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We really liked Blender Baby Food cookbook. It's got recipes for different ages and really covers a wide variety of food.

http://www.amazon.com/Blender-Baby-Food-Recipes-Homemade/dp/0778801187/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208808925&sr=8-1

I also really liked the Kidco Freezer Storage Trays and Travel dish with Spoon for early feeding.

http://www.amazon.com/Kidco-F200-Freezer-Storage-Trays/dp/B000A6KOW8/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=baby-products&qid=1208808990&sr=1-3

http://www.amazon.com/Kidco-f300-Travel-Dish-Spoon/dp/B000A6MPFC/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=baby-products&qid=1208808990&sr=1-5

The key is to watch your baby not the calendar. In the old days, people used to shovel in rice cereal, watch baby spit it out, scrape it off baby's chin and shovel it back in. We now know that a baby that is truly developmentally ready for solids when she has lost the tongue thrust (doesn't automatically push foods out of his mouth), can sit up well unassisted, has develped the pincer grasp, and may have teeth. Especially if your baby is breastfed, there are advantages to waiting on solids. Regardless, the majority of a baby's nutrition for the first year should come from breastmilk or formula. This is because those are the most nutrient-dense foods. So nurse first, then offer solids (solids are almost like dessert -- a little extra, for socialization, texture, etc).

Kellymom.com is a great source of information for breastfed babies and there is detailed information on starting solids.

The other part of the new paradigm is to offer foods in as natural a state as possible. Many Moms start with just what the AT article mentions -- mashed up banana or avocado. My son was around 7 month during fall, so I followed up with pureed butternut squash and mashed sweet potato. At some point it just becomes whatever baby is grabbing off the plate!

I will admit, I have a bunch of baby cookbooks and I even took a cooking for your baby class and used it as an excuse to buy that food mill I always wanted. But I am one of countless Moms who ended up not using up all those little frozen cubes of food! They just don't eat very much! (of course, every baby is different). I personally, did not like the Super Baby Food book. It made it seem like my baby was supposed to eat all this food, and it was just not representative of what is typical for a breastfed baby. The charts of what to introduce when are certainly fun and comprehensive, but this is one book I'd get from the library rather than buy.

I do recommend buying a kids cookbook once your baby grows into a toddler/preschooler :) . I love Molly Katzen's Pretend Soup, and my son can follow along with the pictures!

_Super Baby Food_ is a good secondary resource. It is still in print but many of the recommendations are really out-of-date (advice on nuts, etc.)

The web design of www.wholesomebabyfood.com is poor but the content is excellent.

We attended a class with a pediatric nutritionist. She recommended delaying solids for breastfed infants until after 6 months AND when the baby was interested in foods (not the spoon, etc.). The current guideline in that community is fruits and veg first (not rice cereal). Rice is only introduced after a month.

We did the following order: sweet potatoes, banana, carrots, pears, avocado, apples, brown rice gruel, prunes, dates, spinach, green beans, steel cut oat cereal, oatmeal gruel, peaches, etc.

Making food is a snap. We use the microwave to cook almost everything in an 8 cup Pyrex. We then use a hand-held stick blender to blend it in the same container and then use the pour spout to pour into ice cube trays.

In the begininng, we used a food mill because it removed tough fibers from foods like sweet potatoes. Nothing makes a smoother puree. We still use it if we need to remove tough skins.

The best book on feeding, hands down, is Ellyn Satter's Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense. It's not a recipe book but rather a best-odds approach to eating & kids. I can't say enough good things about it and I wish every parent would read it.

With our oldest we were pretty careful--he was a preemie and we were nervous first-timers. I made a lot of his baby food and we took it very slowly. With our second we were much more relaxed and she didn't seem to suffer for it at all. She completely refused any baby food and went right to very small bits of acceptable table food. I found with both that giving them as much independence as possible--even if it meant a bigger mess in the end--was the best way. And I've always tried not to dumb down my food for them--no short-order cooking.

Check out wholesomebabyfood.com--it has a lot of the information that's in Super Baby Food (what to introduce when, food prep guidelines, etc) but in less pushy form. I printed out their food introduction chart and posted it on the fridge and it helped give me ideas of what to make.

