The Slow Cooker Baby Food Cookbook

Great introduction to producing first foods for your baby, including storage.
Easy step by step instructions!

Margaret Meade is a famous name in cultural anthropology, but this is not that Margaret Meade! Maggie Meade is a cook and a mom who runs https://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com and is the author of The Wholesome Baby Food Guide. This book - an alternative to 'who knows what's in there other than sugar and salt' processed baby foods - contains 125 recipes for creating your own 'I know exactly what my baby is eating' foods.

This section discusses the differences between organic and non-organic, but it makes no mention of cost! Organic is often an excuse to bump the price up and nutritionally speaking, organic food is no better than non-organic food. If you buy fresh non-organic food and wash it, there's no reason to fear fruits and vegetables, and the GMO 'worry' is a non-issue as far as I'm concerned, but obviously there is a variety of opinion on these topics and over use of any chemical is an issue. If you're vegetarian, the question of antibiotics in meat isn't a problem either, but it's definitely something you want to avoid as an omnivore!

Part one asks why make homemade baby food and why use a slow cooker? It covers the fundamentals of homemade baby food, slow cooker basics, choosing ingredients and serving them safely, and feeding your baby solid foods at every stage which also contains an important discussion about allergies. Allergies are being re-evaluated and better understood all the time, and things which parents were once urged to avoid with young children are now becoming more and more viewed as foods which ought to be introduced at a relatively young age to avoid children developing allergic reactions later in life, but obviously these are things you need to discuss with your pediatrician. This book also covers topics such as incorporating baby food making into your routine and tools and equipment needed to do so.

Part two covers slow cooking: single ingredient dishes, fruit and vegetable combinations, beyond applesauce recipes, grain-based cereals, and recipes for fingers, spoons, and plates. Towards the back there are sample meal plans, a list of resources, and a comprehensive index.

I have to say that this book appears to have been designed as a print book from the ground up. The pages are in two-page spreads and are legible on a decently-sized tablet computer, but I'd definitely not try using this via a smaller tablet and certainly not on your smart phone, which to me would be a bit of an inconvenience.

That aside the book is well-written, contains good and concise information, and lots of useful advice - plus, of course, a wealth of wholesome healthy recipes to bring children along from the early milk-diet to the regular world of soft and then solid foods as they mature and become accustomed to new foods. Babies are very adaptable, and introducing new tastes at a young age will circumvent many of the 'my kid hates vegetable X' problems as they progress to the otherwise troublesome twos!

Children need to be loved and cared for, but they are tough and do not need to be swathed in sterility and padding and 'protected' from 'evil foods', even at a young age. Careful introduction of a variety of foods at an early age is a great recipe for raising a healthy child at a healthy weight, who has no fear of new foods, and who eats their greens! I think this book goes a long way towards resolving some of those early food issues and I commend it as a useful and worthy read.

Starting out with some explanations of why you should slow cook (it’s easy!) and how (buy a slow cooker), it progresses through some recipes for home cooked pureed food (stage one) and meals (stage two) that absolutely anyone could make, even me! If someone was to ask me what’s the one small appliance I’d recommend to others, it would be my slow cooker as I use it for slow cooking stews and joints of meat all the time, but I’ll admit, I hadn’t made any pureed food before reading this book. Instead, I opted to buy jars and pouches which ultimately work out a lot more expensive than making your own. I am pleased to announce that I’ve now gained some confidence in making my own jars (which I still use for dessert even though my son is on stage two foods now), plus I’m going to be using the apple puree recipe for my apple sauce at Christmas dinner.

The author of The Slow Cooker Baby Food Cookbook, Maggie Meade, is not British and I can get a little bit frazzled by American cookery books so I was a little concerned that it might not translate to a British reader. Luckily I think that most health organizations world wide now align on their advice, and by following the American Academy of Pediatrics, the NHS advice – such as to move from milk to more solid food starting at 6 months – is followed as well. For my British readers, I would definitely say to have a chat with your health visitor who should make a weaning visit with you around the 3-4 month mark. They do this early on to make sure you have all the information you need to make the right decisions for your child between 4-6 months and onwards, but after reading this book I am happy to recommend it to readers worldwide and feel confident that it follows the medical advice I was given.

The Slow Cooker Baby Food Cookbook has a good section on the basics of weaning, such as how to introduce different foods at what ages, how to check for allergies, what signs to use to see if your child is ready to start solids, spoon feeding or baby led weaning and so on, but the main reason I wanted to read it was for the recipes.

