Strawberries

On a recent visit to the pediatrician for her son's 9-month checkup, a friend remembered our recent conversation about how little guidance we receive in the realm of "What to feed the baby", and therefore specifically asked what the no-no foods are at this age.

She was told that wheat, dairy and berries are all fine as they are secondary allergenic foods, and since her son had been doing well on all other foods that it was now fine to give him these.This was great news to me, because I had bought a few jars of food with berries in it BEFORE I read that they were on the foods-to-avoid list. I had them stored away, thinking that maybe I could use them after Kyle turned one, if he was still eating pureed foods at that point!

I was out shopping and saw some fantastic looking strawberries, with a big sticker on the container saying "GREAT FOR KIDS SNACK" Hmm, what a great idea, a new finger food for Kyle's dinner! So I bought some and couldn't wait to give him a new treat. He was not a big fan when he tried them for the first time on Saturday. So yesterday, his dad mixed in some strawberry pieces with his yogurt at lunch time and he was happy to eat that, just no strawberries on his own. (TIP: So far, Kyle will eat anything that has been mixed in with his yogurt!) Finally, this morning, I did what I should have done from the beginning and whipped out the Gerber jars. So along with his cereal, we had Apple/Banana/Strawberry. It tasted mostly of apple, and he ate it with no problem. We'll have to work up to the strong taste of strawberries on their own. Guess it wasn't such a great finger food idea after all!

Blueberries

In the days when we used a lot of jarred purees, I noticed that Kyle liked the Apple and Blueberry combo (of course, he liked everything with apple) So once I started making some fresh foods at home for him, blueberries were one of the first ones I picked. The first time I made it, I used fresh blueberries, however each time after, I went with the frozen ones.

Boil blueberries in water for 15 minutes and then strain off water (but reserve for drinking blueberry juice or to dilute puree if needed) Dump the blueberries into a food processor and puree to the desired consistency. OR, leave them as they are; from my experience with the frozen blueberries from Trader Joe's, they have all been a small size and not a problem once Kyle had moved on to more texture in his foods.