Banana, avocado, sweet potato, squash are all good to start with. Zucchini and yellow squash are also often recommended as early foods but my daughter totally rejected them. Don't worry too much about getting a quantity of food into baby--before age 1 solids are just for fun. My daughter wasn't eating solids more than twice a day until she was 10 months or so. Also don't worry if baby hates something at first--their tastes will change as they are offered things repeatedly, and in different forms. My daughter hated pureed peas but now (14 months old) loves to eat peas as a finger food.

preparing food for your baby is really quite simple. Per our pediatrician's recommendation, we started with mild yellow/orange foods like bananas, squash, and sweet potatoes. Bananas I just mashed up with a fork and sometimes added to the rice cereal. I didn't care for the look (or ingredient list) on so many store-bought baby foods, so I simply steamed vegetables in the microwave (make sure your kitchen and utensils are VERY clean) and pureed them with an immersion blender. I then froze them in tiny containers. I also made homemade applesauce with only a pinch of sugar. When more adventurous foods were introduced as he got older, we loved our little food mill. Since I toned down the seasoning in our meals, baby could eat a milled-smooth portion of whatever we were having. (No dairy, eggs, nuts or honey till 1yr)

I started making baby food about a month ago and found the book "First Meals" to be a great resource. It's much more visual which I prefer, but still has a wealth of info.
I use a Cuisinart Mini Prep for most of the blending, which works like a dream. And for freezing, I strongly recommend the Okra Ice Cube Tray (http://www.amazon.com/Orka-Ice-Cube-Tray-Blue/dp/B000R5OLU8/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1208811221&sr=8-1).
One cube is one tablespoon, and the silicone bottom means the food pops right out. Plus the cover keeps everything nice and contained.
We started with orange veggies - sweet potato, carrot, butternut squash, but added in greens and fruit pretty quickly.
Good luck!

Making your own baby food is awesome ... my daughter totally turned up her nose at the jarred stuff (I tried it while we were on vacation and sans kitchen) and she's still loving her veggies at almost 14 mos old.

The firsts are really simple ... pick a veggie, steam it until done and put it in the blender or food processor (with a little water if it needs it). Good firsts are: sweet potato, butternut squash, peas, carrots. They say you should wait until they're a bilt older (9 mos maybe?) to introduce the more pungent veggies (broccoli, spinach). But those don't take long either. Some veggies I had to mix to get her more interested in ... peas & carrots, corn & squash. Peaches, plums, strawberries. Most any book will have fine "recipes" for this stage.

Later, when we started on meats, I found Annabel Karamel's books and her website really nice. Good purees featuring a full balanced meal (tasty salmon puree with salmon, OJ, cheese and veggies, and a great chicken one with apples that she went crazy for). I also have the Petit Appetit cookbook I got free from BookMooch and that's a nice one as well. However you slice it, it's hard to go wrong making your own! :) Enjoy

I agree with all the posts so far. Being the parent of a child with a food allergy, my only advice would be to introduce a new food on it's own, just in case there is a reaction to it.

If you introduce two new foods at one sitting, and you have a reaction, you may not know the culprit.

Other than that, stay away from the jars if at all possible. Our daughter is a robust eater and she got that way from trying real food and experiencing real flavors. And also by eating the same foods we ate (except pureed and not spicy of course). I tried the jarred stuff myself once and it tastes awful (at least the veggies did) - I wouldn't eat it, so I didn't expect my daughter to eat it :)

Above all enjoy yourself. This is such an exciting time for you and your baby!

We have the Beaba Babycook steamer-blender ( see www.beaba.com) It's so easy and fun to use and our daughter loves eating her home-made fruit/vegetable purées. It comes with a little booklet with some recipes, like tomato and bobby bean soup, orange and apple compote or chicken with potatoes and aubergine.

I agree with Gabster, you should only introduce one thing at a time. Try giving your son potatoes for three days in a row, then try carrots and if all goes well then you can mix the two.

Our daughter has tried pears, carrots, sweet potatoes and apples. Next on our list are beans.

Williams-Sonoma sells Beaba Babycook in the US:

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/5279732/index.cfm?cm_src=rel

It's worth every penny.

I just bought the Beaba Babycook, Vala, and am pleased to hear you like it. My son is still too young for solids (3 months), but I'm looking forward to trying out the Babycook and making some healthy foods for him. I'm just now starting to look into all of this, so this post has been very informational.

Our daughter wasn't ready for food until about 9 months, at which point she hated purees and being fed at all--she wanted to do it herself. I had zealously prepared those little cubes and she would have none of it. We had much better luck with baby-led weaning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby-led_weaning

Oh-just to say in BLW, "weaning" is used in the British sense--meaning "starting solids" rather than "ending nursing." Allowing the child to self-wean from the breast is generally called "child-led weaning." Subtle but important distinction. ;)

I've been making all the food for my son, who is now 7 months. We started very slow but have since picked up the pace. He likes sweet potato, pear, blueberries, apple, nectarines and parsnip. I mixed everything with breastmilk at first so it had a somewhat familiar taste, but I've since stopped. I make about a week's worth at a time and store them in small baby cubes in the freezer.