The recipes start off very simple, with one dish meals such as slow cooker apples, easy apricots and blueberry puree. Secondary stage one foods include recipes that have a fruit and vegetable combination, so you can start experimenting with different flavours and really find out what your baby enjoys. This included some combinations I wouldn’t personally have thought to mix, such as Black Beans and Apples, Butternut Squash with Peaches and Sweet Potatoes with Spiced pears. As we progress through the book the recipes will add a bit of spice such as cinnamon and vanilla which will increase the flavours your baby experiences.

Stage two foods are things that everyone can eat and for little ones who can start using their fingers to pick up more solid foods, introducing new textures as well as a lot more flavour. This includes awide variety of meat, vegetables and fruit and quite a bit of spice and herbs. No plain boiled chicken here – everything sounds delicious and I would be happy to try every recipe myself. In fact, I’m going to! I tried the recipe for three-cheese mac and cheese, something I’ve never cooked in a slow cooker before and it was incredibly good, as was the beef stew that I made for my family using this very simple recipe.

Praise the kitchen because this cookbook does not do that incredibly annoying thing of “include 2 cups!” What size is a cup? A cup is not a worldwide standard, so I hate it when cookbooks do that and I’m frantically googling “How much does one cup of bananas weigh?” Why would you even put your bananas in a cup? Anyway, The Slow Cooker Baby Food Cookbook includes both metric and imperial and gives cups and weights – perfect for everyone who has any sort of weighing and measuring devices.

I love the fact that preparation and storage sections are included for every single recipe, letting you know how long it can be kept in the fridge or freezer and it also includes advice such as “Don’t be surprised if you see little bits of peach skin in your baby’s diaper” and helpful pointers over which recipes will help with constipation. Now, usually you wouldn’t combine poop and recipes, but let’s face it, as parents working through the hazard of weaning, poop is going to become a hot topic and it’s good to have an idea of what’s normal and what’s not. I’m sure I’m not the first mum to freak out when I found some undigested sweetcorn for example!

Finally, each recipe has a “For the family” section which gives helpful ideas for what you can do with it for the rest of the family, such as how to convert your puree into a jam, side dish or sauce for the family meat.

I’ll admit, baby food doesn’t look that appealing to me. It’s just weird coloured oddly textured mash and luckily, it always tastes way better than it looks. That being said, the photography in The Slow Cooker Baby Food Cookbook is excellent. Photography is important to me with a cookbook, as I usually order in a physical edition and want to be inspired and titillated by the images. I need to be motivated, and an image can do that. An image of baby food isn’t hugely motivating, but there are lots of photos of delicious looking ingredients. The colours pop, the jars and containers used are cute and provide serving and storage ideas in themselves and the background accompaniment is spot on. I love the brightly coloured title pages which match perfectly the theme of happy baby, happy family and there’s a few photos of appropriately messy babies which portray the realism of weaning – food everywhere.

I’m definitely going to be using this cookbook on a regular basis and it’s given me some great ideas. I’d recommend it to any mums or dads out there who would prefer to make home made food rather than jars and ready meals, but don’t want to spend hours slaving in the kitchen for it. It’s for anyone who wants to cook, but needs simple and efficient meals that don’t require a culinary degree to perfect. Five stars from me!

New parents will be inspired and reassured by the recipes and advice contained in this new cookbook. Recipes are organized alphabetically within food groups, so you can find your way directly to cranberries, chicken, or butternut squash. Also contains helpful advice on when to introduce new foods, how to tell if your baby is full, and more. Definitely buying this one for the new moms in my life!

I was so happy when Quarto Publishing offered me an early e-copy of this book!my son was about to start eating, so the timing was perfect.

Well... This book has EVERYTHING. The introduction explains the basics of starting solid foods to your baby. I learned a lot, and it’s my second child!! Every recipe is detailed : age and stage, slow cooker size, preparation and storage for baby, and for the family. There’s even a note if the recipe freezes well (or not), and the vitamins included. There are a lot of varieties in the fruits and vegetables. I LOVED IT!

The only somewhat negative comment that I have to make is that there are no indication of the quantity that the recipe makes, and no mention of the preparation time. But that’s minor!! I need that book in my life!!!

Such a helpful book with lots of great recipes! (I’m assuming they were tasty, but my little one enjoyed them).

Slow cookers are so easy to use, and this book tells how to make nutritious and healthy baby food from scratch with them. A "let it cook by itself" approach is SO much more likely to happen because mothers of babies are so busy and can't necessarily be slaving over the stove -- but a slow cooker, sure!