The other thing that may be useful is a pressure cooker. To cook food before blending, especially meat. Some locals are afraid of pressure cookers, especially after the Boston incident. This is unwarranted.
You can now buy the ones that work with magnetic induction hobs. There are also those that are free standing electric, but I can't seem to find a new one with icons on it, only hanzi.
The advantages of the pressure cooker include:
- completely tenderizes meat, this makes blending much simpler.
- less water means the nutrients that boil out are caught in a more usable quantity of soup.
- bones can be almost dissolved, giving lots of calcium in the soup.
- and of course, energy and time saving.
1. Remember the phrase "Food before 1 is just for fun!" They should still be getting all calories from breastmilk or formula.
2. Look up Baby Led Weaning. At first it involves placing sticks of appropriate food in front of them. They get to decide what to do with it! We used avocado (hated it), broccoli (loved it), and cooked sweet potato (loved it). Eventually you can move to small morsels, noodles, other finger food, and the idea is to introduce them early to the "adult" food complete with all the tastes you hope they will love! We still love applesauce, yogurt, and cottage cheese, but I blended exactly nothing :-) It helps them learn to chew instead of just swallow, but be warned that there will be gagging. It's not choking though.