Some people will recommend starting with veggies so they don't become accustomed to sweet flavours, but I think that's sort of silly since breastmilk is already very sweet, so they are already accustomed to sweetness. Also, lots of veggies (like peas and squash) have quite strong textures which take a while to get used to. For the first couple of weeks my son turned up his nose at carrots, squash and others, so we focussed on fruit for awhile. Now that he is really accustomed to different flavours and to eating off a spoon, he is coming around to vegetables and likes peas, sweet potato and parsnip.

Some tips - make smallish batches; there's nothing worse than shelling a whole lot of peas only to find he won't eat them. And also, don't let the ego get involved. It's easy to be frustrated when they won't take what you so lovingly made. Some days they do just want to nurse more since they are not socialised to eat at fixed times like we are. I find he'll have a day where he'll eat a huge amount, and some other days he wants very little. I don't force the issue - I want eating to be fun, not stressful. Finally, just keep offering it - sometimes he hates something one day, and a week or so later he enjoys it.

As for books and website, I also recommend www.wholesomebabyfood.com. For recipes I've enjoyed the Baby's Table. Blender Baby Food is also great for recipes, but not so much for information on when foods should be introduced.

Annabel Karmel is very popular in the UK, and I'd recommend any of her books. I made all of the food for my first child using her recipes, and it really was so easy.

Karmel has a website here: http://www.annabelkarmel.com/

Oh and one tip: When my child's appetite and eating skills increased beyond the puree stage, I used silicone muffin pans to batch freeze her food. It was the perfect size portion for pasta sauces, soups, stews, etc...

i second annabel karmel! as for first veggies, my sons loved mild "veggies" like squash and sweet potato. keep in mind though that baby's digestive system gets very sluggish with solid food, and with these binding foods, even more so ;)

azzura, i like your silicone pan idea! will steal that one for sure.

We started with brown rice baby cereal- fortified with breast milk. Then went on to things like bananas, apricots, carrots, sweet potatoes. At first the runnier the better. For our first baby I recall even making a blueberry tofu recipe and she loved it.
I am fortunate to have a Vita-mix machine and you can make the finest puree with this amazing machine. Their website has great recipes. Even if you don't have a Vita-mix, head on over to their website to check out their baby food ideas.

We have the KitchenAid Immersion Blender -- http://www.kitchenaid.com/catalog/product.jsp?src=Immersion Blenders&cat=208&prod=407

Simply amazing!! My daughter LOVES eating solids! When she first started out with solids, after I steamed all the vegetables, I would use the blender to puree it. She is one year old now and I just use the blender for a few seconds so that there is more bite to her food. Works well with sauces with meat in them as well.

Babies with Asian tastebuds will definitely love simple-delicious recipes from this book......(mine does!)

http://www.marshallcavendish.com/marshallcavendish/genref/redirector.xml?url=/marshallcavendish/genref/sg/catalogue/general_title/parenting/9812614176.xml

http://www.singaporemotherhood.com/book1.htm

yummy!

I'm not sure a baby needs a cookbook when just starting solids. We've always been told start with one food, feed it to them for a week or so, then move onto the next. This will help pinpoint any food allergies.

For this reason, we always avoided mixing foods at the very start.

We've been fortunate- our 7 month old doesn't seem to mind whatever combination we throw at him - even Green Beans and Pears.

I have several baby food books, the first is one recommended by our family doctor (who really advocates for home made baby food, I am happy to say) --

Feeding Your Baby the Healthiest Foods
http://www.fedpubs.com/subject/health/feeding.htm

which gives you the proper sequencing of foods -- puréed squashes, sweet potatoes, and other gentle veg before trying fruits, to try to get veg established. It is a great guide with up-to-date info on just about everything EXCEPT the introduction of nuts, which it gives as 12 months, but experts now recommend to be 3 years (our daughter was diagnosed with a nut allergy at 14 months).

I also have Annabel Karmel's First Meals,

http://us.dk.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780756603656,00.html

which is good (stresses healthy nutrition), but I have found with her recipes that they often do not appeal to my children -- don't know why, because they *do* appeal to me!

The book I have found most useful to get them eating when fussy is Cooking for Coco,

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cooking-Coco-Naturally-Delicious-Recipes/dp/1903258707

which is written by a mom who is a chef. Some of the food is fried, which I think is okay if made at home, and made properly with the correct oil, etc. Her poached pears and poached salmon make my daughter swoon (and me too).

Then there is the case of my (underweight) son who just does not have an appetite. The first mistake we made was to try and force him to eat (on the advice of our pediatrician here in Europe) at 6 months: he wasn't ready. He hated it. I tried various cereals and puréed vegetables (ha! I think that is why he still hates vegetables) before moving rapidly to puréed fruits (as a result, he hated bananas until he was 14 months old). We learned that even if the doctors are telling you he must start eating solids at 6 months, if he is not ready, do not force it.

