Review: 500 Baby & Toddler Dishes

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Permalink Reply by April M Bortner on December 20, 2011 at 11:02pm

I have received this book and was very excited to try out the recipes.  I already started trying out a couple of these dishes. The book is definitely easily organized as to the appropriate age groups.  It starts off with recipes for the very first solid meal feeders and ends with the toddler stages.  And everything in between.  I have a 19 month old and I made a recipe for the younger age and it was fine.   It does definitely inspire me to try to make different foods and flavors to get my daughter's taste buds going and the nutrition she needs. A very good thing about this book is that at the end of each section there is a group of pages that take the original recipe that they printed and give you variations of that recipe,  There is everything from breakfast and meals to snacks and desserts.  Another good thing about this book is it gives enough to make it the recipe for the whole family also, if one wanted to.

The first recipe I tried was the baked bananas.  My daughter likes bananas but did not like this.  The other recipe I tried was French Toast.  I did not even think about making this until I seen it in the book.  My daughter is not partial to eggs but did like this recipe.  I am going to try the potato cakes next and the thumb print cookies.

These recipes are so easy, simple and quick to make.  I would recommend this book to anyone that has a child.  I haven't really had the time to actually make homemade food but this book lets me and it makes me feel as though I am really helping out my daughter by knowing what ingredients I am feeding her and and that it is healthy.  I really can't find one thing I didn't like about this book.

Permalink Reply by JNI2011 on January 8, 2012 at 11:23pm

When I saw this opportunity, a few weeks before my son turned 6 months, I was so excited for help with starting solids!!  This book was beyond helpful, and I am so excited that I got to start with it, and will DEFINITELY continue to use it through my son's toddler years!!

I started my son on veggies, and one of his favorites is sweet potatoes.  In the "baby's first foods" section, there is directions for cooking them two different ways, and then at the end of the section there are variations for each recipe.  I found this most benificial for my son because there are combinations of foods that I would never have tried!  This is also a great way to get your baby to eat foods he/she doesn't like by itself.  For example: my son didn't care for the baby porridge(rice) by itself, so I looked in the "variations" section and tried blueberry baby porridge.  This is by far his favorite recipe, and it gets him to eat the rice!!

The only complaint I have is that some of the page numbers in the index do not match the actual page that the recipe is on. But I can live with that, as they are only a few pages off.

I will absolutely be recommending this book to other moms I know, as I know it will make their lives easier and their child's life healthier!!

Thank you for the opportunity!!

Permalink Reply by A Bailie on January 9, 2012 at 4:59pm

I received the cookbook and immediately began flipping through to see what recipes it has to offer.  I enjoyed the photos accompanying each of the recipes.  I was reviewing for the toddler ages, as my youngest child is 19 months.  I exclusively  made homemade baby food for both my children and strive to have our family eating one meal together.  I appreciated that there is an attempt, on behalf of the writer, to include recipes geared towards the entire family.  From my experiences, making food from scratch for my family was only easy because I was not creating more work for myself by designing meals for every individual. 

On to a few specific recipes... I first made the blueberry jello and it did not set up at all.  I gave it more than 24 hours and then proceeded to plan B which was to add more gelatin and try again.  After increasing the gelatin dramatically we finally had jello.  My kids loved it, blueberries are always a hit with them, but my husband felt it fell a little short on flavor.  Next, we decided to make the Fish Sticks and Oven Baked Potato Wedges.  Both turned out well, though when we made them again for a second time I added seasoning to the breadcrumbs for the Fish Sticks.  I was surprised to see that the recipe for the Potato Wedges called for peeling them, I skipped this step as the skin is good for you! 

In all the cookbook has a nice selection of dishes and flavors.  Although I feel I have an extensive collection of recipes to draw from this book would serve as a nice resource to someone just getting started in the kitchen and trying to think about cooking for their children. 

I appreciate the opportunity to have tested out the cookbook and will look forward to trying out additional recipes in the future as well as some of the baby dishes when our 3rd child arrives in the spring. 

