What meat to use and how to cook it

Since we're cooking good nutritious food for our baby, no processed meats allowed. No bacon, sausage, ham, or other meats with nitrates, salt, and other additives. We want the meat to be tender after it's cooked, so it's OK to pick a cut of beef or pork that has some fat. A whole chicken, or chicken leg quarters are a good choice. My first choice is cooking the meat in a crockpot with some water and maybe an onion for flavor (avoid the onion if this would be your child's first exposure - no sense wasting a whole batch of good food if they can't tolerate it). Slow-cooking the meat in the oven or in a heavy pot on the stove-top would work as well. Just cook the meat until it's well-done and tender. Reserve the cooking liquid, cool it, and skim the fat off the top. Remove all skin, bones, and any crunchy portions of the meat (like the very outside layer of a roast).

The meat is cooked and ready, now what?

Cut the meat into small pieces and run it through the baby food mill. You can use a food processor for this IF it will cut the meat into small bits, and not just shred it. Mix the food milled or processed meat with the reserved broth and/or water to the desired consistency. If your child can't handle much texture, you may want to run the meat through the blender, after you've put it through the baby food mill to make a smoother puree. If you want a creamy meat, you can add baby cereal before freezing, or just before serving it to your child.

What about beans?

Beside the obvious gastrointestinal effects, why shouldn't we feed our babies beans? They're a great source of protein, dietary fiber, and iron, they naturally have a soft texture, and many babies really like the taste. You'll never see beans in a commercial baby food jar, but for vegetarian families they're an important source of protein. The good news is they are easy to make into baby food. You can use soybeans for a very high protein food, or other beans, such as pinto, navy, great northern, or black beans. Just soak and cook as usual, until very tender. Then run the beans through a baby food mill or food processor. The main thing here is to make them into a paste, with no big pieces of bean skin. A blender may make them too sticky. You can flavor the beans with cooked onion, carrots, peppers, tomato sauce, basically any vegetable your baby is OK with. Don't shy away from using "spicy" vegetables or actual spices unless you know your child just doesn't tolerate them. We don't have to overload our kids' tastebuds, but they don't need to just eat bland food either. Of course, salt and sugar don't need to be used, and may train the tastebuds to expect sugary and/or salty foods over the more natural variety. Just freeze the bean puree in ice cube trays and thaw as needed.

Meat-Vegetable Dinners

The Basics of Making Combination Baby Foods:

1) Decide on your combination, just a meat and a vegetable, meat, vegetable, and starchy vegetable or noodle, or just meat and noodle or potato?

2) Cook all the ingredients, and process them to the desired consistency for your baby. Very pureed, slightly textured, or downright chunky for an older babe. (see Fruit and Vegetable Baby Food for instructions on preparing vegetable baby food)

3) Mix the ingredients together in the desired proportions. For example 1/3 meat, 2/3 vegetables, or 1/2 meat, 1/2 vegetables.

4) Add reserved cooking liquid or water to thin the food, baby cereal or more starchy foods to thicken it.

5) Freeze in ice cube trays and store in dated zippered freezer bags or other freezer container.

6) Thaw and warm as usual, adding water, breastmilk, formula, or whole milk to thin, or baby cereal to thicken as needed.

Remember, there's no need to stick with the combinations in these recipes. Be creative, use asparagus instead of green beans, sweet potatoes instead of regular in the stew, tender brussel sprouts instead of broccoli...the possibilties are endless!

Ideas for Delicious Meat-Vegetable Meal Combinations

Chicken Broccoli Pasta Dinner

1/3 Chicken
1/3 Broccoli
1/3 Macaroni

Just cook the macaroni until very tender, run through the food mill, and mix with the chicken and broccoli, both of which have been cooked and processed to the desired consistency. Use reserved chicken broth to thin, and finely processed macaroni, or baby cereal to thicken the dinner.

These instructions may not sound like much, but really, you know the consistency your baby needs, and you know what you want your baby to be eating. That's the great thing about making your own baby food, you are in control, and guess what, babies are not usually very picky :o) If you are just starting out, run the chicken, pasta, and broccoli through a food mill, and then puree it in the blender with enough chicken broth to make it just right. Gradually you can decrease the liquid, and just finely chop some of the ingredients to make a chunkier food. I've got to tell you, the baby food smelled so good when I was making it for my son, I was tempted to dig in! How many times have you heard that about commercial baby food?

Baby Beef Stew

1/4 Beef
1/4 Carrots
1/4 Green Peas
1/4 Potatoes
Cooked Onions for flavor - if desired

For the peas, I usually buy frozen, then just steam and puree them. Much less expensive than fresh (and how often can you actually find fresh ones?), and more nutritious than canned. Try to find a salt-free variety if at all possible. Potatoes need to be mashed or finely chopped, rather than blended (they get really gummy), then mixed with the other ingredients. Again, you can use baby cereal to make a creamy gravy and to thicken the stew. This is really nice when you are making a chunkier baby food, with potato chunks rather than mashed. Use the reserved (fat-skimmed) beef broth to thin the stew as necessary. You won't believe the difference between homemade Baby Beef Stew and the store bought variety. Yummy!

I'm sure you've noticed by now that I'm not providing any quantities, just proportions. And yes, that's on purpose. If you are making baby food for the first time, and have not tried out your little one with the meat or vegetable you are using, start small. Rescue a small portion of meat that hasn't been cooked with salt or pepper, steal a few chunks of potato from the family supper, and some unsalted veggies. If you know that your baby LOVES Baby Beef Stew, then cook up a half roast, a few pounds of potatoes, a bunch of carrots, and some peas. Just don't over do it! Babies change so quickly. You may want to puree some of the batch, keep some a little more textured, and some just chunky. I was hard pressed to think of what to do with the leftover veggie puree cubes in my freezer after my son rather quickly progressed to finger foods. (I ended up including them in mini-meatloaves)

Pork, Green Beans, and Rice

1/3 Pork Chops, Pork Loin, or Pork Roast
1/3 Green Beans
1/3 White or brown rice, cooked

Just process the cooked ingredients as usual, tailoring the texture to your baby's needs. A little rosemary or thyme might be nice in this dish, if you are so inclined. Again, frozen green beans are perfectly acceptable if fresh are not available, or just too darn expensive. Just watch the label and try and avoid salt.

One very appealing thing about making your own baby food is how inexpensive it is. If you buy a whole chicken for $3 on sale, combine that with a few pounds of potatoes, a pound of carrots, and a pound of peas or green beans, you can make a huge quantity of baby food for less than the cost of a dozen tiny jars. You will also waste less, because you can defrost as much or as little as you need - in 1oz portions. Your baby will love the variety. No more eating jarred chicken dinner three meals in a row because the jar was opened and needs to be used!

For more recipes and information about making your own baby food, see these pages:

Making Baby Food - The Basics

Fruit and Vegetable Baby Food