The Big Book of Organic Baby Food: Baby Purées, Finger Foods, and Toddler Meals For Every Stage (Organic Foods for Baby and Toddler)

Simple, Clear, Great Recipes
Provides great direction for foods by age group, introducing foods, common allergies, and kitchen tools needed.Each recipe will give you a nice amount – if you make a few different ones it can easily be a week of food prepped.She has directions for storing in the fridge and freezer. The first set of purées are the base recipes to reference for the following chapters. Even if you aren’t doing all organic, she has a list of the dirty dozen to aim for getting organic (but you can also google the most recent year’s dozen since it changes…).Great book that’s not overwhelming to try out. I definitely suggest getting the Cuisinart steamer pan combo for harder foods (it steaks them so fast). She suggests adding milk or water to thin it out, but I leave it thicker so I can freezer them and then adjust thickness once thawed (though my sweet potatoes did need a little water added before freezing) – make sure you buy DISTILLED water (every grocery store carries it, it’s just steam/distilled water…nursery water is a pricey joke). If you are using breastmilk to thin food out, I suggest only doing that just before preparing it for baby to eat – best to reference the CDC’s guidelines on breastmilk storage. I also suggest the haaka silicone freezer containers – the nine 1oz cubes are perfect for cooling in the fridge after making it, freezing overnight (don’t wait a day before going to the freezer), and then popping out of the container and putting in a labeled freezer bag.

Great book for new parents
Great book to have on hand when your baby is learning to eat. Recipes and layout are great. Lots of information.

Great resource, a little too heavy on freezing
Updated Review 12/6/2017 (4.5 stars) – My baby is 10 months old.I really liked this book when I started cooking my own baby food. It gives great tips on how to prepare, steam, and freeze baby food. Now that my daughter is 10 months and she figured out what she likes and doesn’t like, I find myself using this book less and less often. It’s still a very nice book with loads of great ideas, but once your child starts liking some foods over others, you’re going to be turning to the internet or just getting creative with what you have. My daughter doesn’t really like fruit (weird, I know), so I find many of Middleberg’s combinations difficult to recreate. My girl turns away at super sweet flavors like peach and apples, but loves potatoes, butternut squash, and green beans. If anyone is interested in buying this book, use it more for inspiration rather than a complete baby cookbook. Many of the recipes are a little “avant garde.” For example, I don’t normally cook with edamame or pumpkin. And since I’m trying to get my daughter to like the foods we eat, I’m not going to experiment too much.I would have liked to see more “old school” recipes like my mom makes. She boils organic chicken drumsticks, carrots, and potatoes, then purees them with a little bit of the chicken stock made from her “soup.” She adds a little more carrot than chicken to give it the kind of flavor my daughter loves. My 10 month old daughter gobbles up her “soup” like crazy! Next, we’re going to add tiny organic star pasta that I found at Target, so she can get used to eating pasta. Getting her to eat is definitely a challenge, so anything that works for her, works for me!—————————————–My original review (5 stars)This is a great resource! I bought this book because my pediatrician gave me an old photocopied, vague guide on solids. I wanted something more concrete and couldn’t find what I needed on the internet. Each site seems to have different recommendations. Middleberg (the author) has a beautiful introduction with lots of encouragement, advice, and recommendations on how to feed your baby the best organic foods. My little girl has been eating solids for about a month now and it’s been very helpful. The one thing I don’t like is that the book is very heavy on freezing your portions for later. The later recipes call for 1oz cubes of the frozen purees you made in an earlier chapter. I don’t see myself making 30 bags of different purees and storing them in my freezer for up to 6 months. For me, it’s more realistic to make 2 portions fresh and keep another 2 portions frozen, to use up within 2 weeks or so. As an adult, I prefer fresh foods over food that’s been previously frozen. So naturally, I want the same for my baby.

Good guide for introducing solids to baby
Great meal ideas and good guide for introducing baby’s first solids!

Bought this for daughter in law who’s a new mumAnd weaning baby Leo . She’s massively into nutrition and real food and she was very impressed with this book. Which is praise indeed . From my point of view as the buyer , it looked packed with info and very colourful .

A mi me parece muy buen libro, vale la pena comprarlo desde antes de que empieces a darle de comer a tu bebé pues trae muchos tips para empezar bien con ese relajo de las papillas. Ojalá mi bebé se comerá la mitad de lo que dice el libro jaja!

This is a must have book. It contains so many info from feeding a baby and of course recipes too. It help me a lot.