February 06, 2008
Issue #19
6 Feb 2008What's in this issue...
- Our New E-Book
- Canned Fruits and Veggies For Baby Food?
- Visit our New Pages
- Would You Like a Baby Food Forum?
- Win a Leapfrog 'Rhyming Reflections' Crib and Floor Mirror
- Tip of the Month
- This Month's Winners
- Safety Recalls
- Our Featured Product Review
- Visit Our "Website of the Month"
- This Month's Recipe - Apple Pancakes
Welcome to February's edition of Baby Bites!
We hope that 2008 got off to a wonderful start for you and that not too many of those New Year's Resolutions have been broken!
It's been a busy month here at Homemade Baby Food Recipes and - as you'll see - we have some changes planned for our site that we'd love your input on.
One change that you may have already noticed is that we are running short 'audio advertisements' on just a few of our pages.
Our site is supported by advertising - and the audio ads we are trying out are not just new to us - they're new to the internet as a whole.
So we'd like your feedback on ads of this nature.
If you find them annoying or distracting then please let us know as soon as possible.
We want our site to remain a useful resource for parents - and we want to know if this new form of advertising detracts from that.
SPECIAL NOTE
We've had some reports that visitors have been unable to click on some of our links. Unfortunately, this is because some e-mail clients do not allow certain links to be clickable and is beyond our control. If this happens to you - and you can see the link - try copying and pasting it into your browser. If you can't see the link, then try forwarding the newsletter to a different e-mail address.
If you have any problems, please let us know and we'll do our best to help.
Our New E-Book
If you are a subscriber to our blog, then you'll know that, in mid-January, we launched our second e-book - The Homemade Baby Food Recipes Collection.
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Following the success of our original, comprehensive e-book, Tempting Tiny Taste Buds - our latest book brings together 50 favourite recipes from our blog, in a convenient, 'downloadable' format. That means that you can easily browse the recipes offline - or even print them out to keep in the kitchen for handy reference!
This useful book, packed with mouthwatering recipes, can be on your hard drive within minutes and is available wherever you are in the world!
And - as a thank you for ordering - we'll also send you ANOTHER e-book, full of fun ideas for entertaining your children, ABSOLUTELY FREE.
Click here to find out more...
Is it OK to use canned vegetables and fruits in my baby food recipes?
This article has been moved - and you can now read it here.
New and updated pages
- There's a special extra little someone to think about this Valentine's Day - and we help you make sure he doesn't miss out on all the fun with our yummy...
- Lentils are nutritious little legumes, packed with goodness for your baby and very easy to incorporate into your recipes. Learn more about how to choose and cook lentils for your little one - and how to avoid them giving your baby gas - on our
- We've recently updated our 'Free Stuff' page with more links to companies that offer samples, coupons and discounts to parents with young children. Most offers apply to the US, UK and Canada - but some are available internationally. So why not visit our 'Free Stuff For Baby' page and see if there's anything you may find useful!
- Is your baby on a wheat free diet? If so, you'll be pleased to hear that we now have a page full of birthday cake recipes just for him.
Would you like to see a forum on our website?
This month, we're asking for YOUR input to help us plan a potential new development to our site!
We are thinking about setting up a forum for our visitors, to allow you to easily share questions and ideas with other members. Using a forum can be lots of fun - and it can also be extremely useful, particularly when other forum members are going through the same ups and downs of introducing solids as you!
Before we go ahead with this change, we'd love to hear your thoughts!
Would you find a forum a useful addition to our website?
Would you enjoy making contact with other parents, in order to share tips, ideas... or just to let off a little steam?
We'd very much appreciate it if you'd take a moment to let us know, by casting your vote here.
You will see on the voting form that we would also be looking for volunteers to act as moderators on our forum. A moderator's job is to make sure that nothing unsuitable is posted on the boards and that everything stays friendly! A moderator also helps out other members where they can (directing them to useful resources, for example).
We would, of course, go through the details more thoroughly with anyone who'd like to volunteer!
