Sauces, Dippers & Toppers for Making BLW Foods Safe with @babyledfeeding Aileen Cox Blundell

Aileen Cox Blundell (0s):

So if you made a paste using some pumpkin seeds, a little bit of olive oil and then spread it on to roasted vegetables, it's a really nice way of getting some added, extra nutrition on top of the food that you're giving your babies.

Katie Ferraro (15s):

Hey, there I'm Katie Ferraro, Registered Dietitian, college nutrition .professor and mama of seven specializing in baby led weaning. Here on the Baby Led Weaning Made Easy podcast. I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding, leaving you with the competence and knowledge you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods using baby led weaning. Hey guys, welcome back. I know a lot of you struggle with baby led weaning at the beginning because you worry about choking. So if you've learned anything about baby led weaning, it's that dry food, particularly dry protein foods and dry carbohydrate or bready, starchy foods can certainly be a choking hazard for your baby.

Katie Ferraro (58s):

So what do you do? We say, okay, you want to use a sauce or a dipper or a topper to moisten things up because moisture equates to reduced choking risk. And then parents are like, okay, but what kind of sauces? If you go to the store, a lot of the commercial sauces that you can buy will have way too much sodium for babies to eat for baby led weaning, so then the alternative is make your own sauces and then parents, or like, Uggh, now we have to make my own food and make my own sauce. Like, this is all way too much. I don't want you guys to get overwhelmed by the idea of making your babies sauces. If you are not super proficient in the kitchen, please don't worry. Sauces are one of the easiest things to make.

Katie Ferraro (1m 40s):

And so today I am so excited to be joined on the podcast by my good friend, Aileen Cox Blundell. Now Aileen is on social at baby led feeding. She has got an amazing community, where she cooks and shares recipes and ideas on how to make food safe for babies to eat with baby led weaning. She's written two cookbooks. She's the author of the baby led feeding cookbook and the baby friendly family cookbook, both of which are packed with recipes for baby led weaning. There're two of my favorite resources. I'm gonna link to those in the show notes for this episode if you guys go to the BLW podcast.com. But Aileen is going to be sharing some specific tips about making sauces and making sauces work for baby led weaning.

Katie Ferraro (2m 22s):

So be sure to check out the show notes in this episode for the actual recipes, for some of the sauces she's mentioning, and I've also created a free download for you guys for this particular episode, that's all about sauces and I'll be sharing five additional sauce recipes. So that by the end of today, you listen to the episode. If you go to the show notes, you will have access to a number of different sauces that you can start using and easily preparing for your baby to make those dry foods safer. Plus, it's kind of helps with the rest of your family. If you're enjoying the same food, your baby eats, having some sauces, that you can spice and kick up a little bit. You can always add salt after, will kind of make that whole process of having your baby be able to eat the same food to the rest of the family eat, it will make it all seamless and totally doable.

Katie Ferraro (3m 12s):

So with no further ado, I want to introduce you to Aileen Cox Blundell from baby led feeding. She is here to talk about sauces and dippers and toppers and how they can make food safe for baby led weaning. Well, hi, Aileen. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for joining me.

Aileen Cox Blundell (3m 29s):

Hi, thanks for having me. It's nice to chat to you again.

Katie Ferraro (3m 32s):

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. This is your first time joining me on the podcast. So this is like really exciting.

Aileen Cox Blundell (3m 43s):

I love podcasts. So this is great.

Katie Ferraro (3m 45s):

All right. Now the topic for today is about dips and sauces. And we're going to get into that in a second, but could you just back us up and tell everybody, Hey, you know, how did you get into the world of baby led feeding? Like what led you to this place?

Aileen Cox Blundell (3m 59s):

So my little boy, Oscar when he was about maybe five months old, I watched a really good documentary by Jamie Oliver and in relation to nutrition on kids. And I felt like I had to do something to make a change. I was just a moment trying to think like how I could make a difference. 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 foods 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 foods into them as much as possible.

