The basics of weaning (Part 2)- lets start mashing!

Now that your baby is used to this idea of eating and is ok with rice cereal (or whatever other cereal u have introduced) lets introduce some variety!

I had lots of fun making puree for BabyS.. I love to cook, and cooking is destressing for me. With a baby on hand, i didnt have time to cook normal big meals, but pureeing was good enuf to destress me..

Some basic equipments you'll need are:

a sieve

This is good for straining the puree to make sure u've gotten rid of all the big lumps or any fibres that might be hard for junior to chew.. Good to invest in one cos even though BabyS is way past this puree stage now, i still use this when preparing her pasta (i dont like to mix her utensils with utensils meant for adults..)

Ice Cube Trays (with cover)

I got my ice cube trays with cover from Daiso. Anabel Karmel's book recommends one ounce of puree per meal, thats equivalent to one ice cube. So after I puree it, i just pack it into the ice cube trays and pop out one cube whenever i need to. And a tray with a cover is better cos u'll be ablet o protect it from contamination from other stuff in the freezer. Be sure to put a lable on the cover, to help you identify what puree is what.. I prefer to put a piece of plastic cling wrap over the puree b4 i put the cover on..

And cos it was all in one tray, it was easy for me to bring the purees to my mum's place for her to feed BabyS when she was with grandma..


Some mummies also buy this. Individual food cubes. I didnt get this plainly becos it was more expensive and Daiso doesnt have such a thing.

Both have their pros and cons. Ice cube tray is more convenient in a way i dont have to close every single lid (i'm lazy ok..haha) and easy to store in the freezer. But if I want to bring the puree out, the food cubes are more convenient, becos if i used my ice cube tray i'll need to decan the ice cube to another container..

Whichever method u use, jsut make sure its well covered and keep pureed food in the freezer for no more than a month. (but i never got to keep puree for that long.. i dont have that much time to prepare puree for one month at once. usually the puree is abotu 2 weeks worth of food)

I also got a new sauce pan, bowls, and cutting board just to prepare BabyS's food..

To steam the foods, u can either do it in a pan/ pot over the fire or do it my lazy way, in the rice cooker. Just get a metal steamer and put the foods on top or into a bowl and on top of the steamer, put more water into the rice cooker and cook away! dont wait for the 'cook' button to turn on.. ur food would have turned to mush by then.. Occasionally check if the food is steamed to your desired softness.

The rice cooker method works when you want to steam stuff in bulk.

At the start, I thought pureeing and mashing was simple. Just steam till soft and mash. Whats so hard right.. until i mashed sweet potato..


Oh man.. this portion here is equivalent to 2 medium sized sweet potatoes.. it took me 45 mins to mash it ok!! Its easy to mash but i wanted it to be smooth and lump free. I took the pieces of steamed sweet potato and individually pushed each cube thru the sieve.. not a easy job!!! Mashing it with a fork then passing thru the sieve later on didnt make things much easier also.. After this ordeal i decided to get a piece of equipment that I have not regretted getting..

Electric Blender!!! I bought this Phillips HR 1361 blender from Courts at $49..

It made blending stuff (even sweet potatoes) such a ease! And it only took a min or two to blend it all into fine mush.. something that took me 45 mins previously!