6 Quick, Easy & Nutritious Recipes for Toddlers: 6+ months
Breast feeding… Formula feeding… Bottle feeding…
No teeth… One tooth… Few Teeth… All teeth…
Liquids… Semi Solids… Solids…
No sugar/No salt… pinch of both… abundant sugar/moderate salt…
No spices… pinch of cumin powder… pinch of cardamom and cinnamon powder… variety of them….
That is how I started introducing my little one to the world of FOOD!!
Hardly any girl gets introduced to ‘complete cooking’ before marriage under the shadow of her Mother. After marriage, she learns while she cooks. Few develop interest… few do not! Few cook for the sake of fulfilling the tummy demands while few cook for the sake of joy! And I am purely joyful!! I thank my Mom for genetically passing on this quality of her to me. I love when people finish of everything I cook without even setting aside a single ‘particle’ for me…. my stomach is all full with the ‘tasting’ I have done before serving the guests!!
After the birth of my little one, and after completing the ‘only breastfeeding’ clause of 6 months, I was so very excited to introduce him to the pulses, cereals, fruits, spices and so on.
Browsing through all the baby food recipes over the net, getting to know many things from my Mom, MIL, SIL and all the elder & older Moms around, it was a true fun entering into this new world of cooking & serving baby food. I would like to share a few simplest & nutritious recipes today for the ‘to be’ or the ‘new’ Moms. These all dishes were enjoyed a lot by my son as a baby. I hope all Moms get pure joy when they cook these recipes for their ‘less than a month’ old baby.
P.S. Always make sure you cook ½ a cup extra. Coz it’s good to relish the comfortable, warm & easy-to-gulp baby food at times 😉
Below are the simple & nutritious recipes for the ‘to be’ or ‘new’ Moms:
- Multi Grain Porridge Powder: ½ cup raw rice, ½ cup split green gram, ¼ cup split red gram, ¼ cup split red lentil, 1/3 cup whole green gram, 1/3 cup black eyed beans, 2 tbsp dry roasted cumin. Wash, drain & roast all the ingredients on a medium flame till nice aroma fills the kitchen. Mix all together. Grind them in a mill or at home using a grinder (in batches). You can also add some cashews and almonds while grinding. While making porridge, mix 2-3 tbsp of this powder along with ½ cup water. Bring to boil on a stove top. Add cow ghee and let the little one indulge.
- Whole Wheat Flour Kheer: Roast 2-3 tbsp whole wheat flour in 1 tbsp of ghee over medium flame. Keep roasting till nice aroma fills the whole house. Do not stop in between else it will burn. Add 1/3 cup milk. Mix well to avoid lumps. Add a pinch of salt and 1 tbsp sugar/ honey/ jaggery. Boil till it thickens. Serve with some more ghee.
Tip: Similar kind of kheer can be prepared using Ragi (Finger Millet) Flour or Sattu flour (flour of parched barley, whole wheat and gram) available in the Indian stores.
- Spinach Rice Porridge: ½ cup cooked rice with salt to taste, 4-5 spinach/ palak leaves, washed & blanched in water for 3 mins. Grind Rice, palak leaves and a pinch of cumin powder in a mixie. Add a dollop of butter/ ghee and serve to your little Popeye.
- Quick Puffed Rice Snack: Wash & drain ½ cup puffed rice, add 2 tbsp milk and 2 tbsp dahi/ yogurt to it, add a pinch of salt & sugar as well. Mix well. If it seems to be dry, you can adjust the quantity of milk & yogurt. Now heat a tadka pan with some ghee. Add mustard seeds, when they crackle, add 1-2 curry leaves. Drop this over the puffed rice. Mix well. Serve.
- Potato Carrot Soup: Peel & chop the carrot and potato into chunks. Pressure cook them up to 2 whistles with some salt & sugar. Grind to a smooth paste. Bring to boil in a pan along with a pinch of pepper powder & some butter. Add water as per required consistency. Serve warm.
- Semolina Porridge: Roast 2-3 tbsp semolina over ghee. Heat a tbsp of oil, add mustard seeds, curry leaves and ½ cup water. Add roasted semolina and mix well. Add a pinch of cumin powder. It will take a minute or two for the semolina to cook. Add finely chopped coriander while it still on the stove top. Cook for ½ a minute. Serve.
Tip: A sweeter version of this can also be prepared by cooking the roasted Semolina in milk and adding a pinch of cardamom powder along with sugar to it. Serve with cow’s ghee on the top.
I am sure you will end up with a whole lot of satisfaction when you fulfill the tummy of you little one without any fuss at all. Pure Joy indeed!!
Gita Gosavi is a Networking Engineer in R&D Organization. Cooking & communicating being her hard core hobbies, she has been able to get hold of the former since the birth of her son and this article would possibly be her first step towards the latter one!!
