Baby Food Diary 5.

Before I had my baby,  I did not care too much about organic stuff.  But now I do, especially when it comes to spinach, must be organic!  Spinach is listed in "The Dirty Dozen," which are the fruits and vegetables that have the most pesticides.  So far, every vegetable I fed to my baby has been nothing but organic kind, and as far as the price difference between organic and non-organic products, it wasn't that much, I thought.  With spinach though, I noticed that organic spinach is much more expensive than non organic one.  But for my baby, I didn't mind spending extra money for it.  

Since I don't have a fancy baby food steamer, I prepared the spinach with what I have.  A pot and a knife.  First, I added a little bit of water in the pot, and brought it to boil.  Once water is boiled, put spinach then cover.  With low to medium heat, I let it get steamed until it got all soggy.  I didn't time exactly how long it took for the spinach to get steamed, but I would say it didn't take any longer than 3 minutes.  Just be warned that spinach shrinks so much and you get disappointed for how little you get once you cook it.   

After the spinach is steamed, now it's time to chop it up.  You can most definitely put in the food processor, but I just used a cutting board and a knife.  They are much easier to wash than a food processor, and much quicker to prep, too.  

I chose spinach this time, because it is a good source of iron, and Vitamin A, C, K, and Folate.  Another nutritious veggie.  It's not sweet like carrots or sweet potatoes, but at least it doesn't have distinctive flavor so I thought my baby would eat it with no problem.

As I mentioned earlier though, there's only so much spinach I get even though I bought a big box of spinach.  So what I did was I mixed with some other baby food that I had already fed to my baby.  Like carrots and rice and spinach.  I already know that he doesn't have any reaction to rice or carrots, so if he ever has reaction, I'd know it's from the spinach.  

Voilà! Organic spinach risotto with pureed carrot sauce.  Doesn't it sound fancy?  

My baby's reaction:

He liked it as usual.  I also tried to feed him just plain spinach, without any carrot or rice, but he still ate it with no problem.  Great.  Oh he is such a lucky baby.  He eats all this fancy schmancy organic stuff while mama just ordered in Chinese food for herself.    

    

Baby Food Diary 4.

When I was growing up, my mom often told me to eat lots of carrots because they are so rich in Vitamin A and good for your eyes.  (Check this website out.)  But unfortunately I did not like carrots so much when I was little, and ironically I am having a lasik surgery soon.

Now it's my turn to hope my baby would like carrots.  Because carrots are not only rich in Vitamin A, but also a good source of Vitamin C, K, Potassium, Copper, and Dietary Fiber.  That said, carrots are great for baby food!   

Anyway, the organic carrots I bought were super skinny, almost as skinny as baby carrots, and it was a bit hard to peel.  But I heard baby carrots tend to contain more water and they are not very flavorful compared to regular carrots so even though you can avoid annoying process of peeling with baby carrots, I still went for super skinny organic carrots.

After peeling them, I cut them into small pieces
and boiled them for about 40 minutes until they got nice and soft.
I should have cut into smaller pieces so they would have gotten boiled more quickly.  Oh well.  It is a learning process!  

Then, I put them into a food processor.  Surprisingly, this is the first time I used a food processor in making baby food.  I thought I was going to use a food processor heavily when making baby food, but not quite so.  Also, I don't have a fancy baby food processor that costs fortune.  I thought about registering one, but let's keep it real.  I live in NYC.  Our kitchen is so small and I just couldn't find where to put it if I were to own one.  So I busted out my small basic food processor, and it just worked fine.  After pureeing, I put into a small servings and stored them in the freezer.









    

My baby's reaction:

He loved carrots.  I guess that's because carrots are also sweet like sweet potatoes so babies tend to like it a lot.  Hopefully he will eat lots of carrots growing up and will have good eyes...So far, my baby likes everything I gave him.  I wonder if there are any food my baby wouldn't enjoy.  I guess I will find out soon.

Baby Food Diary 3.

