Well, its quite tough to satisfy the little one’s taste buds. Try giving the same vegetable for two days and you will get an “ewwww” reply and a stubborn refusal to eat. Half the time when I cook for my lil one, I sit and write down what vegetables I gave and what I can give for the next day as though I am planning for a grand wedding.Here in the US, I am told not to give cow’s milk, citrus fruits, nuts and similar things that might be allergic to the baby till the baby is a year old.It became quite an issue when I was traveling in India this summer.I almost raided the kitchen’s of relatives houses I was staying in and was giving lectures on what to give, what not to give etc., for which I was met with a glare, what I could translate as” Haven’t we brought up kids that you are telling us what to do”?? and ” what do you think you ate when you grew up?? 
I had two options either to accept the usual Indian diet or to defend my decisions, naturally I went for the second! But I guess,as it is very easy for the babies to pick up milk protein allergy or nut allergy, it is better to follow pediatrician’s advice and follow the meal plans suggested by them. Case in Point:my nephew is about 5 years old and still, every time he visits India, he gets a severe allergic reaction to milk and eggs.
So what else can we give as the baby grows up?I would say little amounts of what the grown ups eat- say a variations in vegetables along with one of these- dal rice, yogurt rice,ghee rice, khichdi, idlis, rice noodles and pongal- but with reduced spice and salt levels.This is one such beginner recipe, given to me by my mom, I should say it is a tested recipe as she gave it to my nephew as well. Since we cannot give tamarind or lemon rasam(both have citrus), this is a nice alternative way to introduce little bit of spice and tanginess to the diet, along with dal rice.
Ingredients:
Moong dal/Toor dal- 1 tsp
Rice- 1 tbsp
Salt- a dash
one whole peppercorn
Ghee- a dash
Tomato- one slice or half a roma tomato.
Method:
There is nothing difficult in this recipe. Scoop the seeds out of tomato first.In a bowl, add rice, dal, tomato, peppercorn and just enough water. Cover and pressure cook(better keep it with our regular rice in the cooker). Once the pressure is released, remove the skin of the tomato(I am told not to give tomato seeds or skin, hence this method). Discard the peppercorn.
Blend the cooked rice, dal, tomato with a little bit of ghee and salt- not to a paste but like a mash. The consistency should be thinner than the rice we eat, but thicker than a vegetable mash.
Taste first for salt and temperature(it should not be piping hot) and feed the baby.
The why’s and why not’s:
I actually started giving moong dal to lil R first for a few weeks then switched over to toor dal.So, it is up to you to choose and use the dal you want.
Babies need little bit of spice, so we add whole peppercorns to get that flavor and we discard it so that the food is not spicy. Please also note not to add chilies to the baby’s food. Their sensitive stomach cannot handle these spices.
After this rasam, you can add any vegetable with the tomato, say a little cube of pumpkin or cauliflower or couple of leaves of spinach.Or even add a dash of low fat yogurt to it too!
If this baby gets bored by this routine, try mixed vegetables with rice like cauliflower and carrot, peas and squash, sweet potatoes and beans etc.,I am sure you can figure out lot more combinations with vegetables.
Related posts:
Preparing Baby Food at Home….Say Bye Bye to processed foodsMango Cauliflower Rasam (Mango Cauliflower Soup)Lemon Rasam (Lemon Tomato Soup)the attachments to this post:
rasam-rice-babies
combo-veggies
Cauli-mash
This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 at 6:17 am and is filed under Bringing up Baby. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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