Issue #016
7 Nov 2007

What's in this issue...

• We're going through the change!
• When can I give my baby strawberries?
• Visit our new pages
• Our competitions - this month's winners and details of our Christmas competition!
• Cute as can be - your babies!
• Baby care "tip of the month"
• Safety recalls
• Our featured product review
• Visit our "website of the month"
• This month's subscribers-only recipe - Creamy Turkey and Grapes

We're going through the change!

You may have noticed that some of the pages on our site look (quite) a bit different to the others! That's because we're treating ourselves to a makeover - which, we hope, will make it easier for you to find your way around all the information on our site.

Although things may LOOK a little different here and there, ALL of our pages are still in place - so if you happen to find anything that's not working as it should, then please let us know!

We'd also love to hear your comments (good or bad) about the new design. So don't be shy - if you think there's something we could be doing better, we encourage you to write and tell us!

We look forward to hearing from you.

When can I give my baby strawberries?

This article has been moved...

and you can now read it here!

New and updated pages

• If you celebrate Thanksgiving, then you may be wondering whether or not it is safe to share your Thanksgiving dinner with your little one. Well, the good news is that a traditional Thanksgiving meal contains many nutritious foods - and there are some very tasty meals that you can easily prepare for your baby using the ingredients you've cooked for the rest of the family.

  Visit our Thanksgiving baby food recipes here

• Thinking about expanding your baby's menu with a wonderful new flavour? Then visit our new Melon Baby Food page, which is packed with information about this nutritious fruit and suggests lots of ways you can serve it to your tiny diner!

• Did you know that there is a highly nutritious ingredient that can easily be added to many of your baby food recipes? An ingredient that is high in protein and iron, yet has such a subtle taste that it blends well with both savoury dishes and sweet?

  Yes, this wonderful ingredient DOES exist! It's wheat germ... and you can read all about its benefits and uses here.

• We've revamped our 'Homemade Baby Food Accessories' page - so if you're looking for baby food storage trays (including a non-plastic option), cooling dishes, groovy sandwich cutters and more, then come and take a look at our favourites!

Our competitions - see this month's winners!

Thank you for all your entries to our competitions last month.

You can see November's beautiful Baby of the Month here - plus you'll find the form to enter YOUR baby into our competition at the end of the page.

We also have three yummy new recipes - for Toddlers' Favorite Breakfast, Cuban Black Beans and Plantains and Cracked Wheat with Chicken and Potato - sent in by our readers for our monthly 'Baby Food Recipes Competition'.

There's a $20 Amazon voucher for the sender of our favourite recipe - so come on Mummy and Daddy chefs - Share Your Recipes and Win!

In addition to our regular recipe competition...

We have a special bonus competition this month - exclusively for subscribers to our newsletter!

We would like you to come up with a tasty baby food recipe for Christmas day! It should be suitable for babies from 6 months of age and use at least some of the ingredients from a traditional Christmas meal.

Here's what you'll win -

• A $50 (or local equivalent) Amazon voucher

• A FREE copy of our Ebook - Tempting Tiny Taste Buds

• Your recipe will appear on our Christmas Baby Food page

Please note that, by submitting your recipe, you agree that we may publish your recipe on our website, either now or in the future.

We welcome entries from visitors all over the world and look forward to seeing your Christmas baby food ideas!

Cute as can be - your babies!

We've now set up blogs and special pages for Mums and babes from Canada, Malaysia, the US, India, Greece, New Zealand and Australia. Wow!!

It was lovely to receive your photos and read about your babies!

Please come and find out more about setting up your own page, or to add to a blog you've already started!

Or you may just like to come and have a peek at everyone else's! This is a fun way to make contact and share ideas with other Mums from around the world, so please feel free to leave comments and ask questions.

Tip of the month - Be a 'veggie sneak' with Bubble and Squeak!

So this month's tip is a marvellous way to get your tot to tuck into an assortment of healthy vegetables - without even realizing he's doing it!

So what is bubble and squeak?

With a little modification, the traditional bubble and squeak recipe can be used to create a yummy and wholesome finger food for your baby.

First, you need potato...

The best potatoes for mashing are floury varieties such as Russet, Yukon Gold, Caribe and Idaho.

Mash the potato with a little butter and milk if you wish, but

• DON'T puree it - this makes it sticky and hard to work with

• DON'T make it too thin - you will be forming it into patties and it needs to hold its shape

You may like to make your baby's bubble and squeak with sweet potato instead of white. Sweet potato isn't a traditional ingredient - but breaking with tradition can be fun! And, of course, sweet potatoes are healthier for your baby.