When I introduce new food to my baby, there are certain rules I follow:

First off, I introduce new foods one at a time. For example, when I introduced rice to him, I fed him only rice (in addition to breast milk) for about three days. This gave me enough time to observe him to see if he was allergic to it, or if it constipated him, a common side effect. If I had introduced him to both rice and sweet potatoes simultaneously, and he had an allergic reaction, I wouldn't be able to tell which new food caused the reaction, right?

Secondly, I always introduce new foods to him in the morning. If I fed him a new food right before his bed time, what if he did have an allergic reaction? Besides the obvious safety concerns, neither my baby and I certainly do not want to deal with this at night!

Finally, after I make sure he is okay with the food (no allergic reactions or constipation), I start to feed him the solids for brunch and dinner.

After the initial introduction of a new food, my baby's feeding schedule looks like this;

7:00 am Breakfast --breast milk

11:00 am Brunch--breast milk and solids

3:00 pm Snack--breast milk

6:30 pm Dinner--breast milk and solids

Now, let me talk about avocado.

I love, loovvee avocados. I love avocado so much that I take them very seriously and couldn't wait to let my baby try them as well. Avocados are well-known as a rich source of Vitamin E, which is great for skin and hair. It's also a good source of fiber, Vitamin K, and potassium. They have much more potassium than bananas, did you know? That's why I chose avocado

as the third food to introduce to my baby.

How did I feed him? Very simple. I cut an avocado in half, just like the picture above, and

scraped it off from the skin with a spoon so the texture becomes almost like ice cream. One thing about avocado though-- it's important that the avocado is nice and ripe, but not too ripe. If it's not ripe enough, it's hard to make avocado's texture creamy, and if it's too ripe, it gets brown and it just doesn't taste good. So when I buy avocados at the supermarket, I usually buy them while they are still hard and not yet ripe, and let them sit at home for a few days until they are perfectly ready to be eaten. Never put them in the fridge! And when it comes to avocado, I don't store them prepared in the freezer for next feedings like I do with other solid foods. I heard it's okay to freeze it but I just don't want my baby to eat brown avocado.

My baby's reaction:

He liked it, which we already knew!!

Baby Food Diary 2.

After rice, I gave my baby sweet potato.

Sweet potato is a good source of Vitamin A, C, and Potassium.

It is also rich in fiber so I figured it would not constipate my baby.

First I peeled, and cut into small pieces, then boiled until it is soft enough

to be mashed with just a spoon. (About 20 min.) But I froze most of it

without mashing it. When I was ready to feed my baby again, I added

a little bit of water, microwaved it, and mashed it. For sweet potato,

I did not have to use a food processor at all. Actually I found out I can make

all kinds of baby food without using a food processor, which I am planning

on talking about in the near future....

My baby's reaction:

He loved sweet potato! I guess its sweet taste resembles breast milk.

I also noticed that he doesn't like it when it's too watery. He likes it

chunky. Oh, not to be gross, but his poop was just like what he ate.

I am so glad he did not get constipated.

Baby Food Diary 1.

My baby is 6 months now.

I started giving him solid food about 2 weeks ago.

So far so good. Feeding solid food can be so messy, but

it's so much more fun than just breastfeeding!

The very first solid food I introduced to my baby was porridge.

While most moms in the U.S. feed their babies rice cereal,

I wanted to follow my culture. People in Japan feed okayu,

which is extra soft, soupy rice, hence porridge.

It's basically the same idea as rice cereal, and it would have been

much easier to just give rice cereal. But since we have a rice cooker

at home, the process of making porridge wasn't bad at all.

Even if you don't have a rice cooker at home, it's just so easy

to make porridge. You cook rice with plenty of water in the pot with

low heat. Keep the cover on. Rice sucks so much water so make

sure keep adding water not to let it burned. How do you know

when it's done? Just taste it and if the texture is like oat meal,

then it's done.  I also highly recommend you make plenty of it, separate
into small servings, and then freeze them.  It becomes quite handy because
rice pretty much goes with anything so you can mix it with carrots, peas,
spinach, etc...  

Baby's reaction:

First he made face as if to say "what the heck are you putting in

my mouth??"

But soon, he got used to it and was wanting more and more.

He is officially a rice-eater now, obviously inherited from his mama.