Healthy, Quick & Easy Baby Food: 100 Naturally Wholesome, No-Fuss Purees, Finger Foods and Toddler Meals

 

Healthy, Quick & Easy Baby Food is a tutorial and recipe guide to wholesome nutrition for the smallest family members developed and presented by Kathryn M. Doherty. Due out 8th Dec 2020 from Penguin Random House on their DK Alpha imprint, it's 176 pages (print version) and will be available in paperback and ebook formats. 

Nearly everyone would agree that ready made canned food is inferior in most ways to homemade. Baby food is no exception and providing healthy nutrition to the youngest members of our families should be a high priority. This author provides easy to follow instructions for making healthy and appealing baby food effectively. 

The author provides an excellent introduction to baby foods, finger foods, snacks and toddler meals including preparation methods, uses, and other practical considerations. Important info is highlighted in concisely written, colored text sidebars. The recipes themselves are grouped by the age of the baby: 6 month 1-ingredient purees, 6-8 months combination purees, 9-12 months finger foods, and 12-36 months big kid meals.

Recipe ingredients are listed in a sidebar. Measurements are given in US standard only. Special tools and ingredients are also listed, along with yields and cooking directions. Icons in the footers highlight gluten-free, soy-free, dairy-free, nut-free, etc.

Most (but not all) of the ingredients are easily sourced at any moderately well stocked grocery store. Nutritional information is not included.  Tips and optional variations for each recipe are included in a text boxes in the recipes. 

The book also includes a cross referenced index. The formatting, typesetting, and margin illustrations are attractive, but the biggest plus for me personally was the beautiful photography. It's not entirely trivial to make pureed food attractive and the colors and textures and serving suggestions were colorful and attractive. I find that I'm a very visual cook, and the photos were a surprisingly big deal for me. 

Five stars. This would make a good selection for busy cooks wanting an accessible way to incorporate more plant based food and healthy and varied baby foods into their home cooking routines. I would recommend this book highly as a gift for an expectant parent, for library acquisitions, for the home library, or maybe for mom's groups/kindergarten/similar groups.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.