Potato Puree

In this section, I'm briefing about potato puree. We can start babies feeding with this at the age of six months and so. Since it is a baby food, it is not at all necessary to add salt or sugar to it, if you are feeding it to newly solid introduced baby. Here in this section, I have used luke warm water to make puree or smoothen down the boiled mashed potato with pinch of salt for my 7.5 months older baby in her morning breakfast. In case if you are trying this recipe for your much younger kid then in-place of water you can use formula milk, and can make the puree either runnier liquid to be swallowed easily by babies using milk bottle, or medium consistency to be fed using bowl and spoon.

Age Group: 6 months +

Category: Vegetarian

Ingredients:
1. Boiled Potato
2. Hot water / Skimmed Milk (Without Fat or Ghee) / Formula Milk (Liquid form)
3. Pinch of Salt (if using hot water to make puree) [ optional ]

Preparation Time:  5 minutes

Servings: 1 small bowl

Preparation Method:

At first, take a boiled peel off potato.

With the help of spoon or potato masher or with properly washed hands, mash the potato.

You can put a pinch of salt to it. This is optional.

Meanwhile put a cup of drinking filter water on gas and get it simmer. Since we have taken filtered drinking water, its okay if we don't boil it. The temperature of water should be luke warm.

Add a little water to the mashed potato mixture and make it thinner.

Our Potato Puree is ready. Feed this to your baby. You can either give this to your baby at breakfast time or in the evening of snack time. My preference is morning around 10:00 a.m. as breakfast.

Moong Dal and Tomato Khichadi

Here I'm presenting the variation brought in the basic moong daal khichadi .
This variation I've introduced to my 7.5 month turned older baby. It is tradition at north Bihar to eat Khichadi (Porridge) on Saturdays. So, on saturday I prepared this healthy meal for the whole family and fed this to my baby also.

Age Group: 7.5 years and so on.

Category: Vegetarian

Ingredients:
1. Moong Dal - 150 gms
2. White Rice - 150 gms
3. Turmeric - 1 tablespoon
4. Salt - 1.5 tablespoon
5. Homemade Ghee - 2 tablespoon
6. Cumin Seed - 1 tablespoon
7. Garlic cloves - 7, Finally Chopped
8. Tomatoes - 2 medium sized

Preparation Time:   15 minutes

Servings:   5 Plates

Preparation Method:

• At first wash off your moong daal and whice rice thoroughly with water.

           

• Chop finally your garlic cloves and tomatoes.

       

• In your pressure cooker, add two tablespoons full of ghee, and 1 tablespoon of cumin seeds and allow it to splatter.

         

• Add your chopped garlic, let the colour get turned into light pink then add your tomatoes along with washed moong dal and rice mixture. Add one tablespoon full of turmeric and 1.5 tablepoons of salt to this.

         

• Close the lid of the pressure cooker and allow first whistle on high flame and then sim the flame and allow four to five whistles on low flame. Allow the gas to get escape of its own and then open the cooker. We are ready now. Take out some of the meal in small bowl for your little one and mixer grind it. Here is how it looks.

     

• Our dish is ready now, and my two bowls of porridge are also ready. One for my 3 years older and other for my 7.5 months older daughters.

Tomato Sweet and Sour Chutney

Tomato Chutney ( टमाटर की चटनी )

Here I'm briefing about sweet and sour tomato's chutney. Well, when their is scarcity of vegetables at home, or you want to add some different taste to your daily food, then in that case this sweet and sour tomato's chutney (खट्टी मीठी टमाटर की चटनी ). This is very simple recipe which can be cooked very easily at home with few ingredients. Also, this dish is considered to be one of the healthy food rich in vitamin A and Iron. Your children will love this.

Ingredients :

1. Tomatoes - 5 (3 big + 2 small)
2. Onions - 4 medium sized
3. Green Chillis - 3
4. Panchphoran (पन्चफोरन)
5. Bay Leaves (तेज़पत्ता)
6. Jaggery - 50 gms or Sugar - 3.5 tablespoons
7. Salt - 1.5 tablespoons

Preparation Time : 15 - 20 minutes

Servings : 5 bowls

Preparation Method :

We have to take our raw vegetables at first. Since our king of this dish is tomato, hence tomato should be more than others. For this dish at first take 5 tomatoes ( 3 big size and 2 small size ; or you can take any size of your choice). Then four medium sized onions. As my family is not very fond of spicy food, hence i'm taking 3 green chillies for this dish. you can even add or reduce the size of chillies as per your taste.

After this we can cut our onions vertically long size, you can either cut chillies slit vertically or in small round pieces. For saute, we have to take bay leaves (तेज़पत्ता ) and panchphoran (पन्चफोरन).

Take a frying pan and add 2 tablespoons full of cooking oil or ghee. As we are not very much fan of ghee (unsalted butter), thus I'm using 2 tablespoons full of refined cooking oil. For saute I'll be adding my panchphoran to this.

Note : Panchphoran is our mixture of spices that contains five main ingredients. At north Bihar, we are using cumin seeds (ज़ीरा ), mustard seeds (सरसो ), fenugreek seeds (मेथी ), fennel seeds (सौंफ), nigella seeds (मंगरैल / कलौंजी). Panchphorans used in any dish gives it a beautiful aroma and lovely taste.

