Simple, cheap, healthy baby food nominee of the month: pumpkin.
The fall fruits and vegetables provide a ton of great choices for easy baby food. With all the whipping and mashing, we are pretty much all eating baby food this time of year. One of my favorite go-to, easy peasy options is pumpkin. Just open a can of organic pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie mix) and voila: baby food!
If you or your baby turn up your nose at this simple suggestion, here are a few embellishments:
- Cinnamon. Sprinkle on cinnamon. Feed to baby. Done. (still too easy?)
- Yogurt. Stir in 2 parts plain high-fat yogurt to with 1 part pumpkin to make more of a custard. Done.
- Applesauce. Mix with an equal part applesauce. Done.
Do you have any more simple pumpkin baby food recipes? And by simple, I’m capping you at 3 ingredients.
Oh! You stole my favorite. I have fed my kids so much pumpkin over the years. It’s overlooked by most parents. So easy, so nutritious. And with cinnamon and a little vanilla yogurt, it tastes more like pie than you’d imagine.
Okay – here’s another entry: refried black beans from the can. You can buy organic ones. You can buy all vegetarian ones if you want (i.e., not made with lard). (You can buy low-fat ones if you prefer, though there’s no need — babies need fat for brain and eye development.)
My favorite is pumpkin oatmeal! I admit I haven’t tried it for the baby yet, but I love to stir canned pumpkin, some pumpkin pie spice, and real maple syrup into my morning oatmeal. For the little one I think some canned pumpkin in baby cereal (rice or oat or whatever) would be awesome.
I’d probably use the rest of the can on pumpkin pancakes for the preschooler. (Can probably get away with mixing just pumpkin with eggs, and maybe a little whole-wheat flour or oats to hold it all together… much like the “lunch pancakes” recipes on my blog.)
We love pumpkin everything in our house. This week, when I made curried pumpkin soup, we gave our 11-month-old pumpkin with curried rice: a slight dash of Curry powder, rice cereal, pumpkin. Yummy and savory, and she felt like she was getting to eat what we were eating (ours was spicy and included dairy products so she couldn’t just share).
Also, the pumpkin and vanilla yogurt you suggested mixed spread on multigrain toast and cut into little pea-sized pieces is nice at breakfast.
We LOVE pumpkin pancakes! I use a banana pancake recipe and just replace the banana with pumpkin puree and add a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg.
Even better…harvest your own by buying the pumpkin and roasting it. But, admittedly, I think a can of organic pumpkin is cheaper!
We are past baby food puree but last fall we mixed a little bit of cooked kale (chopped really fine in the cuisinart) in with pumpkin…maybe 1 part kale to 3 parts or more pumpkin. Kale is such a super food!
@decafmom I’m glad you stopped back. I was recently hunting for your veggie pancake recipe and now I’ve saved it again!
@Jennifer I’ll have to try the kale thing. Intriguing.
Ooh, we got a new one in via twitter from @craftyluci: Pumpkin chunks w thyme & coriander=great fingerfood
I love the winter squashes for baby food!!! Target had a brand of organic purees that I used to LOOOOVE. Don’t have a super Target anymore…but I will stock up when I go home this winter.
So glad you like the pancake recipes, Heather!
I just posted some recipes for easy, healthy “ice cream”… One of them is Pumpkin Spice Ice Cream – another great use for canned pumpkin that’s a fun treat for kids (though I think I enjoy it more than my preschooler!).
http://decafmom.wordpress.com/2010/10/16/easy-recipe-healthy-ice-cream/
Absolutely will try!! great site guys!
Pureed pumpkin was the first food I fed my baby. He LOVED it!