Stage 1 Foods: Homemade baby rice cereal | Gluten free cereal for babies

How to make baby rice cereal at home?

I started giving store bought rice cereal (similar to cerelac that you get at India) for my daughter a month ago. However, I wasn't pleased to give her store bought food every day. But, she was too young to eat cooked and mashed rice. If you put the cooked rice in a blender, it becomes goopy. I wasn't comfortable giving that either.

So, I decided to make my own rice cereal. Got some inputs from friends and family and made very little to see if my daughter was able to digest it. Very happy that I made it. My daughter fell sick and was down with stuffy nose and fever. She refused to eat anything. During that time, she consumed very little quantities of this rice cereal.

Notes: 

• You can flavor this rice cereal with cinnamon powder, dates puree/syrup, cumin powder and give it according to your baby's choice. I chose not to give my baby salt or sugar until she's at least nine months old. I'm also thinking of avoiding gluten (wheat, AP flour and all its derivatives until she's one). It's totally personal choice. But, whenever she gets a bite from her brother's food like dosa, or idly, she does get a taste of salt :) If you don't mind giving salt, season this rice cereal with salt and ghee. It tastes yum!

• You don't need fancy ingredients to make this cereal. All you need is rice, it could be organic or non organic brown/white/red rice.Again it could be long, medium or short grained rice.  I suggest use the same rice that your family uses everyday to make the baby rice cereal. We use sona masoori rice (medium grain rice) and red rice (Kerala rice) often at our home. So, I have used sona masoori rice to make the rice cereal. 

Preparation Time: 10 mins
Roasting Time: 3-4 mins
Makes around 1.5 cups of baby cereal

Ingredients and Method:
Any rice of your choice: 1 cup

Wash the rice thoroughly until the water runs clear. Drain the water from the rice and spread the rice on a kitchen cloth/muslin cloth. 

Allow the rice to dry for an hour indoors. 
Dry roast the dried rice on a low-medium heat until the rice puffs up. It will be done in 3-4 mins. 

Look at the below picture to see how the roasted rice looks like. 

Cool the roasted rice and once cool, powder it. 
You can decide whether you want very fine powder or coarse powder. I made mine like fine rawa/semolina/corn meal. 

You baby rice cereal is ready. 
Cool it completely and store it in a air tight container. 

Stage 1 foods: Pear puree

How to make pear puree at home?

Stage 1 foods/purees can be given to babies from 4+ months. However, I started after my baby turned 6 months old.

Notes:
I stored the puree in 2.5 oz bottles/jar. That is how much I give my daughter at a time.
You can store in 4 oz or 2.5 oz bottle.
Store in small bottles, enough for 1 serving. This way, you'll not end up wasting the food and you can thaw just 1 jar of food/serving.
I used organic vegetables/fruits for making baby food.
Since, it's first food I'm not adding any flavoring like cinnamon, cardamom to the puree. If you wish, you could add flavoring of your choice.
However refrain from adding sugar or salt. Your baby does not need additional sugar/salt. Fruits have enough sugar in them. 

Items needed for making and storing the baby food.

• A steamer | pressure cooker | electric cooker
• Food processor | blender | Indian mixie
• Food grade bottles/jar that can be freezed. I prefer glass jars, but in the beginning had to use few plastic ones too. Later, I switched completely to glass jars. I washed the food jars thoroughly and wiped them to remove the moisture from the jars.

How to make pear puree:
Organic pear: About 1 lb or 1/2 kg
Makes about 7 2.5oz jar

Method:

Core and de-seed the pear. You can peel the skin, I didn't peel it though.

Chop into 1 inch cubes and steam the pear for 5 minutes. Do not add any water/milk while steaming. Pear has enough water in itself.

Once the steamed pear cools down, blend them in a food processor/mixie. I tried doing it in my food processor. My food processor couldn't grind the skin of the pear, hence I moved it to my Indian mixie.

 (PS: Can you see the difference between the food processor puree and the Indian mixie puree?We want it like the later..)

Make sure you make a fine puree of the fruit.
Scoop out the puree into the desired jars and freeze.

I use 1 fruit jar per day and I got enough for a week.

Introducing solids to the baby

My second baby is 6 months old now and we are officially introducing solids to her. Our doctor recommended introducing solids at 5 and 1/2 months. We went on a trip to India and our parents insisted we start solids earlier..so..we started solids after she completed 5 months. But, I was giving very little..around a teaspoon of rice cereal, once a day. After 2 weeks, we started giving the same rice cereal in the evenings too.

I got mixed opinions about starting solids and got really confused with what to do. My suggestion is don't listen to the outside world or the internet. Go with your mommy intuition and the baby cues to introduce solids. It'll really help. Based on the opinions from others, I gave baby cereal to my baby after she completed 4 months. She didn't take it. I stopped forcing her and didn't feed solids for another 3 weeks.

Take it slow. I know, you'll be eager to give him/her all the healthy food available (This is a note to self too).
Consult your pediatrician or your mom/grand-mom. They will have a wealth of information about what are the first foods that can be given to the babies.
Don't prepare a big batch of baby food once. Make in smaller portions. The idea is to introduce variety of foods in the first few months. If you make in bulk, you will feed the same to baby and he/she will get used to that one taste. It'll become difficult to make him/her try something else. (I have made that mistake with my first one.., so I am planning to make sure,, I don't repeat the same mistake)

To start with, I got store bought (Gerber/Plum Organics/Beechnut etc) stage 1 fruit/vegetable puree. I got the smallest size available (2.5 oz ) and also bought 4 of each. I meant.., I bought 4 carrot purees, 4 sweet potato purees etc..

Start only one vegetable/fruit puree at a time. Give the same thing for 3 days minimum before starting a new one. This is to make sure that the baby isn't allergic to anything and also to make sure he/she is digesting it well. Our pediatrician asked us to start the new food in the mornings, so that you can keep an eye on the baby for allergies. Please be extra careful, if your family has a history of allergies. Take it very slow and watch out for reactions.

I started my daughter with carrots, followed by sweet potatoes, pears, peas, apple, squash and banana.
After trying all these, I decided to make my own stage 1 fruit/vegetable purees. I saved the glass containers (to reuse to store the baby food that I make).
I also bought 4 oz jelly jars to save the home made purees.

I started making enough purees for a week and started freezing them. I know, people will judge me for giving frozen food for the baby. I feel safe giving my baby home made frozen food than canned store bought baby food. Again, do what works for you. If you have the patience and time to make baby purees, go ahead, make it and freeze. Do not freeze a lot. Do it in batches for a week or so.

Disclaimer: I'm not a dietitian or a pediatrician. I have written what has worked for my daughter. I'm documenting my daughter's journey along with.

In the coming posts, you can expect recipes for baby vegetable/fruit purees. I'll start with stage 1 and then move along.