Permalink Reply by cjdoosmom on January 9, 2012 at 11:27pm

I was really excited to hear I was going to receive the cookbook for babies and toddlers and was not disappointed when it arrived.

Flipping through the cookbook for the first time, I could instantly see some of the recipes becoming go-to classics. I immediately started making a shopping list as I paroused the recipes. Right off the bat, I found the collection to be creative and appetizing, without being too complicated, pretentious or convoluted. Most of the ingredients I already had around the house. I chose a few recipes to make that required me to "cook outside of the box", outside of my comfort zone, and boy am I glad that I did! 

The blueberry gelatin was a sweet treat for my toddler. He went nuts over it! I should have made 2 batches off the bat! He's not used to sugary snacks so while the flavor was not overwhelming, it was just the right amount of sweet for him.

The fish cakes were easy to make and came out not only looking beautiful but tasting great, too. I'm really glad to have this recipe in my arsenal; a quick, light, and delicious meal, healthy for the whole family.The rhubarb fool was also a big hit, both with my son and my husband (and the latter can be a bigger baby than the baby when it comes to trying something new so that was a major triumph)!

The simplicity of these recipes is beautiful, and really appreciated by this busy, working mom.

I defintely would have used this book a lot when my toddler was a baby, some great ideas here for tasty dishes that make use aof a lot of healthy, interesting foods while playing delightfully with textures and combinations. I like that the foods are pretty basic, in that they don't call for over-seasoning, over-processing, or preservatives. Most of the dishes can me made and frozen for later.

My only complaint is that I didn't have or know about this book when my son was younger. Oh, and I noticed an error on page 281: the rhubarb fool base recipe is on page 238, not 240 as indicated.

Many sincere thanks for this opportunity, and for all the deliciously creative recipes!

Permalink Reply by Lori Z on January 10, 2012 at 3:28pm

I love this cookbook! My son is now 20 months, and when I saw the opportunity to review a new cookbook, I was very excited.  I think we got into a rut of just eating what I know works, and stopped exploring new dishes.  This book was just what I needed to break the monotony.

The book is great for kids of all ages.  There are also suggested variations on each recipe which help provide substitute ideas for those with allergies or kids of different ages. My favorite is that many of the recipes truly are appropriate for the whole family.  I really try to make food that we can ALL eat, and this book certainly helps provide new ideas.

The first recipe I tried was Mediterranean Roasted Vegetables, and have already passed on the recipe to several friends.  This recipe can be used in its pureed form for the younger babies, and keep chunkier for the older ones.  We put it over pasta, and it was a great sauce.

The second recipe was Oatcakes.  This was not a favorite in the house...it was difficult (too wet) to roll out with a rolling pin, and end result was not that tasty. My son only took 1 bite and wouldn't try any more.  This could certainly be the chef's error in preparation...:-)

All in all, I really enjoyed this book.  There are many recipes that I am planning to make in the very near future, and do recommend this book to anyone with kids of all ages.

Permalink Reply by tracih on January 10, 2012 at 11:26pm

 

My husband and I love to cook and try new foods - especially healthy and nutritious recipes. We knew when our son Xander, now 9 1/2 months, started solids, we wanted to expose him to a variety of different tastes and textures. But, as a first time mom, I was clueless about where to start. Lucky for me, that's about the time I received my copy of 500 Baby and Toddler Dishes by Beverley Glock. I was ecstatic flipping through the pages and finding recipes from melon puree, rutabaga & apple puree, and turkey casserole to moussaka, French toast, curry chicken & rice. Finally, a baby food book with recipes I'd even want to eat! No more bland rice cereal and jarred food.

 

There are two things that set this baby cook book apart from the rest. First, for each of the main recipes, you'll also find at least 3 - 6 variations on that recipe. So, once you've mastered baked apples, you can then flip a few pages and find quick and easy instructions for cinnamon-baked apples with frozen yogurt, bakes apples with orange & apricot, baked apples with pear, baked pears with blueberries, and baked peaches. I love all the different ways I can change things up and make sure my baby's taste buds don't get bored!

