Katie Ferraro (1s):
If you're just getting ready to start solid foods, I know it can feel like a lot like your baby's getting close to that six month mark and you're making the move to real food. But then the questions and the doubts start flooding your mind like, is this food safe? Is it soft enough? Is it the right size? What if my baby gags on food or chokes are they're not getting enough? How am I supposed to know what food to offer next? If you're not sure where to start, then I wanna invite you to join my free online masterclass called Baby LED WEANING FOR BEGINNERS. In this one hour video training, you will learn how to reduce choking risk, how to know when your baby is really ready to start solid foods. And I'm gonna help you move beyond the simple starter foods like avocado, banana, and sweet potato. And you're gonna do it with confidence.

Katie Ferraro (42s):
Everybody who joins the masterclass gets a copy of my original 100 First Foods list so you'll never run out of ideas of foods your baby can eat. This masterclass is the best hour that you can spend to give your baby a safe start to solid foods. You can register at baby led weaning dot co slash masterclass or click the link in the description where you're listening to or watching this and I hope to see you there.

Once Upon a Dance (1m 5s):
This episode is sponsored by Once Upon A Dance. One thing I've learned as a mom is that kids do not always need more stuff, but they do need more opportunities to connect, imagine, and to move their bodies. And that's exactly what Once Upon a Dance brings to story time. Once Upon a Dance creates award-winning interactive children's books that turn reading into an experience. So these are interactive dance along stories that take storytelling to a whole new level. So kids don't just listen, they imagine they move, they twirl, they leap and they become part of the story. So I didn't grow up doing dance myself, but all of my girls did. And I saw firsthand how formative it was for them because dance gave them confidence. It taught them to keep practicing, to stand tall, to work through challenges and to express themselves. And I love that Once Upon a Dance makes those same ideas feel accessible right at home through books. The stories feature themes like friendship, family, kindness, empathy, perseverance and self-acceptance through whimsical and kid friendly with characters and adventures that appeal to young children who love animals, magic, imagination and movement. So for those of you who are listening with a baby, this might be something to tuck away for the toddler years or if you already have older kids at home, this can be a really fun way to make reading more active and engaging. Swap screen time for connection. Get your kids off the couch and into a story. Jump twirl and leap over to Once Upon a Dance dot com or find Once Upon a Dance books wherever you buy books online. That's Once Upon a Dance dot com.

Aileen Cox Blundell (2m 44s):
So if you made a pesto using some pumpkin seeds, a little bit of olive oil and then spread it on to some roasted vegetables, it's a really nice way of getting some added extra nutrition in on top of the food that you're giving your baby.

Katie Ferraro (2m 58s):
Hey there, I'm Katie Ferraro, registered dietitian, college nutrition professor and mom of seven specializing in baby led weaning. Here on the Baby led weaning with Katie Ferraro podcast. I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding, giving you the confidence and knowledge you need to give you baby a safe start to solid foods using baby led weaning. Alright, what if the thing that makes your baby's food safer and easier to eat and more nutritious is also the thing that makes it taste better for the rest of your family too? Today we're gonna be talking about Sauces and Dippers and toppers for baby led weaning because dry food is the enemy of baby led weaning, right?

Katie Ferraro (3m 43s):
Dry foods increase the risk of choking foods. Dry foods are super tricky, especially for early eaters. Things like pancakes and dry meats and fish uhuh, those are super hard for babies to manage. And we always talk about, okay, well you wanna add a sauce or a dipper or a topper and then you go to the store and they're ch full of sodium. So making your own is super easy if you know the right way to do it. And that's what my guest today is gonna be teaching about. Her name is Aileen Cox Blende. She's one of my dear friends. She's from Ireland. She is the batty, she's on social media at baby led feeding. I have been friends with her for years at this point. Aileen is the author of The Baby led Feeding Cookbook and The Baby Friendly Family Cookbook.

Katie Ferraro (4m 26s):
She's been helping families make beautiful, flavorful, baby led weaning foods for years. She's such an amazing resource. I'm so excited to be sharing this conversation with you again. I have been friends with her for years, as I mentioned, but like social media friends, you know, where you don't really know each other, but like I knew we'd be friends in real life if we met. And then I just recently went to Ireland, I got to go visit her and we did a project together and I got to go out in her garden shed, as she calls it, it's like this beautiful little cottage that her husband made for her, for her to do all her baby led weaning work. My husband's like, I wish you had your own kitchen instead of messing ours up with your baby led weaning work. And I was like, build me a garden shed chuck. But anyway, I wanna brag on Aileen for a second because since this interview originally aired, she went back to school to become the equivalent of a dietician in Ireland.

