best books about weaning: what worked for you?

[lalaa]

I am leaving the country for three months when dd is 20 weeks old and will therefore be weaning while we are away. My access to the internet will be irratic during that time and I am frantically researching and planning so that I can be as prepared as possible. Without access to HV (a blessing?!) or mumsnet, I need to take the best weaning book around with me. Bearing in mind that I am not good in the kitchen and our kitchen equipment will be fairly basic (but I'll take a blender!), I'm looking for easy, quick receipes.....recommendations anyone?

You don't need recipies. Just steam then puree lots of nice fresh veggies and fruit and feed them singly or in combination. Faves in our house were carrots, peas, butternut squash, swede, potato, parsnip, apples, pears, peaches, banana, avocaso. And baby rice. I am sure that even someone not very good in the kitchen could manage that! All the best! Where are you going? Somewhere nice?

Agree with susanmt, pureed veg and fruit are the easiest, introduce one at a time in case your dd has any reaction to the new food. Will you have access to a freezer? If so take a few ice cube trays with you - prepare veg in batches and freeze in ice cube trays - once frozen, store the cubes in labelled freezer bags. This way you can start with one cube and gradually mix veg and increase amount without extra effort. I even extended this to meaty and fishy cubes to extend meals further as they got older.

I've used Annabel Karmel's Baby and Toddler cookbook as a guide for both mine. There are some good non-cook ideas. However one of the delights of moving abroad is access to a different variety of local fresh fruit and veg. As your baby will still be so young I would make the most of these. It might be worth taking along a steamer (you can buy collapsible ones to go over a small pan)to tenderise the veg before you blend.

BTW plain baby rice is not as available in Europe (lots of sweetened cereals though, even for bottles !!) as in UK so depending where you are travelling you may like to take a small packet along to start you off. Also sterilising materials are sometimes difficult to come by so you may want to think about one of those portable ones for either microwave(will you have one available?) or cold water tablets.

hth

LizS

If you need to travel light, lakeland have a wonderful gadget called a Babycook which is a steamer and blender in one. It's quite expensive (about £50 I think) but makes those early days so convinient as you can easily cook just one carrot etc in it - in a bigger blender you can't actually mix such small amounts.
We liked all of susanmt's suggestions except advocado, and also loved sweet potato. I did find butternut squash quite difficult to steam - well to peel - but used to just roast it whole in the oven and scoop out the flesh.

Agree with Susanmt & Jaybee. This time I didn't even bother labelling the bags, lucky dip dinners!

BTW I have the Annabel Carmel book (sold to me by my HV, I thought she would think I was a bad mother if I didn't buy it) and personally wish I hadn't wasted my money on it. I tend to take more of a Nigella Lawson in How to Eat (bit of a bulky book to take abroad mind you) approach to weaning, just puree up all sorts of veg and fruit, then once they are 6/7 months start pureeing or mashing up the family food (anything homecooked, with no added salt or sugar, no stock cubes etc). Finger foods from this stage too. HTH.

Thanks to all for your responses....
susanmt, I'm off to Greece for the spring/early summer. Leaving early April and although approaching with some trepidation re all the things that could happen with dd, am also looking forward to the sunshine and a bit of R&R!

Sounds fab!! Wish it was me!!!