Let the panchphoran get splutter first. Add bay leaves to the heated oil also.

Now add the cut onions and chillies to the oil and fry it for a while till the colour changes to light pink.

Till our onion is getting ready, we can cut our tomatoes slit vertically. you can also cut it in small pieces as per your requirement.

By the time our onions have got softened, we will add our tomatoes to the frying pan.

Now take 50 gms of jaggery (गुड़) , or you can add 3 tablespoons of white/brown sugar. The quantity of sugar should be more than our salt. Add this jaggery to our dish followed by one tablespoon of salt.

Close the lid and after every 2-3 minutes keep stirring it, so that it may not get burn. Depending upon the consistency you can keep it for 15-20 minutes on low flame over the gas.

And thus, we have our dish ready , 'The Tomato Chutney'.

And hence this has completed my thali.

You will love this tomato chutney with chapattis.

Marsatki (Plain Rice Starchy Porridge)

Age Group : Starting from 6 months, suitable to all age groups

Category : Vegetarian

Introduction about Marsatki :

Marsatki (Origin Language ~ Maithili ) also known as Rice Porridge or Rice Khichdee (चावल की खिचड़ी ). This recipe is demonstrated to me by mother-in-law and is one of the traditional food of north Bihar, India. Marsatki is the best food can be given in condition of diarrhoea, stomach upset or loose motions. This food is suitable for all age groups. We start giving the excess water as in form of rice water (चावल का पानी ) to 6 months older babies. Here I'm depicting the simplest recipe, you can also give some variations and your touch to this basic dish.

Ingredients :

1. Half cup of washed rice
2. 6 cups of water for thick porridge / 10 cups of water for thin porridge

3. Salt to taste

Prepration Time : 10 - 15 minutes

Servings : 1 small bowl

Prepration Method :

This method which I'm detailing here is for medium consistency of Marsatki.
At first take half cup of rice, and wash it properly. Once washing is over you can add 6 cups of water along with the washed rice in a pressure cooker.

Add salt to this as per your taste. I preferred little salt as I was cooking this dish for my 3.6 years older and 7 months older daughters.

Close the lid of the pressure cooker and put it on high flame for first 2 whistles and rest 6 whistles on lower flame of the gas. Once this is done, switch off the gas, you can either let the gas get passed by its own from the pressure cooker or you can do it by yourself too.

Now our 'Marsatki' is prepared, you can open the cooker and check it.

I've taken out some for my 3.5 years older daughter having dysentery problem

And some for my 7 months older daughter. And mashed the cooked rice in its own starchy water with help of spoon.

And feed this to baby.

Here I'm also placing picture of thin consistency of 'Marsatki', so that you can have idea of that excess water.

You can see this extra rice water ( चावल का पानी ), this rice water or chawal ka paani is very good food for your six months turned baby. This 'Chawal ka Paani' , and 'Marsatki' are very good for stomach and highly digestible with good calories for the baby.

MoongDal and Rice Khichdi

Hello everyone, I welcome you to my blog. I am creating this blog to save my baby food recipes and to help new mothers. Like I had faced many problem at time of my first child with her baby food and so decided that I should be writing down this recipes at one place, so that it could be reachable to every mom. Here given recipes are not up-to the level of perfection nor do the images are. These are very basic recipes which can be cooked very easily at any Indian Kitchen with the available basic ingredients at home. These recipes are most welcome for variation, you can always add your touch of different flavors to them and create your variation. And do share your created recipe with us also. :) As I belong to North Bihar, India. Here I'll be explaining the traditional form of Indian Recipes.

Age Group : 7 months

Category : Vegetarian

Hello, once your little one has turned up 6 months older. Its the time now to introduce solids in your baby diet. For first timers you can start with Rice Water (चावल का पानी), Dal Water (दाल का पानी), Sago Water (साबूदाना  का पानी) etc. After some time we can start off with solid grated foods.

So here to start with I am sharing here my moong dal and rice khichadi recipe.

Ingredients:

1. Moong Dal (little quantity)
2. Rice (same quantity as moong dal)
3. Pinch of salt (optional)
4. Pinch of turmeric (optional)

Prepration Time : 10 minutes

Servings : 1 small bowl for the baby

Prepration Method :

At first take moong dal and rice in equal quantity. Here I'm briefing about instant food. You can also prepare the mixture of rice and moong dal for 15-20 days and keep it in air tight container.

Wash the mixture of rice and moong dal and let it dry.

Once the mixture get dry properly, heat it with ghee or without ghee in a frying pan. I prefer frying without ghee sometimes when my baby has more than two bowel moments a day. Please mind not to over fry and avoid burn to pulses.

Then grind the mixture into granular form.

Take 1.5 cups of water into a container and let it get warmer.

To this water add your mixture.

Add pinch of salt and turmeric. This is optional step as you can follow it according to your choice and  tradition.

Cook it on low flame and check if the mixture has got cooked well. You can either dry up the water or can leave some water so that it  becomes easy to swallow by the baby.

Remember this is the stage when your baby learns to wean. So it is always recommended to keep the food in semi-fluid form. This food is easily digestible by babies and recommended by paediatricians.

We can always add variations to this basic form of khichadi or porridge. Like the one I introduced at my baby's food. Look at the recipe of this tomato version of mooong dal khichadi.