Hannah should be eating lumpy foods now as 1) she has more teeth and 2) chewing helps (indirectly) in speech.
Just the other day, I made cream of mushroom soup for our dinner and used some of the soup to mix with steamed rice for her too. I’m glad she took to the taste of mushrooms positively as both Yang and I love mushrooms. :)
Okay, dinner tonight. I heated up 100 ml of frozen, homemade tomato sauce and added minced beef. At the same time, I had a small bowl of rice steaming in another pot. The whole process of preparation and cooking took no more than 30 minutes.
Once the minced beef tomato sauce was ready, it was poured over the steamed rice (I added more water to get very moist rice). Just before feeding Hannah, the rice is mixed thoroughly with the sauce.
She enjoyed it :) Yay.
Additional note: I tried adding 2 tbsps of finely shredded carrot to the sauce at the start of heating it and the whole dish becomes even more flavourful with a slight crunchiness! :)
Can u share how to make the tomato paste? If my baby has no teeth yet can eat? 10 mths plus. The paste can freeze for how long? Tks!
Hi ‘mama’ (hee hee),
I got the recipe for the tomato sauce at http://littlegastronomy.blogspot.com/2009/06/tomato-sauce.html You might want to adjust the amount of water added depending on the amount of capsicum and tomatoes added. I only used 1 tbsp of balsamic vinegar as I found 2 tbsps to be rather strong. If you feel that the veggies were too hard for your toothless baby to chew, you could puree everything once the sauce have cooled down after cooking.
According to the mummy of that blog, the sauce could be kept frozen for at least 2 weeks. I bought tiny plastic containers (about 120 ml) with lids to freeze the sauce. Ice cube trays is another storage option.
If you’d like to add any meat to the sauce, just add slices of meat to the heated sauce for a few minutes to cook and then puree the whole mixture before adding it to soft rice. :)
Hello! Tks for sharing the source for the recipe! Took me quite a while to find the balsamic vinegar at ntuc… hope to try the recipe this wkn!
May I ask if the whole garlic needs to be used for the recipe or just one clove?
If I follow the recipe, how many servings of sauce (for a toddler’s meal) do I get? Tk Q!
Hi ‘mama’,
You’re welcomed :)
As for the garlic, just use 1 clove. The recipe should yield about 4 servings, about 100ml each. BTW, when I first let my girl try a bit of the sauce without meat and rice, she didn’t like it. Perhaps on its own the taste was overpowering. However, the sauce is quite mild by the adults’ standard :)
Have fun experimenting! :D
Hi! I finally got to try out the recipe over the public holiday. Sadly I think it turned out to be quite a flop. :(
The capsicum was still too hard after all the cooking n the sauce looked too watery though I followed the recipe to a T… anyway bottom line is dd didn’t like it. :( Any advice for improvement?
BTW where do u buy the freezer-safe containers shown in ur pic? They look real handy!
Hi mama,
I’m sorry to hear that the sauce did not turn out quite right. The same thing happened to me too!
I just did a new batch of tomato sauce yesterday (5 mini tubs of 100 ml). Since the last time I replied, I have made further adjustment to the original recipe. To make it easier for you, the ingredients are:
Tomato sauce (3 – 4 tbsp)
Yellow capsicum (1 medium, dice finely)
Cherry tomatoes (10 – 12) OR Tomato (1 medium) – dice into small bits
Onion (1 medium) – dice
Garlic (2 cloves) – mince
Olive oil (2 tbsp)
Tap water (300 ml)
Seasonings:
balsamic vinegar (1.5 – 2 tbsp)
white sugar (1 – 1.5 tbsp) – I don’t have brown sugar at home
salt (dash & adjust accordingly)
ground white / black pepper (dash)
I cut the capsicum into thin strips and then dice them into tiny cubes to speed up the cooking process. The method for cooking is similar to the original recipe but in order to cook the capsicum real soft, longer cooking time is required. I usually lightly press down the capsicum + tomatoes + (garlic & onion mixture) to sit in my deep saucepan to simmer in their own juice for a while and then stir and then repeat the ‘simmer & stir’ process until the capsicum becomes reasonably soft. It might not be possible to soften the capsicum all the way as their juices might evaporate altogether and the whole mixture becomes dry (you could try adding a bit a water to prevent that) What I do is to achieve a semi-soft capsicum (~5 mins) and then let the freezing do that rest of the softening (hee hee, a bit of science here). See, veggies like capsicum are ‘damaged’ when frozen and hence become ‘soggy’ afterwards.
Oh, the water part. Since the veggies don’t always come in desired sizes, I play by sight. I would add water in small portions into the mixture from a water jug containing 400 ml tap water. Add and stir, look at the texture of the mixture, decide if more water could be added, if so, repeat. Even with almost double the amount of veggies as compared to the original recipe, I could only add 300 ml of water at best. Too much water would dilute the taste.
Hope that you would give this sauce another shot. Personally, this sauce saves me a lot of cooking time afterwards. :)
About those containers, I found them at a nearby provision shop. I also bought some more at Takashimaya when I saw them on discount – cheaper than at the provision shop. Go for the 100 ml capacity if you can. :) The capacity is marked on the side of the container.
Just an additional note on the variety of meat I tried with the sauce. So far, minced beef and diced threadfin both went well with the sauce. Minced pork was not impressive taste-wise. Haven’t tried with chicken yet. :)
Oh ya, if you’re staying in seng kang area, the provision shop is located on the 2nd floor of Rivervale Plaza :) They come in a bundle of 3 containers :)
Hi…
OMG sounds like a lot of “feeling” must go into this sauce… a lot of agaration. Maybe it doesn’t suit mamas like me who r terrible at cooking! All I remember abt cooking this sauce was chopping n dicing like crazy, then cooking it for like forever only to find all the vegs still hard like rock. Hahaha… the only thing that softened was my resolve.
Ok, after I recuperate from the nightmarish experience, will give it a shot again. *sigh*. Tks for the detailed explanation!
Hi mama,
You’re welcomed. :)
Indeed, the chopping requires time and energy! Initially, I felt quite worn out too. I empathize with you.
My cooking is so-so. But with a bit of perseverance and practice, the results improve. Don’t give up! :) Cheer up!
Hi mama,
I took some photos of the steps for making tomato sauce. You could view it at http://www.chekyang.com/musings/2010/11/24/yummy-toddler-foods-tomato-sauce/