.
3. Serve warm.

Baby Food- Organic Pumpkin Millet Porridge 金瓜小米粥

This millet porridge was introduced by Wendy. She is very creative in preparing nutritious baby food. I'm a new mum who is still in the progress of discovering food that suits my baby's taste buds. So far, I know she loves red apple, banana, and carrot. She hates potato, yes very much indeed.

My girl at 10 months plus, still not ready to consume the normal savory porridge which is not pureed. She prefers smooth puree that is not too thick. For this pumpkin millet porridge, it is pureed before feeding.

Now a days, my baby is fed on savory meat and veggies porridge on weekdays by my mum, while on weekends, I'll introduce new ingredients to her diet.

Organic Pumpkin Millet Porridge

Ingredients:
2tbsp of organic hulled millet
20gm organic pumpkin flesh
2 cups of water or more (I top up additional water when the water reduce throughout the cooking)

Steps: 
1. Bring water to boil in a saucepan.
2. Add pumpkin and millet. Bring to a boil.
3. Leave it simmers under medium flame. Top up additional water if needed.
4. The porridge will be ready after cooking for about 40 minutes.
5. Leave it cool a bit before feeding baby.

Optional:
Blend the porridge into smooth puree.

Baby Food - Mashed Potato with Infant Formula

My baby girl just turned 6 months. It’s time for her to discover new tastes in solid food. I let her try NESTLÉ® CERELAC® Infant Cereal Rice & Mixed Vegetables for a start. Not disappointing me, she loves it. The flavor suits her taste buds perfectly. Now, she is fed cereal rice twice a day, and infant formula in between.

After 2 days of cerelac meal, I thought of preparing her baby food with fresh ingredients. First, with the potato. All ingredients were mixed into cereal rice form. The feeding was not went on smoothly. My baby didn't seem to like it at all. She felt reluctant to swallow it. Sigh......I gave up and continued to feed her with the cereal rice. So, this is an unsuccessful baby food recipe.

Baby Food - Mashed Potato
serves 1 (for baby 6M and above)

Ingredients:
1 small-sized potato, cleaned
2 tbsp of infant formula
2 oz of warm water

Steps:
1. Steam the whole potato till soft. Leave it cool, and peel off the skin. Mash it.
2. Prepare the milk with 2 tbsp of infant formula and 2 oz of warm water.
3. Mix up everything into cereal rice form.