After he started eating solids (sort of), he lasted on purées for about 4 weeks -- he hated those too. Much preferred chunks of soft foods, like poached pears. Which jibes with the recent recommendations (WHO research) that babies do not need puréed food, that it in fact, is not particularly good for them:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/womenfamily.html?in_article_id=462599&in_page_id=1799

But he is still extremely picky, despite my best efforts (we still offer him everything on a regular basis, hoping...) -- won't eat potatoes, rice, iffy on bread, hates vegetables that are not in the form of croquettes, etc. Just goes to show that sometimes as a parent there are things that are out of your control, and even influence.

I make my 7 month old's baby food and really like The Petit Appetit cookbook, as well as my Fresh Baby baby food trays. We started with organic rice cereal, and jarred organic baby food but shortly thereafter, I started making my own. My mini food processor works just fine, so I didn't buy a special food grinder or anything.

HI.. I bought the So Easy Baby Food Cookbook. It was super simple and I liked how easy the recipes where!

To go with it I got the Fresh baby food storage trays which worked GREAT! One cube of peas, green beans, sweet potatoes worked great. and I would mix them together (trying not to make something gross!:)

I would just make a few different things up Sunday nights and freeze them. So we always had lots of different foods to choose from! I had a good time doing it! Enjoy! :)

Everyone has great points and good info. My two cents is to remember that every kid is different (mine loved purees, and food is a lot about texture and temperature).

You can find any answer you want on the internet - if you normally eat well, follow your instinct and pediatrician's advice about how much and when.

I'll second the vote for Cuisinart mini-prep - I got completely obsessed with finding a good food mill and ended up using what was in my cupboard already. The mini-prep is fantastic, just steam veggies until they are very soft and then add a little water. I freeze the portions in Glad half cup containers. Then you can pop them out once they are frozen and put them in a big ziploc or something to keep using the containers. Don't microwave in the containers though - some recent study about plastic badness in the micro.

In about an hour I can make a weeks worth of food. I generally do cauliflower, carrots, sweetpotato, and potato/spinach. They all get a small (very small) amount of butter. I also do fruits - put the peeled fruit in a big casserole or dutch oven, a little water, and bake for about 45 minutes at 400. Puree and there you have pear sauce or apple sauce or whatever. The apple/pluot/blueberry was very popular. Use what is fresh and in season. It's nice to go organic as much as you can (well, it is for me). :)

There are a couple of good blogs out there about organic food too. But that's only if you want to make yourself crazy worrying. :) Not that I do *cough*.

Oh, for what it's worth, I do also used jarred food sometimes - Earth's Best. (Owned by Heinz, but in a rush, it's still organic without additives).

Best of luck!

I've been feeding my 10 month old solids since he was 6 months olds-all of his veggies/fruits I've made myself. Many of my tips echo others:

-There is really no need for cook books. I bought a couple and regret it. Like others have stated, I learned everything mainly from www.wholesomebabyfood.com. I, too, have their chart up in my kitchen. That being said, I am currently reading Superimmunity for Kids : What to Feed Your Children to Keep Them Healthy Now, and Prevent Disease in Their Future, by Leo Galland and HIGHLY recommend it.

-Cooking your produce: I would say avoid the microwave. Microwaving can damage a lot of the nutrients in vegetables and fruits. More importantly, ALWAYS avoid microwaving in plastic. The plastic will leach into the baby food and bond with the fats and disrupt hormone levels, etc. (I would say avoid plastic altogether, including for freezing-One of the main reasons I make my baby's food is so that I know what is in it, I don't want chemicals added by the way I cook.) I steam or bake the fruits/vegetables.

-Blending: I used a blender or food processor, adding all of the liquids left over from steaming the veggies (important nutrients leach into the water when cooking). At first, I made sure everything was very pureed, smooth and uniform. Now that he is older, I am leaving more texture.

-Storing: I freeze the food in cubed trays. As I mentioned before, I am avoiding as much plastic as possible, so I am storing in silicone trays that are very cheap (although in silly shapes) from IKEA.

-Thawing: I thaw in small glass jars in a pot of boiling water on the stove. The small cubes thaw quickly and are also conducive to mixing veggies once you have established that the particular veggies is non-allergenic to your babe.

-I use a baby cereal called Happy Bellies. It is kind of hard to find (I buy it at Whole Foods) and is expensive, but it is organic and contains probiotics. Probiotics occur naturally in your child's intestines until they begin solid foods and help baby digest. They are also found in yogurt (don't introduce until the 9th month) and are especially important if your baby ever has to take antibiotics.

-One last thing...I realized I was going through so much more produce that before so I began having our produce delivered by a local organic grocer. (I'm in the Bay Area and use Planet Organics.) This makes my life much easier and I know the produce is pesticide free.