 

The second way this book surprises me is with how so many of the recipes can be made for the whole family and still tailored to baby's food guidelines. For example, the chicken curry & rice recipe will make 8 child portions or 2 adult portions. As a mom working full time outside the home, I don't have time to plan and make separate meals for the adults and baby. I can easily double a recipe to make enough for the whole family, however.

 

Overall, this is a very well thought out book that really makes it easy for parents to make healthy and delicious food for their little ones. There are enough recipes in this book to take us through toddlerhood without getting stale. I don't think I'll ever need another baby food cook book!

Permalink Reply by shoedawg06 on January 11, 2012 at 4:09pm

First I want to mention two requirements that to me any cookbook (particularly geared towards kids) should have in order to become a regular staple in our house:

1. My husband and I LOVE different foods, so we really want to foster that in our son as early as possible. Therefore the cookbook must have good variety and venture at least a little outside the "traditional" foods, though including some all-time favs is well-received.

2. Since both of us are working, they need to be fairly simple and/or things I can prep ahead of time and stick in the freezer.

This book has both! It arrived just a couple of weeks into our adventure with solid foods - perfect timing! Right off the bat I liked the fact that there were the standard peas and sweet potatoes, but also had some interesting other choices that I personally wouldn't have thought of, such as rutabaga. As I began to peruse the recipes, I really enjoyed reading the tidbits about each food - why the veggie or fruit was a good place to start and how it was good nutritionally for babies. For example, I always assumed that the reason you mushed everything up for babies was because it was easier for them to swallow since they didn't have teeth. Turns out, like tastes, babies have to become accustomed to textures, too. This makes perfect sense to me now, but sometimes it's nice to have things laid out plainly for you.

I also flipped ahead to the next stage of foods to see what we had coming and also get ahead of the curve on some of the other facts about different foods. I love that the author makes suggestions for things that can be incorporated into the regular family dinner plans. My husband and I have said from the beginning (pre-baby, when we had the time and energy to make grand plans!) that we wanted our son to eat what we were eating - no special meals unless absolutely necessary. At this age (he's 5 months old), this is easy because he just gets whatever veggie we're eating (pureed, of course). As my son's diet becomes more complex, this gave great examples of the logic behind serving certain foods which will help direct us towards what we can serve our son and what we need to make just for him.

Pros:

- Variety of foods

- Explanation of nutritional benefits

- Tidbits on why a food is good for babies

- Ways to adapt recipes for whole family

- Suggestions on alternative ways to make the same foods - again, variety!

Cons:

- a couple of the page numbers don't match the ones listed in the indexes, but they're close

- first foods section is a little small - I personally would have liked more suggestions, but the ones that were given were enough to think of other veggies on my own

- only one cereal recipe - I would have liked to have seen other types of cereal (oatmeal, whole wheat, etc) since not all babies tummies can tolerate rice (perhaps TMI, but rice seems to slow my son's digestion down to a crawl at best, so we go with oatmeal)

Summary:

I'm a huge fan of making baby food. It's economical and often much better for kids because it's fresher. This book makes it easy to make your own baby food and then transition into feeding your child with the rest of the family. Meal time is a great time to spend with family, and this makes it possible for everyone to eat together.

Overall this is one of the better books of recipes for babies and young children I've come across, and I would definitely recommend it.

Permalink Reply by JKL on January 12, 2012 at 1:14am

This book definitely lives up to its claims. It is a comprehensive collection of recipes appropriate for each stage of your child’s development, and there is a lot of variety in the types of dishes presented. The recipes range from basic first foods through more complex and worldly dishes that the entire family can enjoy.

This cute little package gives a very good first impression with its nice layout, useful organization, and great photos. It has a good introduction, covering ages & stages, allergies & other food restrictions, feeding safety, and equipment. There’s a short but fair section on baby-led weaning, which I personally appreciate, as I find information on this topic lacking elsewhere.

It’s a bit of a stretch, saying it has 500 recipes. It’s closer to 86 recipes, with 4-5 variations on each. Many of the variations are extremely simple, like replacing ground beef with ground turkey, potato with sweet potato, or melon with peach.

