cerelac with love

We've been feeding our babies with Cerelac, or Milupa or Gerber - ever since they started eating. Who can blame us? We work eight hours a day, sometimes even more. And some of us can't trust our yayas enough to prepare our baby's food, afraid that she might mess up while cooking. And we're all feeling guilty, because as much as we want to make food for our babies - not all of us have the time or energy to do so.

So if, like me, you can't live without instant baby food - then why not simply ADD something cooked or real to it - if only to take some of the guilt away.

As a busy mom, I've created my own Cerelac with Love. I add a couple of extra touches to her cereal - and it doesn't even take so much time. I usually add either potato, squash, carrots, sayote, avocado or mango to her rice cereal. You might want to try it too.

Here's a time saving tip that you might find healthy: prepare the extra touches in batches, ahead of time.


Here's what you'll need:

• A couple of hours FREE
• Baby tummy friendly vegetabes of your choice: squash, carrots, sayote, potato. Sometimes I also use mango or papayas.
• A steamer
• A food grinder/fork/blender/food processor - anything to puree/mash the food with.
• Ice trays with cover
• A Freezer
• Some zip - loc bags

Here's What you'll do:

1. Wash, Peel and slice your vegetables of choice.
2. Steam them (separately, of course). Steaming baby's food is better than boiling them since
boiling sucks out the food's nutrients into the water.
3. Mash, grind or puree the food.
4. Fill the ice trays with the pureed food.
5. Freeze the ice tray.
6. Once the food is frozen into cubes, take them out of the ice trays and transfer them into
ziploc bags.
7. Label the ziploc bag with the type of vegetable and the date when it was cooked. These
baby food cubes can last for two months.
8. Repeat the procedure for the next vegetable/fruit. You can make as much as you like, and as
many varieties as you like. The last time I checked my freezer, I had squash, carrots and
papaya food cubes.

Here's How To serve (the yaya can easily do this):

1. Every night, pick out three cubes of frozen baby food, and keep them in the chiller or the
refrigerator's lower compartment to thaw overnight. I usually pick out different baby food
cubes and place them inside baby bowls with lids.
2. When it's time to eat, prepare baby's cereal (preferably brown rice or rice with soya) and put
the defrosted baby food cube in along with the mixture.
3. Mix well until the baby food cube has thoroughly been melted and mixed with the cereal.
4. Serve to hungry baby. :)
5. Thawed food cubes should be served within 24 hours.

Preparing these baby food cubes don't take a lot of time. When I cook, I make the most out of my time and cook around four or five vegetables. I make a lot - enough for two weeks, at least. At least, with this - I add a special touch to my baby's food. I may not be there to make sure she gets the real thing, but at least there's that little bit of love that makes what she eats a whole lot better.

ps -

My ice tray creates heart - shaped ice, which takes the title Cerelac with love a bit more literal than usual. :)