Easy Recipes for Slightly Chunky Baby Food

My son LOVED cottage cheese with avocado chunks in it. add some tahini or nutritional yeast, and you've got a great meal.

Also, there is a book with a million great recipes: super baby food. See super baby porridge with multi grains. I used banana to sweeten and nutmeg and cinnamon for flavor.

cook once, store a lot, and use for 2 weeks or more!

best of luck.

I used the Super Baby Food book for a lot of my information on HOW to make my own babyfood, like choosing produce and the best way to go about it. For recipes my favorite websites were these:

http://www.homemade-baby-food-recipes.com/
http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/
www.weelicious.com

I used a Magic Bullet, and you can basically pulse it and control how chunky or smooth you want it. Just keep pulsing it until you are happy with it. The websites (especially the top two) have a lot of good info on making your own food if you don't want to bother with the book. They have lots of informative articles. And the bottom one is a blog by a mommy with recipes every single day. Lots of purees, plus she has an older toddler now so she does toddler food too.

I haven't really cooked a dinner in about 18 years now, hubby does that for our family, but I did make all of our child's food from breast milk through table food. What I did was take what the family was going to eat, i.e fresh or frozen veggies and puree them. You don't have to puree into a mush, just puree as much/little you want it. If hubby was making a pasta dish, he would make some without the salt etc that a babe shouldn't be eating and I would mash it to desired consistancy according to how well babe was tolerating. I would take any chance to freeze a weeks worth of food at a time, so dad would just have to grab from the freezer, or I would take out that days meals to thaw in the morning, but feeding your child healthy meals should be just as easy as feeding the rest of your family. You really dont need special "recipes" for feeding a babe, just adapt what your already having to babe needs. You really don't want to get bad habits started, and feeding babe what your having will just set the stage for success later when they might be picky. I always kept little one close while in the kitchen, playing in high chair with frozen peas etc while I prepared her food, and she has developed a love for cooking now that shes 11 years old, and a well developed palate as well...Now that I have a new cook in the kitchen it will be at least another 7 or 8 years till I have to worry about cooking again!! Hope the idea of incorporating what the family is already having will help, it always made us feel best knowing exactly what was in the food I was feeding our precious one, and including her in family meals. Just remember to mash to desired consistancy, and don't forget finger foods are GREAT stimulus, cooking foods till tender and letting baby mash a bit is always fun, just cut any food into bite size cubes and let baby explore! Can be messy, but so is life at times, right? Enjoy!

You can make them thicker by pureeing with less water. Instead of pureeing your carrots you could cut them into very small cubes. You can create your 'chunks' by dicing your steemed foods and then mix them with the purees. Perhaps you could add peas to your puree. Those little pasta stars are a good addition to any vegetable puree.

I used the wholesomebabyfood website as well. I didn't know what foods you were supposed to peel, to cook, etc. I used my small cuisinart food chopper. Depending on how thick/chunky I wanted it, I'd hold down the button or just 'pulse' it. Or I'd mash some with a fork and then add that to the pureed stuff, so it was a mix of the two. I mostly used my cuisinart for fruit (pear, apple, strawberry blend). I'd toss in some pineapple sometimes for differnt flavor. I'd also do green beans or peas. But mostly, I wanted more protein for my son. I tossed black beans in my cuisinart, along with some cooked chicken breast and rice. It was thick, so I'd add some olive oil. He loved it. Oh also, zuchinni and squash were great to use in the processor. You could 'pulse' it, then dice some up really really tiny and add that to the pureed stuff. It was runny, so I would add rice cereal to thicken it up.

But when in season, I bought fresh pumpkins (all sorts of colors and shapes) and baked them. They didn't really need much mashing.

Bananas are very easy to either smash or puree and make it the consistency you want.

Anything I made, I'd store it in snack sized bags and toss them in the freezer, keeping some out of course, for that week. Then when I needed something for lunch or dinner for my son, I'd take a bag out of the freezer, pop it into the fridge the night before. I highly recommend this. It makes life easier to cook just one day for your baby, then pull out what you need as you need it.

http://wholesomebabyfood.com/Meals.htm

DOn't be intimidated! It is so easy! You can do it!

When I had my second childs first birthday party and was serving chicken. there was a mom there with four kids, her youngest, just a bit older than my one year old was eating the chicken two (obviously in pieces the the mom wripped off) and I asked how long she had been eatin like that, and it had been a while. I then realized, the gums push down with great force, so they can mush some things themselves (like soft chicken), so don't be afraid to try things.

I do not know when I started this but my kids love cottage cheese on toast (or bread) with honey drizzled over it. Your 10 month old could probably do that with soft bread.

you have great answers below! and I add:

tofu cubes (the medium tofu, not firm & not the soft)
baked sweet potatos in cubes or mashed (both the yellow, dryer kind and the wet, deep orange kind)
cottage cheese or american cheese slices in little bits are good
frozen peas are fun -- as they thaw they get good and goopy/mushy and soothe gums for teething as well
brown rice and lentils, or just lentils cooked until soft enough to mash with a fork

oh - honey generally should not be given to children under a year unless your pediatrician says it's okay - pls check

you'll do fine - no salt but you can use herbs and seasonings, so the taste is like what the rest of the family eats.

the teeth don't matter.. babies chew with their gums. When making baby food, I found that peas and green beans would have a texture... you can't get those totally smooth. also, you could just mash some stuff with a fork... like a banana or a potato. Good luck!

At this age, I was using a food mill to grind up our "adult" food for our son. Whether it was spaghetti or rice/meat/veggies. He ate what we ate. Or, if I was in a pinch for time, I'd take some healthy choice soup & grind that up. He also loved refried beans & I think I started giving him tiny pieces of strawberries at this age. Any finger food which is REALLY soft would work. Oh, avocado was great at this age too!