Some of the recipes, especially for under 9 months, may be too simple, like fruit or vegetable puree, banana yogurt, scrambled eggs, and baby omelet. But it gets better from there, with dishes like turkey casserole, shepherd’s pie, moussaka, dhal, beef stew, biscotti, and cheddar palmiers. Be warned, these recipes are not necessarily quick or easy to make!

These are the recipes I tried:

Baked Bananas.  My family loves bananas, but no one really cared for them baked with butter and cinnamon. They were very runny and did not have the sweet, caramelized flavor I was expecting.

Chicken Curry with Rice.  This is a basic Indian curry recipe but because it’s not spicy, it’s a great introduction to these flavors. I thought there was a bit too much tomato, and as a result, not too popular with my family.

Breakfast Muffins with Orange and Honey.  The recipe sounded delicious, but we didn’t like it at all. There was too much oil, and it was hard to tell if I was using the right amount of orange juice. (It called for juice of 2 oranges.) The muffins tasted bland and were so greasy we ended up throwing most of them out. :(

Veggie Korma with Sweet Potatoes.  This one was a huge hit with everyone, including husband, preschooler, and infant. I will include the full recipe below (with publisher’s permission).

Although we only loved one of the four recipes I tried, that last one was so perfect it won me over.

Conclusion:  I would definitely recommend this book to other moms. I highly recommend it to those who don’t have much experience in the kitchen but want to start making baby food. Even for more experienced cooks, this book has enough variety to get you out of the spaghetti and chicken strips rut.

Thank you for the opportunity to test and review this book. It was lots of fun!

Recipe for Veggie Korma with Sweet Potato:

1 tbsp. sunflower oil
1 (1/2 inch) piece gingerroot, peeled and finely chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled and finely chopped
½ small onion, peeled and finely chopped
½ tsp. each ground cumin and coriander
pinch powdered turmeric
1 small sweet potato, peeled and chopped
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
1 tsp. tomato paste
½ cup low-sodium vegetable stock
2 tbsp. frozen peas
6-8 broccoli florets
½ cup light cream
1 tbsp. finely chopped fresh cilantro
1 cup rice

Heat the oil in a nonstick skillet. Put the gingerroot, garlic, and onion into a food processor and blend to a puree, adding 1 tablespoon water if the mixture is very thick. Add mixture to the skillet and cook on medium-low heat for 5 minutes. Add the spices, and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add the potato and carrot, along with the tomato paste and vegetable stock, reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook for 15-20 minutes, until the vegetable are soft.

Stir in the peas and broccoli florets, and cook for 5 minutes. Stir in the cream and cilantro, and cook for 3-4 minutes. Serve with boiled rice.

Permalink Reply by Jackie on January 19, 2012 at 5:17pm

This was a great opportunity to inspire creativity in the kitchen. We are two adults, a 6 year old boy and a 15 month old boy. This book is easy to use, with clear instructions. It is organized by age or developmental stage, and provides great tips on how to introduce new foods and create new food combos. The best part is that the recipes can be easily modified for the rest of the family or altered to incorporate new flavor combinations. So, far we chose a vegetable dish, cauliflower cheese, to review and the biscotti. The cauliflower recipe was simple to prepare and we used a grated, 4 cheese blend for the cheese sauce. This was a definite hit with both kids. My toddler loves vegetables and this was further validation. The bonus was the 6 year old demonstrating renewed interest in vegetables. Although he is reluctant , he will often try new foods, at least one bite, but I believed he was further enticed when I described this dish to him as 'sort of' cheesy, lumpy mashed potatoes. As for the biscotti, this recipe was a bit more time-consuming and more complicated. I have much less experience in the baking department and even less when it comes to dough. The recipe is simple but making it with the correct consistency and texture will require more practice. In terms of finger food or snack food for my toddler, this was perfect. As far as the rest of the family, I would like to make the recipe again but add some almond essence or vanilla extract, or possibly dried fruit. Overall, I recommend this book to families wanting to make homemade foods to introduce solids, to encourage creativity and simplicity, and to incorporate tastes from around the world.