Fruits ...

Fruits can be a great source of nutrition for you babies.
We normally introduce fruit to our babies in from of juices which I say is not a good start for the infants... As in juices you remove all the gudness and feed only the sugar so the best way to feed your baby with fruits is by pureeing it and then giving.
You can start giving fruits to your babies from the age of 4 months ( please check with your pediatrics ). To start with you can start with apple sauce, mashed banana, mashed mangoes if in season … almost all fruits can be taken with out cooking for babies but a few like apple pear bearries need to be cooked before you serve them to your babies. you cn find a lot of recipes of fruies in the blog here is one which my baby loves....

Apple sauce:

½ cup water
2-3 medium size apples(pealed, deseeded and diced )
pinch of cinnamon powder

Method:

mix all the ingredient and oil in a large sauce pan till the apples are nicely cooked.
Remove it after cooling puree it and serve to the baby hot or cold as they like.

Can be frozen and stored in the fridge.

Ragi / Raagi Porridge

Ingredients;-
Ragi
Ghee
Jaggery
Milk
Method:-
You can soak it for 12 hours, then drain and put it in a cloth. Keep it moist so that it gets sprouts. This will take another 12 hours. Then dry roast it or dry in the shade in a hot place. Then powder it finely, sieve well.

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If you get fine quality powder, that is best.
Take 2 or 3 spoons of powder, add water and make a smooth, watery paste. Then keep over slow flame and keep on stirring. This will start to cook and solidify. The color will change, you will know. A nice aroma will come. Take off from fire. Add a little ghee, jaggary taste. If you are feeding him semi solids you can add milk to it. Feed when warm to the baby. You can add a little boliled and mashed potato, carrot and other veggies the same way or with a little salt instead of jaggery

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BARLEY WATER

Barley is a protein rich cereal and is very good for your baby when weaning begins. Flavour the barley water with jaggery which is a rich source of iron. Also squeeze some lemon juice into it to provide the much needed vitamin C that protects your baby from coughs and colds.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon barley
2 tablespoons jaggery grated
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Method

1. Pressure cook the barley with 2 cups of water and the jaggery.
2. Wash, cool and liquidise it in a blender.
3. Strain and allow to cool completely.
4. Add the lemon juice.
Mix well and serve lukewarm.

Oats Porridge

2 heaped tbsps of Oats
2 badam pieces and
1 cashew piece ground to smooth paste (Note : These Nuts Only for 1 yr plus)
1 cup milk1 spoon sugar or
2 spoons honey (Please dont use honey for 1 yr below babies)

Cook the oats in low flame in milk for 4 minutes & when the milk is heated put the finely ground smooth paste of the nuts & sugar or honey and let it be in the low flame for 1 more minute.Let it cool to room temperature.
Ready to feed !

For those using formula milk :

You can cook the oats in water & then once 4 minutes cooking is over , you can add the nuts paste , flavouring sugar & the formula milk and switch off. After it comes down to room temperature its ready to feed.This oatmeal is very tasty and healthy not only for babies , but for elders too. Its very rich in fibre content also.

The oats porridge recipe, you can mix cooked mashed apple, pureed/mashed banana pieces also while feeding the kid. It gives variety tasty flavour to break the monotonous taste everytime.

Mashed Banana Custard

Ingredients

1 cup Milk or Formula
1/2 spoon of Custard powderSugar to taste
Finely mashed banana - 5-6 nicely cut pieces (which would amount to 1/2 a banana)

Preparation

1st make a smooth custard paste by adding 5 spoons of milk to 1/2 spoon custard and then boil the rest of the milk (cow's milk) . When the milk is just warm add the custard paste & sugar.Let it mix nicely. Warm in sim flame for 5 minutes. In the meantime you can slice and mash the bananas. Add the flavoured sweetened milk to the banana mash and mix thoroughly




Ready to serve !