You have this amazing opportunity and short window to shape your DS taste and you should really embrace it to offer the bigger variety of vegetables you possibly can.
Vegetables puree are great. Instead of steaming the carrots, cook them in 1 or 2 cm of water in a small pot, and then blend the carrot with the water. Not a single nutrient is lost and it will make sure the puree is smooth and wet enough to slide down the throat.
Until they learn to chew, they might spit it out, because the way you suck on milk and swallow food is a complete different tongue movement. To put yourself in his shoes, imagine swelling a massive spoonful of mashed potatoes without chewing on it first. It gets stuck. BY chewing, you produce saliva and also move the food.
At first, just dip the top of the spoon in the food, and then fill it maybe to 1/4. It is easier to swallow something that doesn't fill your mouth.
An alternative to puree is soups which allows you to try, taste and mix all the favours in the world. Pumpkin-carrot is a classic.
Make it tasty, something you would eat yourself, but NO salt.Think parsley, chives, onion, garlic, or roasting the veggies in the oven with extra virgin olive .
You are right in avoiding pouches. They are heavily sweet based, so a lot of apple, sweetcorn, carrot, and the combination they sometimes offer like blueberries and spinach (who eats that in real life"?) will create a taste for processed food, because the way the pouches are treated with high temperature and high pressure will alter the taste.
You can give porridge to a baby, but try to avoid the baby porridge cans which are sweetened with fruit concentrate or puree.
Once veggies have been offered and they are so many to choose from, move to fruits. Apple sauce is easy to do. cube an apple in a bit of water and let is simmer until very soft (20 min, add water if needed) then blend with the water and add cinnamon if you want. Pear can be cooked in the same way or if ripe, crushed with a fork
You can also do some soupy risottos, a rich vegetable broth with baby pasta and real parmesan.
Avoid all the ultra-processed baby food such as melty puffs, veggies straws and the like,. They are just junk food - corn flour and oil, like Doritos - with some nutrient-void veggie powder on top.
The same with rice cakes. Totally nutrients void.
The organic cereal bars are overly sweet. And sweetness is addictive.
Once you start offering industrial food, engineered and tested to be highly palatable , you will make it harder to accept vegetables and other real food.
Think peas, leeks, asparagus, vegetables with very different tastes.
Once chewing is mastered, you can offer them stabbed on a baby fork or as a piece.
Finger food is not needed to develop motor skills, even if it says so on packets of baby crips. Offer a tiny piece of food by all mean, but don't think your child will be behind because he doesn't have a snack.
Tuna from a can is very high in salt and doesn't taste like fresh fish, so as first fish, cook a small sole in butter, 4 minutes per side, and the flesh will slide from the bones, but still be careful.
Another fish is frozen cod, put the frozen piece in a pot of boiling water, when the fish floats it is cooked. Put some melted butter with a.bit of parsley on top.
I like the suggestion @sleepyhead makes. Too many parents forget about lentils, legumes, chickpeas. Again in form of soups, or stew. When it comes to hummus, the homemade one taste very different for a shop spread high in water and cheap oils.
A good book to understand how children eat is called "first bite" by Bee Wilson. It is not a cookbook or weaning book, but it explains how we eat, why we refuse certain food and I would say it is must read for anyone who will wean a baby.
Take it as an adventure to explore new way of preparing the vegetable you normally eat and also as an opportunity to try new vegetables as a family.
Food before 1 is a crucial phase. You are building his food preference.
You want him to eat a varied diet made of fresh food, avoid industrial food.