Being a forum moderator is not only fun - it can be really rewarding to help other parents! So if you'd be interested in moderating part of our forum for us, then please include your email address in the relevant section of the voting form!
We really look forward to hearing your thoughts - thank you for helping us make our site as 'parent-friendly' as possible.
Review Baby Products and Win!
This month we launch our new Baby Product Reviews section - where we ask YOU to tell us about your favorite baby products... and the best review each month wins a prize!
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We also hope that this page will become a handy resource to turn to when thinking about buying new items for your baby - with so many products on the market to choose from, it's nice to have some personal recommendations from other parents!
Submitting your review is easy... and if you're chosen as the winner, we'll notify you via email at the end of the month!
Come and join the fun and get reviewing now!
Tip of the month
This month's tip comes from Christina in San Francisco, US. She suggested that - instead of freezing baby's food in ice trays - why not try Silicone Cupcake LinersWe think this is a great idea! We do actually include the
Tovolo Perfect Cube Trays
on our Homemade Baby Food Accessories page, which produce nice square cubes that don't break uo when you remove them.
The advantage of using cupcake liners is - of course - their size! Once your baby's meals become a bit more substantial, then the ice cube sized portions become a little small and you may need to use two or more at a time. Cupcake liners, on the other hand, will hold a far more generous serving - and we even found this handy Silicone Muffin Mold
that would be perfect for the job, too!
What's so good about silicone?
With all the concerns about chemicals leaching into foods from plastics, silicone is fast growing in popularity as a safe alternative. Silicone does not absorb the taste, odour or colour of foods it comes into contact with - unlike many plastics, that bear traces of baby's sweet potato puree for years to come!Silicone is also non-stick and very supple, making it REALLY easy to work with (we're slowly replacing all our bakeware with silicone at the moment for that very reason!).
A good investment
We particularly like this month's tip as it helps avoid buying something exclusively for making baby food and instead makes use of a product designed for something else!And that means that you'll get plenty of use out of it - even AFTER your little one has moved on to big people food!
Thank you, Christina, for sharing your tip!
This month's winners
We've had loads more entries for our Baby of the Month competition and you can see this month's winner - plus more of our favourite pictures - on our Baby of the Month page.Sending in your little one's photograph is easy - and you'll find the entry form at the foot of the page!
If you want to see your baby on our site...
you may also like to start a baby food blog, or simply make a 'one-off' page to show off your little one!
Sarah from the US was the winner of our $20 Amazon voucher this month, with her delicious recipe for Baby's Italian Chicken Stew. She told us... "How exciting! I'm on amazon.com about every other day so this will come in handy!
For YOUR chance at winning, please send us your original baby food recipe using our Competition Entry Form. Remember - you don't have to be Gordon Ramsay... we're looking for nutritious and delicious recipes that babies will enjoy, however simple they may be!
Come and see Sarah's recipe - plus the 'runner-up' recipes for 'Speedy Scrambled Egg' and 'Two Minute Breakfast' on our Baby Food Ideas page.
Safety Recalls
Here's this month's round up of children's products that have been recalled. Please check through to see if you have any of these items - then click on the link to go directly to our blog for more details of the recall and how to return the item if you have it. Please pass this list on to friends and family who you feel may be affected.
Early Learning Centre Face Paint Colours (UK)
Morrison's Own Brand Yogurt (UK)
Woolworths Chad Valley Wooden Construction Train (UK)
Recall of Inflatable Rings (Australia)
Play Stoves By Kmart and Sears (US)
Large Cans of Green Beans and Garbanzo Beans (US)
Magnetic Construction Sets (US)
Toy Wooden Block and Train Sets (US)
Baby Einstein 'Baby Neptune Soothing Seascape' Crib Toys (US)
Our featured product review
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When our son was a baby, there was one piece of music that was GUARANTEED to stop him crying - even in the midst of a major tantrum! It may sound odd, but that piece of music was 'My Heart Will Go On' by Celine Dion (remember it from Titanic?). I remember taking that CD everywhere I went - particularly in the car, where I knew I would have a peaceful trip as long as I pressed 'repeat'!
