Baby's First Bites: Greens
I LOVE creamed spinach. This recipe lets me make it for my baby with my own milk! Pretty cool. I end up making some for myself, but use nut milk instead. For some reason, which I am still trying to get over, it seems less strange to drink milk from another animal than my own animal species. Even though my body reacts poorly to cows milk (acne).
Boil water with steamer attachment. Water should only be an inch or so high.
Steam a handful of greens (1 big bunch, whatever fits in steamer) over an inch of water, and cover.
Only cook until bright green, max 5 minutes. (they turn kind of brown if left too long, not a problem, but many nutrients cooked out). Gentle cooking preserves most delicate vitamins.
Blend milk (4oz or 1/2 cup or so) and greens together.
Cold milk from fridge can be used, especially to bring all the temperatures down together (the steamed greens can be super hot, nice to cool it down before giving to baby).
If you want to make some extra to save for yourself, leave some out of the blender
Add some paprika, lemon, s&p
And surprisingly, my baby LOVEd his blended kale. I was so happy. It amazes me how much babies are willing to eat at this age, dirt, grass, etc. which makes me think we should be feeding them EVERYTHING, all the good things like veggies and blended meats and all the things we wish we always ate to build the best body.
The is the time period to optimize introducing foods, because that zone does shut down around 1-3 years old. And it makes biologic sense. Right now, the baby depends on us. They put EVERYTHING in their mouths, and probably have no sense of what tastes bad, or “wrong” to us. Very soon, that window shuts. As the baby can motor around, and potentially feed themselves, they do better to stick to what their body knows; what their mommas have been feeding them, rahter than exploring all the poisonous berries and everything else that can be found in the wild. This is when it is REALLY hard for parents to make their toddler eat anything for the first time.