Katie Ferraro (5m 11s):
Okay? She has two children. She completed her master's degree in nutrition. She became like the equivalent of a dietician. So she did all this research, all this study, and then she also recently completed a certification and credentialing program for dieticians that a colleague of that myself and I created and recently co-founded. So like she's been doing a lot of work, I'm just so impressed by Aileen's commitment to be getting advanced nutrition training and advanced baby led weaning training. If you yourself are a registered dietician or a dietician equivalent in a different country outside of North America, if you're interested in becoming credentialed and certified in baby led weaning like Aileen is and myself, if you want to take our program and our certification course, go to blw pro.org and check that out.

Katie Ferraro (5m 55s):
But back to Aileen, she's not just sharing pretty recipes online. She is really doing the work, building her expertise, continuing to serve families with evidence-based support. So in our episode today, she's gonna be talking about simple ideas for baby friendly Sauces, how to use herbs and spices without relying on added salt, how to make dried foods easier for babies to eat and then how you can batch and freeze Sauces so you're not reinventing the wheel every time your baby sits down to eat. I love this woman. I think you guys are going to as well. She's such a dear real life friend. I know you're gonna love hearing her practical encouraging approach. You're gonna feel like you're right there in her garden. Shed with her. Okay, so with no further ado, here is Aileen Cox Blende from Baby led feeding, teaching us about Sauces, Dippers, and toppers for making baby led weaning foods safe.

Aileen Cox Blundell (6m 47s):
Thanks for having me. It's so nice to chat to you again.

Katie Ferraro (6m 51s):
I know it's been a while. So you're in Ireland? I'm in San Diego. We've done some cooking demos and stuff together in the past. Yeah, because this is your first time joining me on the podcast, so this is like really exciting.

Aileen Cox Blundell (7m 1s):
I love podcasts so this is great.

Katie Ferraro (7m 3s):
Alright, now the topic for today is about dips and Sauces and we're gonna get into that in a second. But could you just back us up and tell everybody, you know, how did you get into the world of baby led feeding? Like what led you to this place?

Aileen Cox Blundell (7m 16s):
So my little boy Oscar, when he was about maybe five months old, I watched a really good documentary by Jamie Oliver in relation to nutrition on kids. And I felt like I had to do something to make a change and I was just a moment trying to think like how I could make a difference. And I started like changing a little bit in terms of like how we ate at home and Oscar started weaning and I started taking pictures of the amazing food I was feeding him and making up my own like really cool recipes with kale and spinach and just really trying to get like really good nutritious food into him as much as possible.

Aileen Cox Blundell (7m 58s):
And it was just such an amazing time and I took so many funny pictures and so many lovely pictures of food and I shared them with my mom when he was about maybe a a year old. And I said to my mom like, I'm gonna put these together and when he's 21 I'm going to give it to him as like this book of his memories as a kid and this is the kind of food that I fed you. And my mom said, I really think that this would be something that other people might get great benefit outta because there's lots of parents out there who can't get their kids to eat kale hummus or can't get their kids to eat a sweet potato. And if they felt that somebody who was among was able to guide them and help them, then that would be really amazing.

Aileen Cox Blundell (8m 40s):
So I sent a book proposal to a publisher and the publisher was like, who the hell are you? I don't have a clue who you are and come back when you have some sort of a following. So I set up a Facebook page, set up a website, and in the space of about four days I had about 4,000 people following me from all over the world, from America and Africa and Australia. Like it was just insane and it just kept growing and growing and growing. After about I'd say maybe four months, that was up to like 10,000 and now it's like 80,000. So it's gone like incrementally bigger and bigger and bigger. So on Facebook it's 80,000, another 80,000 on Instagram and I get about maybe 60 or 70,000 people to my website every month checking out like baby recipes.

Aileen Cox Blundell (9m 27s):
And I've kind of positioned myself in a place where I'm always going to be surrounded by the cutest people in the

Katie Ferraro (9m 34s):
Entire world. I know it's like I'm not a bad place to be, right?

Aileen Cox Blundell (9m 37s):
I love it's, yeah.