Add the veggies

You can use pretty much ANY vegetable you like - carrots, broccoli, courgette (zucchini)... whatever's available!

If you don't have any cooked veggies, then finely dice some fresh vegetables of your choice and saute in a little olive oil (throw in a little crushed garlic, too, if your baby likes it). Once the vegetables have softened, stir them into the mashed potato.

Make into shapes

The final step

Heat a little olive oil in a frying pan/skillet and fry (turning once) until golden.

Or

Brush with a little olive oil and bake at 350 deg F (180 deg C) until nicely golden on top.

And there you have it - a little taste of England, full of hidden goodness!

Read more ideas for inspiring your little one to enjoy his veggies

Safety Recalls

Another lo-o-o-ng list of recalled products this month, including many toys found to be high in lead. Please check through our list to see if you have any of these items at home - and please spread the word if you know of any other parents who may be affected.

• Campbell's Soup is recalled in the US because some cans have been found to contain pieces of plastic.

• Wooden Pull-Along Alphabet & Math Blocks Wagons, Wooden Pull-Along Learning Blocks Wagons, 10-in-1 Activity Learning Carts, and Flip-Flop Alphabet Blocks, Baby Einstein Discover & Play Color Blocks, Pirates of the Caribbean Medallion Squeeze Lights, Frankenstein Tumblers, Children’s Toy Decorating Sets sold at Toys R Us, Key Chains and Bookmarks and Journals are all recalled due to lead hazards.

• Marks and Spencer Boys' Dungarees are recalled in the UK because of a potential choking hazard.

• Wiggles Joggers are recalled in Australia because they may pose a choking hazard.

• Children's Plastic Cups are recalled by Starbucks in the US because they pose choking and laceration hazards.

• Cub Scouts Totem Badges are recalled in the US because surface paints are high in lead.

• Baby's Cold Medicines are recalled in the US amid fears that parents are unwittingly 'overdosing' their children.

• Collectible Mini Racing Helmets, Bendable Dinosaur Toys, Travel Art Sets, Disney Winnie-the-Pooh Play Sets, J.C. Penney's Deluxe Art Sets and J.C. Penney's Breyer Stirrup Ornaments are recalled due to concerns over lead levels.

• Wooden Toy Boxes are recalled in Australia because they can close involuntarily.

• Mothercare 3-in-1 Convertible Car Walkers are recalled in the UK because supporting clips can fail.

• Baby Yoplait and Yoplait Elivae are recalled in Australia because of possible contamination with metal.

• Dunkin’ Donuts Glow Sticks are recalled in the US because of possible choking and strangulation hazards.

• Tabletop Puppet Theaters, Cool Clip and Mini Cool Clip Bookmarks and Skull Pails Filled With Halloween Candy Mix are recalled in the US because surface paints are high in lead.

• Toy Swords are recalled in the US because they pose a laceration hazard to children.

• Tesco Halloween Spiders are recalled in the UK because they may pose a strangulation hazard to children.

• Lamb is recalled in the UK because it may contain meat from sheep not meant for human consumption. This recall was expanded on October 24th and again on October 25th to include new items.

• Jeep Sahara Ltd Portable Cots are recalled in Australia due to the potential dangers of entanglement and strangulation.

• Mattel toys sold at Asda in the UK are recalled because they should have been returned to the manufacturer instead of being placed in stores.
  

• Boots 'Learning Through Play Tiny Towns' are recalled in the UK because surface paints are too high in lead.

• Game Pieces Sold with 'Cars' Backpacks are recalled in the US because they pose aspiration and intestinal hazards.

• Elmo shaped bean bags are recalled in Australia because safety warnings are not properly attached.

• Bumbo Baby Sitter Seats are recalled and parents are advised to heed warnings after children fall from Bumbos placed on tables.

• WeGlow Children’s Metal Jewelry; Beary Cute, Expressions, and Sassy & Chic Children’s Metal Jewelry; Go Diego Go Animal Rescue Boats; Jo-Ann Stores Children’s Toy Gardening Tools; Football Bobble Head Cake Decorations and Purple Halloween Pails with Witch Decorations are all recalled due to lead hazards.

• Beef products are recalled in Canada due to potential E.coli contamination.

• Imaginarium City Tower Train Sets are recalled in Australia because surface paints are high in lead.

