The other day my toddler came home from daycare with our share of a bounty of pumpkin tarts proudly made by himself and his fellow toddler classmates.  I had a sneaking suspicion that the teachers helped my 22 month old son with these.  I was expecting something reminiscent of the concoctions that the child contestants on one of my favourite 80’s game shows made for their moms.  Do you remember that show “Just Like Mom"?  I couldn’t wait for the moms to try their kid’s cookies made with sugar, ketchup, mustard and tartar sauce!  I remember telling my mom if we were ever on the show mine would be the one with lots and lots of ketchup in the cookie so she would be able to guess which one was mine for sure!  Lucky for me, my boy had some help with his tarts.

The one food that is so easy to prepare for baby that it’s almost as if they can make it themselves, is the almighty banana!

Bananas are the perfect fruit to introduce as a first food.  Little does Mother Nature know, she is a packaging genius!  Vibrant colour and presence on shelf, easy to open with no instructions required, and even follows a green initiative as the used package gets a second life when added to soil to nourish roses that are the envy of the neighbourhood.

Bananas provide baby with vitamin A, vitamin B6, vitamin C, calcium, magnesium, iron and zinc.

Go Bananas for Bananas!

• No cooking required…just simply peel and mash them and serve alone or add to baby cereal
• Mash really well for solid food apprentices (6 months)…and less so for intermediate foodies (8 months+)
• Add them to other pureed fruits to add some flavour dimension
• Virtually no waste.  Throw overripe bananas in the freezer leaving the peel on.  You can use them for smoothies later…just take them out of the freezer about 5 mins. before you want to use them so they are easy to peel.
• They’re the easiest thing to bring along if you’re taking baby on an outing.  If you pack a bowl, a fork and a baby spoon you’re all set and you don’t have anything that needs heating up.

Here is a link from “Homemade Baby Food Recipes” to some more great info. and recipe ideas for monkey’s favourite food.

I shall leave you with a video taken of my son Carter this week.  22 months old and reading out the letters on his alphabet flashcards.  Now I would never claim that he gets his smarts from growing up on fresh homemade baby food, but if you want to make that correlation I won’t object.

O.K. maybe he did make the tarts himself.