The Girls are Expanding their Meal Options Thanks to the Bountiful Baby Purees: Create Nutritious Meals for Your Baby with Wholesome Purees Your Little One Will Adore-Includes Bonus Recipes for Turning Extra ... Toddler, Kids, and Whole Family Will Love Cookbook (Review)

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In addition to the everyday chaos parents of newborns and toddlers must face, one of the biggest, most time-consuming tasks they undertake 3-times each day is making one meal for the baby and another for the rest of the family – double cooking, double stress, double time. But that can now be easily changed.

Bountiful Baby Purées takes the chaos out of mealtime by providing mothers and fathers with pure and wholesome recipes they can easily make for baby, and then turn them into delicious dishes for the entire family. They can prepare a tasty Apple, Squash and Raisin Purée for the seventh-month old, for example, and then use the extra to make hearty Spiced Mini Muffins for the rest of the brood. Or they might treat the baby to Kale and Banana Purée, and turn a portion of it into an evening side dish of Green Quinoa. The book is divided by season and provides recipe after recipe for every month from January right through the December holidays. Recipes include:

• Plum and Fuji Apple Purée
• Asparagus and Olive Textured Purée
• Roasted Tomato, Kale, and Garlic Textured Purée
• Veggie Ratatouille
• Ginger-Spiced Pumpkin Purée
• Fruity Bread Pudding
• Chocolate Beet Cupcakes

This book also includes sections on nutritional value, exploring textures with the young one, and how to introduce solids and when the right time to take that big step. With a companion recipe for every baby purée Bountiful Baby Purées guarantees your recipes will be working double-duty, without you having to!

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My Thoughts:

Trying to get our daughters to eat in our house is a challenge.  For Savannah, who is eating table food now, she has a limited meal plan, which consists of chicken noodle soup, mac and cheese, tomatoes, pickles, cold cuts, and her assortment of snack foods, like fishies and cheese puffs.  God forbid we try and introduce new flavors to her.  When we do, she either turns her head, throws or pushes it away, or will walk away.  As for Arabella, she never took to baby oatmeals and seems to only want to eat what her big sister is eating.  I can't tell you how many times I have had to pull treats out of her mouth, which Savannah had given her when I was looking.  Ah, the joys of babies. :-)

So, to ease mealtime frustration and look for new and easy ways to introduce new meals to the girls, I began searching for books about baby purees and foods both children and adults would enjoy eating.  This is when I stumbled across "Bountiful Baby Purées" by Anni Daulter.  What I loved most about this cookbook, and that set it apart from other baby food cookbooks I have picked up is that it offers delicious and easy to prepare recipes that both baby and other family members can enjoy.

My husband and I attempted to eat baby food out of the jar when Savannah was little to show her how tasty it was.  I don't know about you, but I don't know how kids can like this stuff.  My husband and I had tried our hardest not to gag on a few of the foods.  And, thus began our journey with finding ways to get our picky eat to eats foods with substance, and not live off out snack foods.

Since receiving this cookbook last week, I have already tried out over a dozen recipes.  Each of the recipes in the cookbook are simple to make, and I found I had most of the ingredients already on hand.  And, when we returned from picking apples this past weekend, I was able to try out the Apple, Squash and Raisin Purée with the girls, and use the left over to make spiced muffins. I filled pouches with this tasty purée, and in under 5 minutes, they were both handing my husband and I their empty pouches, and looking for me.  As a treat, my husband and I were able to have muffins all weekend for breakfast.  I couldn't believe how I could use a homemade baby food purée to make such moist and delicious muffins.  And, knowing that I was serving my girls healthy foods that they enjoyed eating was the best part of all.  

I can't wait to try out more recipes from this new cookbook by Anni Daulter.  And, hopefully in time our meal times will be less stressful, as the girls will finally eat what we put in front of them. :-) If you struggle with picky eaters like I do, why not pick up a copy of Bountiful Baby Purées to try with your little ones?  I couldn't believe how quickly they took to the food I prepared from recipes in this book.

Check out the following recipes from the book to try at home.  I made both and everyone in the house loved them.  Let me know what your family thinks.

--FREE Sample Recipes To Try--

Spinach, Pineapple, and Plain Yogurt Purée

7+ Months

YIELD: 3 cups (750 G), or 8 to 10 Baby Servings 

2-in-1 option: Green Goddess Ice Pops, Page 55

Spinach is power packed with protein, antioxidants, and essential vitamins. It loses its nutritional punch after about a week after being picked, so this is a great veggie to grow yourself or source from your local community-supported agriculture (CSA) group or farmer’s market. No need to steam this recipe, just pop in all in the blender and hit the purée button.

1½ cups (45 g) spinach leaves, packed
1 whole pineapple, outside cut off and chopped into chunks
1½ cups (345 g) plain yogurt

1. Blend the spinach, pineapple, and yogurt together in a blender until desired consistency is achieved.

Spiced Apple, Pear, and Raisin Purée

8+ Months

YIELD: 3 cups (750 G), or 9 Baby Servings

2-in-1 option: Fruity Bread Pudding, Page 142

This is a lovely spiced-up version of an old classic that even adults will enjoy as a side dish. I love these flavors together, and if you can get your older kids out on an apple-picking adventure, you will have the freshest purée in town. If not, hit your local farmer’s market to get these seasonal goodies.

3 Fuji apples, peeled and cubed
3 Bartlett pears, peeled and cubed
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ cup (75 g) raisins

1. Peel, core, and cut the apples and pears into 1-inch (2.5 cm) pieces.
2. Sprinkle cinnamon over the apples and pears and steam for 8 to 10 minutes, or until soft.
3. Add in the raisins and steam for 2 additional minutes. Reserve the liquid from the steamer.
4. Purée the apple, pears, and raisins in a food processor with ½ cup (120 ml) of the reserved liquid. Add more liquid as needed to obtain the desired consistency.

Recipes from Bountiful Baby Purées by Anni Daulter. Photographs by Elena Rego. (Fair Winds; September 2012; $19.99/Paperback: ISBN-13: 978-1592335169).  http://www.fairwindspress.com/.

About the Author:

Anni Daulter is a professional cook, advocate of sustainable living, and author of Sacred Pregnancy (North Atlantic Books, 2012), Organically Raised: Conscious Cooking for Babies & Toddlers (Rodale, May 2010) and ICE POP JOY (Sellers 2011). She was also the founder and operator of a fresh organic baby food company, Bohemian Baby, for three years, where she developed all recipes and branding for the company. Her food was sold to all the top celebrity babies including the children of Gwyneth Paltrow, Adam Sandler, Christy Turlington, Stevie Wonder, Bridget Fonda, Debi Mazar, Michelle Williams, Angela Bassett and many others. Bohemian Baby food was featured in more 60 articles and was sold in local Whole Foods stores. Anni has since ceased production and has begun to write cookbooks with a healthy focus for families. She has also launched her new site, Conscious Family Living, which she hopes to turn into an online magazine. Anni lives in Los Angeles, CA with her husband Tim and four children, who range in age from 13 to 1 year.

Elena Rego is a writer and photographer committed to creating work that highlights conscious living. Deeply drawn to food and the cultural patterns we all share with one another across the dinner table, she has created a food blog at http://www.foodpractice.com, where she explores recipes, mealtime rituals, sustainable slow food, and rich enticing food photography. She is currently writing a book on the basics of food practice and enjoying her new home on the lush island of Maui with her beloved and their dog.

Disclosure:  I was sent a copy of this book by the publisher in order to write up an honest review.  The views above are mine and mine alone.