• Woolworths Christmas Collection Inflatable Snowing Globes are recalled in Australia because they contain small polystyrene beads that may present a choking hazard to children.

• Woolworths Worthit! Orange Whoopee Cushions are recalled in the UK because they contain excessive levels of lead.

• Ribbit Board Games, Elite Operations Toys from Toys "R" Us, 'Ugly Teeth' Party Favors and 'Galaxy Warrior's Toy Figures are recalled due to high lead levels.

• Pearl-like Bead Attachments sold with Girl’s Gift Sets are recalled because thye are too high in lead.

• Early Learning Centre 'My First Prams' and 'Car Seats' are recalled in the UK because small poppers can present a choking hazard to children.

• Ground beef is recalled in the US due to possible E.coli contamination.

Our featured product review - Pureeing Made Easy!

Buying special equipment to make your own baby food isn't essential - but it can certainly make life a lot easier.

It's possible to create perfect purees by pushing foods through a sieve - but if you plan on cooking in bulk for your baby, then the sieve method can be a very time consuming chore!

So what's the easiest way to puree large quantities of food for your baby?

Well, we recommend using a hand blender - and the Cuisinart Cordless Rechargeable Hand Blender is one of our favourites!

We've always LOVED using hand blenders for baby food because they're so convenient - you can just blend food in the pot you cooked it in, then pop the blending shaft under the tap to clean it. It really doesn't get an easier than that!

Or does it?

The Cuisinart Cordless Rechargeable Hand Blender has the edge over most hand blenders because it's cordless - and that's actually a huge bonus!

For one thing, you can blend food on the stove top, without worrying about melting a trailing cord. Being able to move freely around the kitchen, pureeing as you go, really does make preparing big batches of baby food as easy as can be!

The other big advantage of a cordless blender is that you can take it with you when you're out and about. Once fully charged, it will run for about 15 minutes - plenty of time to whip up a day's worth of food for your little one when you're on the go.

Even after your baby has grown out of pureed foods, the Cuisinart blender will go on being a useful accessory and is ideal for making sauces and smoothies!

The Cuisinart CSB-44N Cordless Rechargeable Hand Blender is currently available for the low price of $40.00 - a great investment to make life a little easier!

Website of the Month

Our featured site this month is the excellent, non-profit, free to use Freecycle.org.

The concept of the site is simple. Every day, across the world, people throw away perfectly good items that they no longer have any use for. Yet there are many other individuals in their neighbourhood who certainly COULD make use of these items. Freecycle.org brings the two groups together.

The Freecycle group operates in 75 countires and has millions of members. And by allowing its members to advertise items that they want to give away, or those that they need, the group says that it is keeping over 300 tons a day out of landfills - an impressive and worthwhile achievement!

The service offered by the Freecycle group is absolutely ideal for parents with young families. Some items that we buy for our children get very little use and may still be in very good condition by the time they are no longer needed. So it makes perfect sense to donate an item that someone else could use via Freecycle! Then, if there's something that YOU need in the future, you may find that another member has donated that very item!

We hope that more and more parents will sign up as members, so that this becomes the first port of call when looking for baby equipment AND passing on used items. Not only cost effective, this is an excellent way to reduce the worldwide problem of unnecessary waste.

Visit Freecycle.org to sign up to a group near you and start today by donating your unwanted items!

This month's recipe - Creamy Turkey and Grapes (7 months+)

There are many ways in which you can use the leftovers for your baby - check out our chicken recipes for some ideas that will work equally well with turkey, instead!

But here's another interesting and unusual recipe you can try, that combines turkey with other healthy ingredients to produce a gourmet treat for your little one!

You can use this dish in a variety of ways - for older babies, it makes a wonderful sandwich filling and is delicious served wrapped in a wholewheat tortilla. It also makes a yummy topping for a baked potato, or you could serve it with strips of toasted bread, bagels or pita!

To make the grape puree...

Put the grapes into a saucepan and cover them with water. Warm them gently for around 10 mins, but do not boil them. This loosens the skins and makes it easy to push them through a metal sieve, leaving the skins behind.

You will need...

4oz cooked turkey, chopped very finely
2oz grapes, pureed
1/2 avocado, mashed
1oz unflavoured, natural yogurt
little pinch dried tarragon (optional)
little pinch freshly ground black pepper (optional)

The beauty of this recipe is the ease of preparation - all you need to do is stir the above ingredients together, then chill.

For older babies, or if you plan to share this dish with your little one, you may like to add a little fresh lemon juice.

Bon appetit!