To Sieve Or Not To Sieve

[Bea]

Help! Just started weaning with the four month old now and finding it a bit time consuming, pushing carrots through a sieve! I tried to use my usual trusty hand blender but there was such a small amount, the blades just whizzed around in empty space! My friend suggested a mouli mill, and I found one for sale online at Lakeland limited, but it was £24!! So does anyone know where I could get one cheaper?, or should I just persevere with the old spoon and sieve!!? Maybe I should get one of those blenders with a little bowl attachment? You know the ones they use on Ready Steady Cook a lot!? Or am I just suffering from Baby Brains?

Bea

Do things in bulk - cook lots of carrots, parsnips, turnip etc. then puree with a hand blender and put into ice cube trays. Then you have lots of 'meals' from not very much effort and you only need to do every few weeks (at this age). The best ice cube tray was the one I found in John Lewis which was made from rubber and could bend - rigid ones snap when trying to extract frozen solids. Hope this helps.

I get all the stuff about freezing in ice cube trays and everything, but what about the sterilising stuff? Do you sterilise your ice cube tray? and i don'y know about your freezer, but all sorts of gunk is always dropping onto my ice cube tray? Do you wrap your tray in a plastic bag? or do i just have a really messy freezer?

Bea

i wrap my ice cube tray in a couple of layers of cling film. definitely try and get a rubber one! HTH.

I never bothered with sieving anything, and just used to mash thoroughly. A friend of mine says one thing she'll never do again is try to sieve banana through a tea strainer, LOL!!

I'm with Suedonim! I'm a masher, too. Didn't once use a sieve.

Horrible confession: to ensure my sons, as weaning babies, got a full quota of different foods, I used to buy all unmashable foods ready made in jars. Organic to salve my guilt. Cost more, but gave me the luxury of time.

Bea, just to add what I did ... like you I started with the sieve, got too much! Then did bigger quantities with little Braun blender.

Sterilised the ice cube tray, then put it inside a freezer bag, tie it. When frozen, pop them out and keep them as individual pieces in a bag. Its that easy.

After a while it all gets easier, and you can get mashing into a fine art, some things are so smooth and lovely anyway, like baked butternut squash and sweet potato.

Good luck!

Well you guys impress me, I sterilized my ice cube tray once, then kept forgetting. I never wrapped it, just popped the cubs out into freezer bags so i could do a second btch. Within about 6 weeks she was eating about 6 ice cubs a time, so I just used those little tiny baxes you always get when you buy a pack of freezer boxes (you know the ones that are too small for anything). I also used my Braun handblender loads, and now I still use it a bit for meat casseroles that I make a lot, but I whizz untill lumpy. i seived once, and that was enough!

It never occurred to me to sterilise the ice cube tray! I remember getting paranoid in the beginning about sterilising a dummy - surely once it touched her clothes it wasn't sterile anymore. I boiled it in a pan and completely forgot about it. It ending up setting the smoke alarm off. I think we're safer dirty.

Also, I used sterlising tablets. My health visitor mentioned that the bleach can give some babies thrush so you should rinse the bottles. But what with? Cooled boiled water kept in a jug in the fridge. But wouldn't you have to sterlise the jug? Surely, once it's not boiling it quickly becomes non-sterile anyway? Where does it end? Sometimes I think we're a bit too obsessed with "cleanliness". And those anti-bacterial handwashes etc?????????

Aha, a woman after my own heart, Tinker! It never occured to me, either, to sterilise ice cube trays, let alone put them into a plastic bag. My mum was right all along - I am a slut!

Count me in too in the nonsterilizing brigade....In the best friends guide to pregnancy and motherhood, Vicki Iovine said she did not sterilise anything after baby number one ( she has four) but figured the dishwasher would get everything clean anough....

another oops! on the sterilising the ice cube tray front!

Another 'oops' - didn't occur to me either about sterilising/covering ice cube trays!

Jasper, I thought that book was great, very funny! If I had a dishwasher, I would probably do the same with no 2, I think.

I never sieved a thing for my 4 kids, I either used the blender or mashed.

As for sterilising- I used to sterilise the dummies every morning in a food-steamer for the first 3 months, after that everyting just got dumped in the dishwasher.

It has never even occurred to me to sterilise an ice cube tray!!!

Hoorah! i'm glad i'm not the only one who thinks sterilising is all a bit of a palaver, sometimes i think i'm doing it just to do it, as i'm sure there's a zillion germs out there and one or two won't hurt!!!

You're right about the exposure thing, you don't want to wrap them up in a bubble as that will make them less tolerant to all sorts of ickiness! If it was upto her dad, she'd be out in the garden eating worms and digging in the garden...(she's only 4 months!!!)

Bea

I didnt sieve any food for ds, straight into the kenwood and he really had lumpy food from day one and has never really liked runny food. I didnt sterelise ice cube trays either just gave them a good wash in clean hot water. And I didnt cover them either, just straight on the top shelf of the freezer. Sterelised dummies to start then just run them under really hot water or from the kettle.

I am so glad to be able to confess to like minded people that it never occured to me to sterilise the ice cube tray or his spoon and bowl!

The research on a bit of dirt being "good" is my mantra!

I totally recommend the rubber ice cube tray (also bought mine from John Lewis) so simple. I din't actually sterilise it properly just a good wash up & rinsed with boing water from the kettle. I was also told by my HV that if you use the sterlising tablet you should rinse the stuff in cooled boiled water. (Also read it on a pack of sterilising tablets) So I was so glad I had a steam sterilizer!! Steamed in 10 mins!!

Incidently the end cycle of most Diswashers is a 15 min steam so yes I too depended on my dishwasher from about 10 months of age.

Finally I batch cooked & froze said foods in ice trays & transfered to freezer bags etc. Then as portions needed to get bigger I froze the food in used margarine/butter containers. They are so EASY to pop frozen food out of and you can make the portions as big or as small as you need. They also cost no extra money as you get them free at the end of the butter/margarine useage!!

Bea,
I've just started weaning my 4 month old baby and I just put a load of carrots or whatever, after they have been cooked of course, into a liquidiser, and they are as smooth as anything. Even better if you add some water in from the kettle.
Another tip. I've collected loads of those black 35mm film containers and sterilised them and then put the food into those for freezing. It's great for weaning in the early stages for when you go out. Just take one or two film cases with you.

Hate seives!! If you've got one of the really fine ones it takes forever to get the left over bits of food out! Had to use a toothbrush to get it out. Eventually bought a mini processor from Boots. Don't see much point in sterilising for too long, especially when they're rolling about the floor getting grubby hands, where do they put their grubby little mits? straight in their mouths of course! Are we supposed to sterlise them too?!?!?