Starting Solids: Stage 1 Oven Roasted Bananas

Considering my obsession w/ banana sticker boobvertisement I felt that it was only fitting that little Ori's first solid food be bananas. And shush he's 5 months 3 weeks... I think that one week isn't going to make much a difference. That being said for the past month my dear youngest child has been fascinated by all things food; staring intently as people ate or chewed, reaching out and trying to grab said food or utensil, and sometimes managing to grab the a fore mentioned utensil which successfully led to food being tossed. Bottom line? He was ready. Which is something that I think is important; all babies are going to think the new experience is a little weird but you shouldn't have to force them into eating solids. For instance, Teijah, who is finally becoming an avid eater really didn't eat consistently till after he was one - he was indeed my little veal chop and would avoid solids at all costs.
Wait what was that? What about rice cereal? Well it turns out studies have been revealing that grains may not be the best things to start little people off on where digestion is concerned, a better choice for first foods may very well be easily digestible things such as fruits, orange veggies, or avocado(yum). So on to the bananas!

First (depending on how you currently choose to nourish your little one and how you are planning on storing your homemade baby food) you'll need to pump some booby milk.

Tah-dah! Did I mention my deep sympathy for cows? Ah, what was that, can you use frozen? No. No, you can't. More on that later.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F.

Choose your banana *lol*
Of course I chose by sticker but you can choose however you would like.(Set sticker aside for later use.)
Next, cut your chosen banana into small uniform pieces. You can do them like this:
or this (but add five minutes or so to your cook time):
Then line a pan, (cookie sheet, cake pan, whatever) with aluminum foil *note to self: buy that non-stick aluminum foil for future baby food making endevours* You want to avoid greasing it, spraying it with Pam or anything like that because it's important that babies first food are simple and single ingredient to keep track of any allergic reactions. I suppose you could also eliminate the aluminum foil.. if you like to scrub dishes but I myself am bad at hate to clean so I try to simplify the mess and as a bonus aluminum foil is recyclable.
Place bananas in a single layer on foil.
place pan in oven *duh* and cook for 15-20 minutes. Get out trusty mini food chopper/processor thing. I got this Chef Mate one at for $9.99 at Target.
I'm not sure how great it will be at grinding up grains and legumes later on in our baby food making adventure but it certainly does the job for now.Place slightly ugly bananas into mini chopper.
Remove aluminum foil from pan, roll into a ball, and toss it into your recycling bin/basket/whatever... just recycle.
*A note about roasting: Roasting does not always render the prettiest fruits and veggies but it does concentrate their flavours (i.e bananas are banana-ier, sweet potatoes- you get my point)and make them extra yummy without added salt or sugar - or anything really, and you get all this with minimal alteration of the nutritional value of said foods.Blend banana into a smooth puree. Now here's were you start to have options. Here's what I did this time: Add a couple of ounces of booby milk to thin out bananas to an easy to swallow consistency.
Decide you don't want to add anymore booby milk, i.e: liquid gold into these stupid bananas and decide to thin out the bananas more later. Then place roasted bananas con booby leche into reuseable single serving sized containers I did 2 TBSP per container.

Place extra servings and booby milk safely in you refrigerator.

Place reserved banana sticker on babies head in commemoration of this momentous occasion.

Take bad picture with camera in one hand and baby food container and spoon in the other but love it anyway because it's documentation of your baby's first bite.

Offer baby water every few sips to help him wash down his yummy bananas.

When baby decides he (or she) is done clean him (or her) up and let them experiment with there newest feeding tool.

Yes, I do ♥ the colour orange. Now sometimes new experiances can be alarming, even for the most ready babies.

I imagine they may even worry if they will ever have their booby again. So it's important to comfort them, reassure them, and even offer them a booby.

After all that work baby may even take a nap, giving you a break to, you know, clean up after all the other children who probably had a cereal fight when you were having your booby time with your youngest.

*About breast milk: Now these bananas definitely need something to thin them out. Breast milk storage guidelines still apply so if you use frozen breast milk you can not freeze the bananas baby food cube style, and if you use fresh breast milk keep in mind that microwaving or cooking the bananas pretty much kills all the extra benefits the breast milk adds so if you plan on making large batches and freezing you'll have to defrost the bananas under running warm water (just like breast milk). For more information on this and pretty much anything else you want to know about making your own baby food visit my new favourite website: wholesomebabyfood.com