In Search of the Homemade Babyfood Bible

I've been doing a little subway reading while Hayden naps in her Ergo, and would you know that making baby food really is, in fact, as easy as just steaming and blending some simple purées? Actually, I lied: Make that steaming, blending, and freezing. Sure, you can get creative and use the oven instead of your stovetop, or prepare some more sophisticated, multi-ingredient concoctions, but from what I've read it seems to take a real effort to turn baby food making into a complicated endeavor.

That seems to be where the cookbooks come in. Those simple purées are so embarrassingly straightforward, apparently, that one of the books I'd bought — Lizzie Vann's Organic Baby & Toddler Cookbook — actually left them out completely. It's as if it was afraid to offend me by including them, but many of the recipes it instead suggests for the 4-7-month-old set I barely have the time (and definitely not the energy) to prepare for myself.

Two of the other books I'd bought are well worth the money and, I must say, the valuable space they take up in an apartment completely overrun with baby paraphernalia. Lisa Barnes' oh-so-cutely-named Petit Appetit Cookbook has loads of details alongside those plebeian purée recipes. (Details I didn't even realize I wanted, like nutritional info, but details I definitely need.) And Annabel Karmel's SuperFoods: For Babies and Children contains some life-saving day-by-day, week-by-week meal planners that spell out for me what I should feed Hayden, when, in what order, etc. Both books also contain more sophisticated recipes for later, though none quite as elaborate as in the Vann book.

On that note, Hayden and I are headed to the Union Square farmer's market tomorrow to buy some apples and pears. These seem to be the universally-recommended ingredients for a baby's first purée, and seem easy enough for a test-run. I need to figure out what, if any, equipment I need to buy so that I can start filling my freezer. I have a baby to feed!

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