When you find some music that your baby really LOVES, then it can be a real life-saver! I must admit that poor Celine did get a bit tedious after the hundredth time of playing, though - so this month we're pleased to tell you about a fantastic CD that seems to be delighting the little folk AND the big ones, too!
The African Playground is a compilation of music from African artists, with enthralling rhythms and beats that get everybody's toes tapping! The CD is described as "...an entertaining and educational musical expedition to Africa for children and families", although at this stage, of course, your baby is a little young to appreciate the cultural information provided!
What he WILL appreciate is the lively tempo and catchy tunes... and he won't be the only one!
Several parents have recommended this CD to us after seeing the magic it worked on their babies. One told us
"We tried every baby CD you could think of in the car until a friend lent us this one! It was great... instant peace (William hates the car!) and we're telling everyone about it now!"
A CD compilation that appeals to babies and GENUINELY appeals to adults, too, is a rare find! If you'd like to give this musical miracle a try, then the
Putumayo African Playground CD
is available from Shop.com.
Let us know if it works for you!
Website of the Month - FreeRice
This month's featured website has a brilliantly simple concept - you play an entertaining vocabulary game and earn grains of rice that are distributed through the UN to help end world hunger.
Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it?
Yet this simple idea has achieved amazing success and, since its start in October 2007, has raised over 15 billion grains of rice. It is estimated that 1 billion grains will feed 50,000 people for one day.
So how does it all work?
When you visit FreeRice.com, you'll see a word, with four possible definitions. Click on the one you think is the correct answer - if you're right, 20 grains of rice are donated to the United Nations World Food Program.
So who pays for the rice?
Each time you play a new word, an advertising banner appears at the bottom of the screen. Those advertisers pay for the rice. FreeRice.com makes no profit whatsoever from this game.
Apart from the fact that playing this game is actually doing something worthwhile, it's really good fun, too! If you spend a lot of time at home with your little one, you don't always get the opportunity to exercise your vocabulary!
This game lets you feel smug for a little while (we got lots right and were feeling very proud of ourselves) - then it moves you to harder levels and you begin to learn some great new words!
For instance, we now know what a 'porringer' is (it's actually a shallow bowl with a handle from which the Europeans used to eat their porridge!). So if, on our site, we start suggesting you serve baby's breakfast in a porringer, you'll know we've been busy earning rice!
Come and join in the fun by playing the game here - and don't forget to recommend it to all your friends! The more people that use this site, the more quickly it will achieve its very worthy aim!
Recipe of the Month - Oven Baked Sweet Potato Fish Cakes
A good, homemade fish cake tastes nothing like its store-bought counterpart - and, in our opinion, fishcakes are sadly underrated as a delicious and satisfying food.
This recipe combines the goodness of both fish AND sweet potato - creating a meal that's nutritious and perfect for babies who like to feed themselves!
You will need...
8oz (1 cup) cooked sweet potato*
8oz (1 cup) cooked white potato*
10oz (1 1/4 cups) boneless white fish
1 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter
1tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
8 fl oz (1 cup) milk
around 2tbsp flour
little oil
*The easiest way to prepare the potatoes for this recipe is simply to bake them in their skins. Put the white potato into the oven before the sweet one, as it will take a little longer to cook.
Preheat the oven to 400 deg F (200 deg C).
Cook the fish by gently simmering it in milk until it flakes with a fork.
Once cooked, drain the fish (reserving the milk it was cooked in) and flake it thoroughly with the fork, double checking carefully for bones.
Mash the cooked white and sweet potato in a bowl, then beat in the butter, 3tbsp of the reserved milk and the parsley.
Add the cooked, flaked fish and mix well.
Grease a baking pan and spoon little mounds of the mixture on to it.
Flatten each mound, sprinkle with a little four and drizzle with oil.
Bake for around 20-30 mins, until the fish cakes are golden brown.
If you wish to prepare these fish cakes in advance for future use, divide the mixture into portions and freeze it BEFORE you cook it in the oven. Then you can just thaw the portions and cook them as needed.
More fish recipes
More sweet potato ideas
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