Baby puree with apple, pear and rhubarb

A wonderfully nutritious and tasty home-made puree for your baby.

Preparation time: 15 minutes Cooking time: 30-35 minutes Difficulty rating: Easy

Age recommendation: Puree is perfect for babies aged 6-7 months who are making the transition from exclusive breast or formula feeding to solids.

Ingredients

Makes 36 servings

600 g rhubarb (about a bunch)

1 kg red apples (about 8 apples)

725g pear (3-4 large pears)

Method

1. Wash rhubarb and cut off the ends of stalk, slice 1-2 cm thick.
2. Wash apples, peel, core and cut into cubes.
3. Wash pears, peel, core and cut into cubes.
4. Place a large pan over a medium heat.
5. Add the apple and pear cubes and 1L (4 cups) of water and cook for 15 mins until softened.
6. Add rhubarb cook for a further 15-20 mins until cooked.
7. Puree in a food processor or with a wand in the pan.

Tips

• Introduce your baby to the individual tastes of pear (link to pear puree), apple and rhubarb before you try this recipe which combines all three. Babies transitioning to solids need time to get used to all the new tastes.
• Make sure you puree this recipe to a soft mush with no lumps- it may take a while as rhubarb does not soften like apples and pears. Babies aged 6-7 months need soft purees without lumps to help their jaw muscles develop properly.
• If you don’t need such big quantities, use smaller amounts of each fruit, just make sure you have at least double as much sweet fruit as you have rhubarb or the puree will be tart.
• It is faster to de-core the apple and pears by slicing the fruit so the core is left as a square in the middle, rather than cutting through the core and then cutting the core out of each segment.
• Serve to the rest of the family for breakfast eaten with muesli or cereal instead of milk – it will taste like crumble!
• Freeze in small portions for baby.

Nutritional content

Nutritional analysis per 50 gram serve:

References

• Food Standards Australia and New Zealand. Australian Nutrient Reference Database. 2007. [cited 16 January 2012]. Available from: URL Link
• Queensland Health. Introduction to Solids. 2008. [cited 16 January 2012. Available from: URL Link