Katie Ferraro (9m 38s):
Okay. And so then you went on to write the book. So did you go back to the same publisher and was like, okay, now I'm showing up with my audience and they need to listen to you or how did that

Aileen Cox Blundell (9m 45s):
Work? So then I, I think after about maybe four months after they had set go and set up a website or set up a little Facebook page, they said a little Facebook page. Go set up a little Facebook page and see what happens and see if there's some kind of appetite for it. After four months I got back in touch with them and said, since I last spoke to you, I have been in the newspapers, I've been on tv, I've done all of this amazing stuff and I have 10,000 people following my page in four months, which is pretty incredible. And I signed my book contract the following week. So it was pretty quick. And I

Katie Ferraro (10m 18s):
Got introduced to you because Oscar is a little bit older than my quadruplets. So you had already published the first book, The Baby led Feeding Cookbook when I was like looking for resources like okay, I'm interested in learning how to do baby led weaning. 'cause I struggled a ton with spoonfeeding, my oldest and I had quadruplets and I was like, I'm gonna do baby led weaning. But there weren't a ton of resources out there. So your book was like the Bible to me and I absolutely love, love, loved your book and I've been using it ever since. I recommend it all the time. It's on Amazon, I'm gonna be sure to link to it in the show notes, but you have a second book as well which is The Baby Friendly Family Cookbook. Is there a difference between the books?

Aileen Cox Blundell (10m 54s):
So both books have recipes in them for baby led weaning. But what I did with the second book was I took all of the questions that I, I had received in relation to the first book and the things that I could have improved with it, like having a meal plan or having some sort of symbols that signified whether recipes were freezer friendly, lunchbox friendly, baby led, weaning friendly because they were the questions I got asked all the time on the first book and it was the first time I had done a book. So it was complete learning curve for me. So the second book, I made sure that all of those questions were answered. I kept a spreadsheet and I added things to it.

Aileen Cox Blundell (11m 35s):
I'm, I have terrible OCD when it comes to,

Katie Ferraro (11m 38s):
It's why we're friends Aileen, I also have terrible OCD, but also I think in the second book it has American recipe equivalents, right? Conversions. Yeah, yeah.

Aileen Cox Blundell (11m 48s):
That was a huge thing for me in my first book because my publisher was supposed to send the book and try to get it into the US and then it never happened.

Katie Ferraro (11m 59s):
But your book is super popular here. The first book, I mean it's so big, you can buy it on Amazon, it just, you have to look up how to do the conversions or you weigh something. It's not like a huge deal. I mean I use it all the time. I guess I didn't even realize

Aileen Cox Blundell (12m 9s):
I wanted to create that version of the book has a US version that would have the conversions in it, but it just never, it never happened unfortunately. I'm like, I brought out the second book thinking if I have those conversions in there it will make it a little bit easier. But my publisher didn't bring them out over there. So I think if I'm, if I am going to do another book, I'd like to do it with a US publisher. So that's my aim. If there's anybody listening,

KiwiCo (12m 35s):
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Katie Ferraro (14m 23s):
So Aileen, one of the areas that's a real sticking point for parents are Sauces. So we always say feeding dry foods like dry proteins and dry vegetables. You can't feed dry foods to babies. Dry foods are choking hazards. The more moisture we can add the we reduce the choking wrist. So I always say, you know, pancakes, we gotta top 'em with a dipper or a sauce or a topper. Give us some basic ideas on Sauces because I think it's such a pain point for parents they don't know how to make Sauces 'cause commercial Sauces have too much salt in them for for babies.

Aileen Cox Blundell (14m 52s):
Absolutely. So in terms of snacking kind of sauce, even kind of going to breakfast, I would've done like preloaded spoons with yogurt. So that's kind of saucy. I would put in some mashed fruit into it so that you're still being able to kind of get your baby to pick up food with a spoon and kind of feed themself or you can hand them a preloaded spoon. When it came to lunchtime, Sauces were my savior, your food. I love Sauces for lunchtime because you can pack so much goodness into sauce. Like for example, pesto, if you made like a really nice pesto with spinach leaves, spinach leaves are really high in vitamin C and iron and really good for children.

Aileen Cox Blundell (15m 36s):
So if you made a pesto using some spinach leaves and some pumpkin seeds, a little bit of olive oil and then spread it on little fingers sized kind of strips of say bread or else you can even put it on some roasted vegetables. It's a really nice way of getting some added extra nutrition in on top of the food that you're giving your baby. So I'd even put like pesto stir into a muffin. So if I was baking a muffin in the oven, I'd put a teaspoon of of pesto in on top of it. The savory muffins obviously say cheese one, put some pesto in on top of it, give it a little stir around and then you can kind of bake it and it has a little bit of a sauce kind of texture to the inside of it.