Aileen Cox Blundell (4m 40s):

And it was just such an amazing time and I took so many, so many pictures and so many lovely pictures of foods, and I shared them with my mom when he was about maybe a year old. And I said to my mom, like, I'm going to put these together 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 because there was lots of parents out there, who can't get their kids to eat kale, hummus, or it can't get the kids to eat a sweet potato. And if they felt that somebody, who was a mom, was able to guide them and help them, then that would be really amazing.

Aileen Cox Blundell (5m 23s):

So I sent a book proposal to a publisher and the publisher was like, who are you? Like, don't have a clue who you are, and come back when you have some sort of the following. So I started a Facebook page, set up a website and in space like four days, I had about 4,000 people following me from all over the world's from America, Africa, 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, and bigger and bigger. So on Facebook it's like 80,000, and another instance type of things I've done on Instagram and I get maybe 60 or 70000 and people to my website every month checking out, like baby recipe's and I've kind of positioned myself in the place where I'm also being surrounded by the queues of people.

Katie Ferraro (6m 16s):

And then I know it's like, no, not a bad place too. Right? Okay. And so when you went on to write the books, did you go back to the same publisher and was like, okay, now I'm showing up with my audiences and they needed to listen to. Or how does it work?

Aileen Cox Blundell (6m 28s):

I think after maybe four months after they had said go and set up a website, a Facebook page, they said little Facebook page will set up a look in the Facebook page and see what happens and see if there's some kind of advertise for us. 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 stuffs. And I have 10,00 of people following my Page in four months, which is pretty incredible. And I signed my book contract in the following week. So it was pretty quick.

Katie Ferraro (7m 1s):

I 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 cook book. When I was like, looking for resources are like, okay, I'm interested in learning how to do baby led weaning. Cause I struggled a ton with spoon feeding my oldest and I had quadruplets and I was like, I'm going to 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 loved, loved, loved your book. And I've been using ever since I recommended it all the time, it's on Amazon. I'm going to 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. I mean, is there a difference between the books?

Aileen Cox Blundell (7m 38s):

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 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, and 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'd done a book. So it, 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 adde things to . I'm like, I've terrible OCD, even when it comes to this.

Katie Ferraro (8m 22s):

It's why we're, friend's Aileen. And I also have terrible OCD, but also I think in the second book, it has American recipe equivalence, right? Ya, conversio

Aileen Cox Blundell (8m 31s):

yeah, that was a huge thing for me and my first book, because my publisher was supposed to sent the book and they try to get it into the US and then it never happened.

Katie Ferraro (8m 42s):

But your book is super popular here. The first book, I mean, it's so big. You can buy it on Amazon. It's just, you have to look up how to do the conversions or you weigh somethings. It's not like a huge deal. I mean, I used it all the time, I guess I didn't even realize

Aileen Cox Blundell (8m 53s):

I want to create that version of the book as the U S version and then it would have the conversions in it. And, but it's just never, or never happens. Unfortunately, like I brought to the second book thinking if I have those conversions in there and it will make it a little bit easier, but my publisher didn't bring the mind over there. So I think if I'm, if I am going to do another book I'd like to do with a USA publisher. So that's my aim. So I'm able to listening. So Aileen, one of the areas that's a real sticking point for parents are sauces. So we always say feeding dry food, like dry proteins and dry vegetables. You can't feed dry foods to babies. Dry foods are choking hazards. So more moisture we can add then we reduce the choking hazard. so I always say, you know, pancakes, we got to top them with a dipper or sauce or a topper, give us some basic ideas on sauces because I think it's such a pain point for parents.

