Baby Protein Bowls

Hello, and welcome to the second installment of Jaclyn Dabbles In Pretentious Mommy Blogging™.

I made mjadara recently, and Zoë seemed to really enjoy the bite I gave her. Lentils are a great source of potassium, calcium, zinc, niacin, telepathy powers, vitamin K, dietary fiber, lean protein, laser vision, folate, and iron, so I thought I'd see if I could coerce my little cereal-hater into eating some more. Plus, lentils are a novel texture and taste for babies who are ready for slightly chunkier solid food, without posing a choking hazard.

Ingredients

1/4 cup lentils
2 cups water
3 tbsp butter
4 oz jar of vegetable baby food

Directions

1.  In a small pot, combine the lentils and water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes.
2. Drain any excess water.
3. Add the butter and stir until melted. (Saturated fats are actually really good for babies, but if you're morally opposed to butter and happiness in general, I suppose you could substitute olive oil or something).
4. Add a jar of your baby's favorite flavor of vegetables. (I used sweet potatoes, because
   Zoë has no sympathy for the fact that sweet potatoes smell like someone stirred brown sugar into day-old vomit).
5. Separate into fourish portions, and store in the refrigerator or freezer until use.

Zoë kept grabbing at the spoon and insisting on feeding herself, so I'd say the recipe was a success.

Baby Berry Bites

 

 

Shortly after buying a brand-new extra large container of infant cereal for Zoë, she decided that she didn't want to eat it anymore. Fruit was fine, vegetables were fine, and all sorts of grain-based baby snacks were fine, but infant cereal was out.

The Internets told me that this was fine, because infant cereal for babies is apparently a Big Agro conspiracy and you should really be feeding your babies raw liver. (Please, for the love of all that is holy, do not feed your babies raw liver, there are like ten thousand things wrong with that and I can't believe I actually have to type this sentence). 

Meanwhile, my pediatrician told me that Zoë needed to be getting half her solid food from infant cereal every day, or else. My pediatrician intimidates me a little bit, so I didn't feel like asking "or else what?".

And Zoë kept telling me that infant cereal was only good for spitting out in order to make high chair fingerpaint art.

I decided to let Zoë eat whatever healthy foods she wanted, so while I would occasionally mix cereal in with her fruit or yogurt, I still had this huge box of infant cereal sitting on my counter that wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. So, based on the popularity of "energy bites" for adults and recent guidelines suggesting that babies should be eating peanut butter as early as four to six months old, I went full Pinterest mom and made a trendy homemade baby food recipe.

Ingredients

1/2 cup infant cereal (I used Gerber Multigrain)

1/2 cup berries (I used a ~medley of raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries, because they had been in my freezer for over a year and I thought I should use them up)

1/4 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup Puffs baby snacks, or similar product

Directions

1.  Puree the fruit until smooth
2. Add the infant cereal and peanut butter; mix until evenly combined
3. In a Ziploc bag, crush the Puffs into fine crumbs
4. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper
5. Roll the dough into small bites (no larger than 1 cm in diameter to minimize the risk of choking)
6. Coat the dough in the Puffs crumbs, and place on the cookie sheet
   
   
   
   
   
   
7. Freeze for an hour to set
8. Store for up to two weeks in the fridge or four months in the freezer. (I made these numbers up. Just, like, don't leave them in your car for a month and decide they're still good to eat. Okay? Okay.) 

They were a little soft, so I'd recommend using a bib for younger or messier eaters. Keep in mind that unlike storebought baby snacks, these aren't designed to dissolve quickly, so make sure your baby is seated and supervised while eating.

Zoë absolutely loved these snacks, and I loved that they're full of iron-fortified grains, healthy fats, and antioxidants. 11/10 would make again.