How to Make Fresh Baby Food in the Spring

Springtime means babies get a taste for fresh, flavorful vegetables. Here are some ideas for spring baby food.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Baby Bottle Nipples
• Baby Bottles
• Groceries
• blender, baby food grinder or food processors
• fresh peas
• broccoli
• cauliflower
• asparagus
• strawberries
• green beans
• baby carrots

1. Visualize whirled peas. Spring peas are perfect cooked until soft, then pureed for baby.
2. Start healthful eating in infancy with baby's broccoli. Steam broccoli florets until soft, then puree with cooked infant rice cereal.
3. Dine on well-cooked pureed cauliflower.
4. Stalk the market for fresh green shoots of asparagus. Steam the tips and puree them in the food processor.
5. Gobble up strawberry puree. Since strawberries can be quite seedy, wait until baby is about 9 months old before cooking and pureeing them.
6. Puree steamed green beans in a food processor with some of the cooking water.
7. Grow baby carrots in your garden (or in a deep pot on the porch). Babies love them steamed and mashed with a fork.

Tips & Warnings

• Whenever possible, choose organic produce. Growing, developing babies could be especially sensitive to pesticides.
• A food processor, blender, hand blender (also called immersion blender), or grinders especially for baby food can be used to puree tough or stringy fruits and vegetables like green beans.
• Thin purees with a little breast milk, formula or cooking liquid.
• Freeze extra baby food in ice cube trays.
• Broccoli, cauliflower and other vegetables in the cabbage family make some babies gassy.
• Keep a record when introducing new foods to babies. If baby has an adverse reaction, it will be easier to identify possible food causes.
• While the presence of a few small, soft lumps in baby food is fine, be sure the lumps are not hard or big enough to be choking hazards.