Aileen Cox Blundell (9m 42s):

They don't know how to make sauces. Cuz commercial sauce just have too much salt in them for babies Yeah, absolutely. So in terms of snacking kind of sauce, even kind of going to breakfast, I would have done like pre-loaded spoons with yogurts. So that's kind of saucy. I would put it in some mashed fruits into it. So that's, and you are still being able to kind of get your baby to pick up food with a spoon and kind of feed themselves. And, or you can hand them preloaded spoons. Umm, when it came to lunch time sauces where my savior food, I love sauces for lunch time because you can pack so much goodness into sauce and like, for example, pesto, if you made a really nice pesto with spinach leaves, spinach leaves are in high in vitamin C, iron and really good for children.

Aileen Cox Blundell (10m 33s):

So if you made a pesto using some spinach leaves and in some pumpkin seeds, a little bit of olive oil and then spread it on to the little fingers sized kind of strips of bread or else you can even put it on some roasted vegetables. It's a really nice way of getting some added, extra nutritions. And on top of the food that you're giving your baby. So I'd even put like pesto stirred into a muffin. So I was baking a muffin in the oven. I put a teaspoon of, of pesto in on top of the savory muffins, obviously say cheese ones, put some pesto on top of it and give it a stir, and then you can kinda bake it and it has little bit of a sauce kind of texture to be in the inside and your baby is eating it.

Aileen Cox Blundell (11m 19s):

The other thing was really good, was hummus. We made hummus all the time, almost it was a grace recipe that you can give to your baby because you can, again, pack lots of good and nutritious ingredients into hummus. So you make your base recipe for hummus. Then I added in everything I can possibly think of. I roasted kale, blanched kale and put some kale in and made spinach hummus, beet hummus, sweet potato, like any combination of vegetables that I could possibly think of . I even did like roasted broccoli hummus, like just to try and get more goodness in. And then if you're making things like if you're making say sweet potato, little fries like sweet potato spear in the oven , you can spread some hummus on them and they're gone cold or gone cooled, or you can just as well spread hummus onto some brown bread.

Aileen Cox Blundell (12m 9s):

Or around little piece of brown bread. So, you know, at least when your baby is looking for some snacks. You're giving them something really super nutritious.

Katie Ferraro (12m 17s):

And I like that you are offering some ideas about dairy free sauces because a lot of our parents like I always heard pancakes that's kind of defaulted to ricotta cheese because of ricotta is low in sodium. Ricotta is nice way to make pancakes softer. But for families that don't eat dairy either because they're vegan are the babies allergic to dairy foods. They do need some options that are dairy free.

Aileen Cox Blundell (12m 41s):

Absolutely. and like I make pancakes. I make a version of pancakes that like a vegan pancake and will put flax seed can instead of egg and then just use like a coconut milk. We got to really good coconut milk there. That's fortified with calcium. So that's pretty good. So at least for cooking purposes or if you're using like a soy milk for cooking purposes, so that's totally fine to be using something like that. And then just spread your nice sauce on top of the pancake and cover it and give it to your baby to eat it like that. It's a perfect little finger food for them.

Katie Ferraro (13m 11s):

What would you do for fish? Because fish can be one, especially if you're doing like a white flakey fish, it can be kind of dry. Again, we don't want those dry pieces of protein getting potentially stuck in 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 (13m 27s):

So there's three different sauces I always make with fish. So the first one will be pesto. Pesto on fish is delicious, especially white flaky fish. You can cut your fish into little chunks, even roll it in the tiny little bit of flour or dip it in egg first. Roll in flour. And then you are either baking it in the oven or frying it in a little bit of olive oil in the pan until its nice and cooked all the 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 and with the little bit of lemon juice into it and the little like a shaving of like lemon zest on top of that and then chopped fresh parsley put chop fresh parsley into it because you are not using salt in your babies food ever.

Aileen Cox Blundell (14m 16s):

So I would never put salt into baby foods. What I would do is always make sure you're seasoning with like really nice, fresh herb. Fresh herb are amazing. And they are also really nutritious as well. So it's a really good way of adding lots of flavor. And without adding in lots of salt

Katie Ferraro (14m 33s):

I love that!

