October brings with it Halloween's little ghosts, wild animal prints, and fall vegetables colored by the summer sun. To create delicious homemade baby food recipes, pumpkins, mushrooms, broccoli, carrots, or sweet potatoes, as well as apples, pears, and bananas, are all transformed into 100% homemade purees and compotes to taste at home or take on the go, thanks to the Élhée bottle.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- Baby food recipes to try from 4 months old
- Fall vegetables, perfect for starting solids
- 3 fall recipe ideas for baby food jars
- Baby food jars on the go, thanks to the Élhée bottle lid
Baby food recipes to try from 4 months old
Ideally, until six months old, babies should only have milk. However, as soon as 4 months old, solid foods can make their appearance on their menu and be offered at mealtime.
At first, amounts are very small, but as a parent, you can already start having fun in the kitchen. There are many baby food jar recipes, but fall recipes might be the mildest and tastiest for your child.
- Up to one year old, give at least 17 oz of milk daily along with solid foods.
- Between 4 and 6 months, offer one new food at a time, either a fruit or a vegetable.
- Throughout the weaning process, when possible, wait until your baby is curious about a food before offering it.
How to prepare homemade baby food jars
For a good homemade puree and flavorful baby compotes, choose whenever possible organic, ripe, and seasonal fruits and vegetables. A quick visit to your local produce market can help you find what you need.
For preparation, you can cook your vegetables in water, with a steamer, or in a pan with a little olive oil, but always without salt. Once cooked through, simply blend them in a mixer, blender, food mill, or baby food processor, adding more or less cooking water as needed.
Worth noting: the more water you add, the more fluid—easier to eat—the puree or compote will be. In other words, for a 4-month-old baby, add a few spoonfuls of liquid until the puree looks smooth enough.
How to store baby food jars?
For storage, you also have options. You can freeze individual portions of puree, store them in the fridge (note: they will not keep for more than three days), keep them vacuum-sealed, or sterilize the jars. To do this, just after filling the jars, close with their seal and sterilize by boiling for 20 minutes in a large pot of water. If done properly, sterilized baby food jars can keep for at least a year.
Fall vegetables, perfect for starting solids
Preparing your baby's first homemade food jars in the fall is real fun. Why? Because the biggest challenge of starting solids is sparking your baby's curiosity. And what better way than fall vegetable colors to do just that?
Squash, carrots, pumpkin and orange sweet potatoes, figs and purple beets, chestnuts, walnuts and brown hazelnuts, grapes, apples and green pears—all the diversity of colors is on display in a fall meal.
In addition to their beautiful colors, fall vegetables are perfect for first flavor discoveries, thanks to their mildly sweet taste, soon enhanced with a bit of butter.
3 fall recipe ideas for baby food jars
Baby meal from 4 months old: classic carrot puree
At the very start of weaning, it is recommended to give just one vegetable at a time and blend the food very finely to avoid your baby spitting out any pieces they're not used to.
- For one portion: use about 7 oz of carrots and a drizzle of oil (olive or mixed).
- Wash, peel, rinse again, then cut the carrot into chunks.
- Cook by steaming or boiling until soft when pierced with a fork.
- Blend with a little cooking water for a very smooth puree, and add the drizzle of oil at this point.
- All that's left is to serve while checking the temperature or set aside for storage or freezing.
Baby food jar, 6 months old: butternut squash, sweet potato, and turkey puree
From 6 months on, you can introduce animal and plant proteins (meat, eggs, fish, legumes) as well as seeds (peanuts, tree nuts) and begin mixing flavors.
- For one jar: 2.5 oz butternut squash, 0.35 oz turkey, and a drizzle of oil (olive or mixed).
- Wash, peel, then rinse and cut the butternut squash into small pieces that you'll cook in water before draining and blending finely.
- Do the same for the sweet potato, then add to the butternut puree with the drizzle of oil.
- In a small amount of water, cook the turkey for 5 to 10 minutes and blend it.
- All that's left is to mix everything together, check the temperature, and serve to your baby.
Baby compote with fall fruits: apple, pear, and rosemary
Of course, we can't finish this list of three homemade baby food recipes without a compote specially prepared for your baby's first desserts.
- For one compote: 1 small apple and 1 small pear (or half a pear, depending on your baby's appetite), plus a sprig of fresh rosemary.
- Wash, peel, rinse, and slice the apple and pear into thin pieces before cooking them in a little water or in a pressure cooker, without added sugar but with the washed rosemary sprig.
- Blend the fruit without the rosemary, but with a little cooking water for a smooth, lump-free compote.
- Serve warm or chilled, after some time in the refrigerator.
Of course, there are many more fall baby food recipes for your baby: beets and ground ham, red kuri squash, red lentils and coconut milk, parsnip and pureed chicken, as well as pear and chestnut cream soup or pear, banana, and clementine juice compote. Try them all to discover your baby's favorites!
Baby food jars on the go, thanks to the Élhée bottle lid
Baby food jars also mean containers. Usually in glass or plastic, these individual servings are often frozen and transported—hoping they won’t break or spill.
At Élhée, we imagined something different. A new type of container—flexible, unbreakable, safe, and 100% leak-proof. Yes, if we told you the bottle turns into a baby food jar whenever you want, effortlessly, would you believe it? But the magic is real, right here for you, included in your BibRond packaging: it's the medical-grade silicone lid.
Prepare your baby's puree, fill the BibRond, place the lid on the neck, screw on the fastening ring after removing the nipple: it’s ready!
You can take your baby's entire meal with you wherever you go. At mealtime, start with the puree (you can reheat the BibRond in the microwave or freeze it if needed), then rinse the bottle with some water before refilling it with milk. (Don't worry if the puree—especially carrot or pumpkin—has slightly stained your bottle; that's normal and doesn't affect its quality.)
With the BibRond lid, you're getting close to the luxury of an all-in-one bottle, designed for eating and drinking—making babies happy.
IN SUMMARY
What vegetable combinations for babies?
Before 6 months, at the start of solid food, let your baby try only one vegetable per meal. After 6 months, you can create combinations—potato and carrot, peas, sweet potato and pumpkin, or even zucchini and apple.
How to give your baby their first purees?
To get started with baby food jars, prepare very small amounts of puree for your baby—about two to three spoonfuls to try. Choose a finely blended vegetable and offer it to your child for a few days as they get used to the change.
When to give baby solids in the evening?
Until 6 months, babies do perfectly well on milk only. To know when to start giving solids in the evening, observe your child. If they show interest in what's on your plate, it may be time to try a little extra. Usually, first evening baby food jars are tasted around 8 months.
