Beef Stew

When your baby is eating purees it's very simple to add fat. If your child is eating dairy you can add butter, heavy whipping cream, or cheese to any food. If they aren't eating dairy then you can add olive oil. If you're able to find extra light olive oil... the "extra light" refers to the taste not the calories, so your kids might not notice if you're pumping up their squash with some oil :) If you have a Cost Plus World Market in your area you can even find mini 1oz bottles of olive oil that are great to throw in your purse for eating out and travelling.

Purees are such an easy way to get all the food groups in your child (if they'll eat that is). It's so simple to steam any food and then puree it. I would cook large batches of fruits and vegetables and then puree them to my desired texture and pour them into ice cube trays and freeze. Once they were frozen it was easy to pop them out and store the 1oz cubes in freezer bags. Then when mealtime came I was able to defrost as many cubes as I needed and make whatever flavor combinations came to mind. Once she ate meat I would also freeze ground up meat in ice cube trays. One of my daughter's absolute favorite purees was Beef Stew. This was always a winner in our house and I knew if I pulled this out of the freezer she was sure to eat :)

One of my favorite things about this recipe is you can add whatever you have in the house. I've added many combinations of vegetables depending on what I have around. This basic recipe is NOT high fat so if you are worried about packing on the calories please add more butter or oil. I would make the stew with a stick of butter and then add butter to each serving I gave my daughter (I usually add oil to foods since it's a better fat, but butter and beef stew works really well together).

Beef Stew

· 1 1/2 pounds cubed beef stew meat

· 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

· 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

· 2 (14 ounce) cans beef broth

· 4 carrots, chopped

· 1 large onion, chopped

· 1 large potato, peeled and chopped

· 1 large sweet potato, peeled and chopped

· 3/4 teaspoon dried thyme

· salt and pepper to taste

1. Combine meat and flour in a large plastic food storage bag and toss to coat evenly.

2. In a 6 quart saucepan brown meat in hot vegetable oil. Season with salt and pepper, if desired.

3. Add onion and carrots and saute for 5 minutes. Then add beef broth, potatoes and thyme. Bring to boil; reduce heat to medium-low, cover; and simmer for 1 hour or until beef is tender.

4. Puree

notes: you can puree this as smooth or chunky as you like. If your child is eating chunkier foods you can also cut everything into tiny pieces and then cook. This recipe also does great in the crockpot, just omit 1 can of broth.

I chose not to post a picture of the stew because once it's pureed it's not very photogenic.

Enjoy!