Aileen Cox Blundell (14m 33s):

Or tomato based sauce, so you could do to tomato based sauce as well. I like to reduced to smaller sauce. The longer you leave the lid off the pan and steam reduces from your sauce mixture and 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 . So I think when it comes to baby led weaning anyway, so you're in this, you have to do it like get a bib that you can wipe your baby down and don't be worried about the sauce because it's a great way of getting lots of goodness sent to your kids. I think

Katie Ferraro (15m 12s):

So Aileen from your book and from your book's 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 (15m 24s):

Okay. So both of these are from my second book. So the first one is easy peasy Basil Spinach Pesto, its a super soft and it can be added onto to all roasted vegetables or it can be used warm, it can be used cold, you can put it on to pasta. And when you're a baby starts eating pasta, you can put it into potatoes, it just goes well with absolutely everything and it's really easy and handy to make. Plus so 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 in a hurry sauce. And we're huge fans of Curry in our house and my kids, all love Asian food and they love the like spices in their diet.

Aileen Cox Blundell (16m 13s):

It's not spicy, it's just flavorsome. So it has like garlic in it and coriander and cumin, turmeric. nothing that like burn your tongue spicy but very flavorsome. And that's a really good way of introducing lots of spices into your babies diet, but there's in a very kind of a mild way. And the thing I'd say as well about spice about sauce recipes is to freeze them, put them into an ice cube tray under, just put a couple of teaspoons into the ice cube tray covers 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 and in a hurry and you have a little bag of pasta already pre-made, all you had to do as take one of these out of the freezer because there was no dairy in them, you can defrost them from the freezer straight away.

Aileen Cox Blundell (17m 1s):

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 it a little bowl of pasta for a 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 your curry hurry sauce, or your pesto sauce or your tomato basil sauce. And then you just take it out to the freezer, pop it into the bowl, stick it in a microwave coverage . And it's just defrost like 30 seconds, 60 seconds super quick, and then just stir it in.

Aileen Cox Blundell (17m 42s):

And, and it's a great way of having really good food, really quick without having to stand at your kitchen cooker. And

Katie Ferraro (17m 46s):

I know because I think it's overwhelming to parents. 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 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, you know, they are 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 were pregnant via your breast milk, when you're breastfeeding, like all your doing is continuing this flavor experience for your baby, but the sauce is of what you can make a totally boring Whitefish if you've got to cool sauce on top of it, and 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.

Katie Ferraro (18m 43s):

So I'll be sure to link to all of those recipes that Aileen was sharing as well as the book, where you can get more in the show notes for this episode. If you guys go to be BLW podcast.com

Aileen Cox Blundell (18m 58s):

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 is no salt in it, , the only time I would have the only salt in everything 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 popped that sauce into it. Cover it and just leave it there. And then you have this like mixed matched of like different sauces for different days

Katie Ferraro (19m 33s):

And you have to label it though, coz I can never see what it is. And I wonder what that was. Aileen, thank you for this fabulous information about sauce. Tell us, where can we go to learn more about your recipes or your books and all of your content.

Aileen Cox Blundell (19m 48s):

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

Katie Ferraro (20m 15s):

Well, thanks so much, Aileen. I really appreciate it.

Aileen Cox Blundell (20m 18s):

Thank you so much, Katie

Katie Ferraro (20m 20s):

Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that episode with Aileen Cox Blundell. Again, she's on social at baby led feeding ,tons of great inspiration for baby led weaning recipes, including a lot of different sauces. So I really loved learning. Just a few more tips about making sauces feasible for BLW and I'm going to go ahead and link to a few of the recipes that she mentioned from her books in the show notes. For this episode, if you guys go to BLW podcast.com-/134, they will be there. And I'm also going to put a link to a free download that I have with some additional sauces, recipes that work well for baby led weaning. So you are like totally equipped to start using more sauces in your baby led weaning kitchen. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you next time. Bye now.