Aileen Cox Blundell (16m 20s):
Then when your baby is eating it. The other thing was really good was hummus. We made hummus all the time. Hummus was a great recipe that you can give to your baby because you can again pack lots of good nutritious ingredients into hummus. So you'd make your base recipe for hummus. Then I added in everything I could possibly think of. I roasted kale or blanched kale and put some kale in. I made spinach hummus, beery hummus, sweet potato. Like any combination of vegetables I could could possibly think of. I even did like roasted broccoli hummus, like just to try and get more goodness in. Then if you're making things like if you're making say sweet PTO little fries where sweet PTO spears in the oven, you can spread some hummus on them when they're gone co con.

Aileen Cox Blundell (17m 10s):
Cool. Or you can as as well spread hummus onto some brown bread or onto a little piece of brown bread. So you at least if your baby is looking for a snack, you're giving them something really super nutritious.

Katie Ferraro (17m 21s):
And I like that you are offering some ideas about dairy free Sauces because a lot of our parents, like I always for pancakes that kind of default or Rico Cota cheese because Kota is low in sodium, Kota is nice way to make pancakes softer. But for families that don't eat dairy either because they're vegan or the baby's allergic to dairy foods, they do need some options that are dairy free.

Aileen Cox Blundell (17m 44s):
Absolutely. And like I'm, I make pancakes, I make a version of pancakes like vegan pancake and I'll put flax seed in instead of egg and then just use like a coconut milk. We get a really good coconut milk here that's fortified with, okay good milk and calcium. So that's pretty good. So at least for cooking purposes or if you're using like a soy milk for cooking purposes, that's totally fine to be using something like that and then just spread your nice sauce on top of the pancake and cut it and give it to your baby to eat like that. It's a perfect little finger food for them. What

Katie Ferraro (18m 17s):
Would you do for fish? 'cause fish can be one, especially if you're doing like a white flaky fish that can be kind of dry again, we don't want those dry pieces of protein getting potentially stuck on the roof of the baby's mouth or it's pretty challenging for them to clear it from their airway. What sort of sauce goes well with a fish?

Aileen Cox Blundell (18m 31s):
So there's three different Sauces I always make with fish. So the first one would be pesto, PEs and fish is delicious, especially white flaky fish. You can cut your fish into little chunks, even roll it in a tiny little bit of flour or dip it in egg first rose flour and then you're either baking it in the oven or frying it in a little bit of olive oil on the pan until it's nice and kind of cooked the whole way through. And then just spread your pesto on top. The other way I would cook a sauce for fish would be some unsalted butter with a little bit of lemon juice into it and a little like a, a shaving of like lemon zest on top of that.

Aileen Cox Blundell (19m 12s):
And then chopped fresh parsley. Put cho fresh parsley into it because you're not using salt in your baby's food ever. So I would never put salt into baby food, but what I would do is always make sure you're seasoning with like really nice fresh herbs. Fresh herbs are amazing and they're also really nutritious as well. So it's a really good way of adding lots of flavor in without adding in lots of salt. I

Katie Ferraro (19m 37s):
Love that.

Aileen Cox Blundell (19m 38s):
Or tomato-based sauce. So you could do tomato-based sauce as well and like a reduced tomato sauce. The longer you leave the lid off the pan and the steam reduces from your sauce mixture evaporates your sauce will start to thicken up. You can use an unsalted tomato puree or you can also make a white cheesy sauce as well, which is really nice. It's messy, but like you have to embrace the mess I think when it comes to baby led weaning anyway. So you're in this, you have to do it like get a a bib that you can wipe your baby down and don't be worrying about sauce because it's a great way of getting lots of goodness into your kids. I think. So

Katie Ferraro (20m 16s):
Aileen, from your book and from your books rather, are there any particular Sauces or recipes that you could share with us that parents maybe didn't think that babies could eat, but go great for baby led weaning?

Aileen Cox Blundell (20m 27s):
Okay, so both of these are from my second book. So the first one is Ezpz Peasy Basil and Spinach Pesto. It's a super sauce and it can be added on to all roasted vegetables. It can be used warm, it can be used cold, you can put it onto pasta. When your baby starts eating pasta you can put it into potatoes. It's, it just goes well with absolutely everything and it's really easy and handy to make, plus you can freeze it, which is also super great I think when, especially when it comes to having things prepared. And then the second one would be the best ever curry and a hurry sauce. We're huge fans of curry in our house and my kids all love Asian food and love the like spices in their diet.

