rice-does anyone cook their own for baby?

[alibo]

Saw a recent thread about problems with baby rice; someone was recommending using homemade rice for weaning. Could anyone advise on what type of rice to use, how long to cook it for, and can you freeze it in ice cube portions?

I use flaked rice -- available from Sainsbury's in the same area as pudding rice, for a fraction of the price of baby rice. For completely smooth consistency you can puree it after cooking, but I've never bothered, and the baby eats it just the same.

Cook as for porridge oats, ie. simmer in a pan with milk or water for five mins or so. You can mix with fruit/milk to make rice pudding. For savoury things I put the veg (eg. carrots) and rice all in the pan together and cook, as it needs roughly the same length of time.

It freezes fine, assuming none of the ingredients you're using have been frozen before. I don't use the ice-cube thing myself, instead I decant into little portion-sized pots and freeze those. But I'm sure you could ice-cube it if you wanted to.

hth

This is our family recipe for Congee, chinese rice porridge. You can start off with just rice and then build up to adding sweet potato, chicken, carrots, broccoli, barley etc. You can firm up the texture as your baby starts to learn how to chew.

Take half of a cup (or measuring unit of your choice, it's the ratio that's importatn) rice, Thai fragrant for example NOT easy cook or basmati and wash it in three changes of cold water.

Put it in a small pan and cover it with 2 and a half cups of water (or five times as much water) and bring it very slowly to the boil.

Simmer it for 30 minutes stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.

The grains should have swelled and become mushy and it should look like wallpaper paste. Allow to cool and then blend/puree for weaning purposes, or leave as it is for older babies.

It can be frozen in cubes and microwaved or steamed on a dish to serve.

I would recommend cooking with half homemade chicken stock once you are ready to start introducing meat to your baby

HTH

I used normal ground rice for ds - it's slightly grainy, but OK. Only takes a minute in the microwave to cook.

I used normal rice and just cooked it a little more than usual. Then when mushing it in the blender I added extra hot water to keep it liquid rather than gooey.

thanks for rice tips folks, might give my own a try!! xx