Anyone use "Super Baby Food" to make cereal?

[Riley's mama]

I just tried making the "super porridge" that is outlined in the book and want to make sure that I'm doing it right! I actually made it last night and then put it into 3 bowls and gave one to DD this morning. But when I took it out of the fridge it was basically like one big lump. So I put it in the microwave for about 30 seconds on low power and it loosened up a little bit but was still pretty lumpy. Enough that I had to keep breaking it up while I was feeding her.

Anyone experience this? Is this normal? If not, is there something else I should do?! TIA!!!

[moxiewoman]

Hi!
We are using the Super Baby Food book to make pretty much all of our daughter's food (she is 8 mo, 1 week). (Although, I am not making my own yogurt!). (However, we are using the Earth's Best jars for travel.) I am loving making her baby food, as I work full time, and it makes me feel that I am really doing good for her (counteracting that mom-going-back-to-work guilt thing).

We are making the super porridge. When we ground up the brown rice (or steel cut oats), before cooking into a powder (she recommends 2 minutes in the book), we had some problems with larger lumps that I was concerned about, because they could be a choking hazard. (I was just careful to avoid them when I fed our DD.) When we put this in the fridge, it does become quite hard. I always nuke it too, but it sometimes seemed that there wasn't enough liquid. I have "watered it down" with breastmilk when necessary. I have to say that I usually put it in the microwave for about 25 seconds (we have a pretty powerful microwave), and then I add a couple food cubes (e.g., sweet potatoes and/or avocado). This "waters" it down a bit too.

However, because of the lumps that we were dealing with (must be something about putting the powdered grains into the water and having them clump), we decided to make it the other way. In other words, measuring out the grains and cooking them as if we were going to eat them ourselves. Yes, this takes longer, but I usually keep myself busy doing other things in the kitchen (washing bottles, doing dishes, packing lunch for next day). So, then we get cooked rice/oats. And we combine it with water in our Magic Bullet to make it the consistency that we want. (So you can make it a bit more "soupy" if you want.) I imagine you can cook the powder with more water to achieve this effect, but I personally didn't like the clumps.

Hope baby food making goes well for you. I am happy to answer any more questions. (One other thing we do is add flax seed oil to her super porridge, to get her some omega 3s.) I am also taking it and she is BFing, but adding some to her food is good too.

Good luck!

Moxiewoman

[nmosur]

I made the super baby cereal for DD when she was a baby. This is what I did - I ground the different grains (enough for one week) and stored them in the freezer. As soon as I woke up I set the water to boil (1 cup) and went to brush my teeth. By the time I got back to the stove, the water was boiling. I added one tablespoon of the powdered grain/grain mix to the water, stirred well till there were no lumps and as soon as it started boiling I lowered the heat and went about my usual chores. It took 30 min to get fully cooked and the consistency was right. Making the cereal ahead was never a success for me - like you said it got lumpy and I hated putting it in the microwave to warm it. Try this way for a couple of days and see how you like it. I still cooks grains the same way for her except that I don't grind them.

HTH
Naveena

[gobadgers]

I had a hard time avoiding lumps with the Super Baby Food porridge recipe as written too. I think I ended up using more water than recommended, cooked it a little longer, and stirred it a LOT. I whisked it constantly as I was pouring the powder in, then came back every minute or so for the first five minutes. It still wasn't perfect but it really helped.

Sometimes, I also cooked the whole grains and then ground them up, as a PP mentioned. (Usually this happened when we had leftover rice from dinner though!)

Good luck!

[Riley's mama]

Thank you for the input! I tried using a bit more water when making a batch yesterday. That seemed to help but it still seems lumpy so I may just try cooking it and then grinding it. Making it into the powder and boiling it just appealed to me because then I would have a few servings readily available and I don't always have a lot of time!!

I usually have a bottle or two of about 2 oz of BM in the fridge. So I stirred one in after I warmed the porridge in the microwave. That helped a little also. But, again, still a little too lumpy for my comfort level!!!

When you cook the oatmeal (or rice, etc.) and then blend with water or BM/formula, how many servings can you make at once?

[moxiewoman]

DD is 8 months (to put age reference on it). Last night, I cooked 1/2 cup brown rice and 1/3 cup steel-cut oats with 2 cups of water and blended that with water (didn't measure how much), but it is puree consistency with mini chunks in it. I am guessing that will make about 6-8 servings (about 1/4 cup each?). Hard to know exactly, but it lasts us about 3 days (she usually gets 2 servings of super porridge a day and yogurt for her other meal). :)