Aileen Cox Blundell (21m 12s):
It's not spicy, it's just flavorsome so it has like garlic in it and coriander and cumin, turmeric, nothing that's like burn your tongue spicy but very flavorsome and it's a really good way of introducing lots of spices into your baby's diet. But there's in a very kind of mild way, the thing I'd say as well about spice, about sauce recipes is to freeze them, put them into an ice cube tray and to just put a couple of teaspoons into the ice cube tray covered and put it into the freezer, let them freeze and then you can pop them out of the little container and put them into a freezer bag and label them. And then when you're really busy and you want sauce in a hurry and you have a little bag of pasta already pre-made, all you have to do is take one of these outta the freezer because there's no dairy in them.

Aileen Cox Blundell (22m 2s):
You can defrost them from the freezer straight away so you don't have to take them out and let them defrost for a few hours beforehand. You can take them out and use them straight from frozen. So if you've cooked a pasta sauce for example, or if you've cooked a a little bowl of pasta for your baby and you have like six or seven little pieces of pasta and you want a little bit of sauce to go with it, all you have to do is go to your freezer, take out a little ice cube of your curry, hurry sauce or your pesto sauce or your tomato and basil sauce and then you just take it outta the freezer and pop it into the bowl, stick it in the microwave cupboard and it's just a frost and like 30 seconds to 60 seconds super quick. And then just stir it in.

Aileen Cox Blundell (22m 42s):
And it's a great way of having really good food really quick without having to stand at your kitchen cooker. And

Katie Ferraro (22m 50s):
I know like, 'cause I think it's overwhelming to parents like, wait, I have to make this food then I have to make a sauce. But it is true, like I always try to find commercial options, but because again my audience is like yours really global, like my grocery store in San Diego, what we have, it doesn't make sense for me to recommend a brand because they also tend to be really expensive for what they are and then they tend to have too much sodium or added sugar. So One thing I love about your recipes, Aileen, is that they are totally appropriate for baby led weaning. They don't have any added salt or if they do, it's such a small amount that it's completely less than you would find in commercial products. But they also have a lot of flavor and some parents are, you know, they're scared to feed their baby's flavors. But I always remind parents like, listen, your baby's been exposed to the flavors that you were eating via your amniotic fluid when you are pregnant via your breast milk when you're breastfeeding.

Katie Ferraro (23m 32s):
Like all you're doing is continuing this flavor experience for your baby, but the Sauces are what, like you can make a totally boring white fish if you've got a cool sauce on top of it, A the rest of the family will want to eat it. But it's such a great way to expose your baby to new flavors as well. So I'll be sure to link to all of those recipes that Aileen was sharing as well as the books is where you can get more in the show notes for this episode. If you guys go to blwpodcast.com.

Aileen Cox Blundell (23m 57s):
I think as well, like having, having things in your freezer, like even if you have a tablespoon of sauce leftover from a family dinner providing there's no salt in it. Like the only time I would have any salt in anything that I cook is when I add cheese in because cheese has salt naturally. Nothing else would have salt in it really. But if you even have a tablespoon of sauce left over from your dinner that you've cooked, keep it and then get your little tray in the freezer, pop that sauce into it, cover it, and just leave it there. And then you have this like mix mash of like different Sauces for different days. Definitely. And you just put them in a little freezer bag

Katie Ferraro (24m 35s):
And you have to label it though 'cause I can never see what it is. I'm like wonder. Wonder what that was. Yeah. So Aileen, thank you for this fabulous information about Sauces. Tell us where can we go to learn more about your recipes, your books, all of your content.

Aileen Cox Blundell (24m 46s):
So my new website has just gone live and it's baby led feeding.com and you can follow me on Instagram at baby led feeding or on Facebook at baby led feeding. Just search, baby led feeding and you'll find me, I'll pop up somewhere there. But yeah, so you can follow my recipes and share and make them for your babies. And if you need any help or questions along the way, I'm always open and chatting to people all the time. So feel free to message me and have a chat.

Katie Ferraro (25m 15s):
Well thanks so much Aileen, I really appreciate it.

Aileen Cox Blundell (25m 17s):
Thank you so much Katie.

Katie Ferraro (25m 20s):
Well I hope you guys enjoyed that interview with Aileen Cox Blande. She's on social media at baby led feeding. Do check out her books. They are amazing. She's got wonderful recipes online. She's like constantly cooking up a storm. This woman is, she doesn't quit. I'm gonna put all the resources that we mentioned from today's episode on the show notes that are gonna be@blwpodcast.com/134, and a special thank you to our partners at AirWave Media. If you guys like podcasts that feature food and science and using your brain, check out some of the podcasts from AirWave Media. We're online@blwpodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening. I'll see you next time.

Aileen Cox Blundell (25m 59s):
I see you.

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