Baby's 1st "Red" Sauce

So yesterday I was looking in the fridge at the things that had to be used up I had cooked wheat berries (that we had made for Julia to pick up and eat with her fingers... she really loves feeding herself finger foods these days), black beans that we boiled up the other night for bean burgers (that recipe to come and when ever we make beans we always make extra cause I will always create them into something) and we had start array of fresh veggies so here you have it:

Black Bean Red Wheat Berry Vegetable Melody 

 
 

2 cups red wheat berries (cook as instructed on pkg - take about 2h to cook)

2 cups black beans (I am sure you could substitute another bean)

1 large (28oz)can diced tomatos

1 can (690ml) pure plain tomato sauce

1 can tomato paste

6 cups of chopped veggies of your choice (I used zucchini, mushrooms, 2 large carrots and sugar snap peas)

1 large onion, chopped

4 cloves of garlic, sliced

2 T olive oil

2 tsp dried oregano

2 tsp dried basil

Salt and pepper to taste (I only added after I removed the baby portion)

1)     Works best to prepare wheat berries and beans ahead of time.  In large sauce pan heat oil, sauté onion and garlic until soft, stir in oregano and basil until fragrant add in veggies and stir well put lid on and gently steam veggies on med-high heat about 5min stirring a couple times

2)      Add in tomatoes, tomatoes sauce and paste, simmer with lid off 12-15min until veggies are soft and some liquid will evaporate, stir in red wheat and black beans simmer until warm, at this point I removed ½ for my daughter and added a little salt to remaining to help enhance flavours and volia a complete meal in one bowl - my husband and I instantly fell in love with this dish

3)      Puree the reserved portion, put into ice cube trays and you have at least 10 meals in the freezer for your little one

This is the reserved portion for Julia before puree...

    And after the puree all that goodness in a form a     baby can eat... Julia had this for lunch today (as you always want to give new foods earlier in the day so you can watch for adverse reactions) and she couldn't get enough of it...

 The rest in an ice cube tray for perfectly baby portioned meals...

Which reminds me the picture of my over stuffed freezer... luckily I have a deep freeze for all the "extras" I need to come up with a better way of organizing baby food in my freezer... I have some what of a system fruit to the right, veggies to the left - organized by color, finger foods top right and beans and tofu in upper left... it makes sense to me anyway haha - now I see beets to the right maybe I don't have a system after all... do you make your own baby food? How do you organize it?

Why Red Wheat Berries? They are considered to be one of the highest quality of wheats, high in protein, fibre and 34% RDA of iron all important for babies, children and adults especially those on a vegan regime.

So there you have it Baby's 1st "Red" sauce.  Due to the high acidic content of tomato’s it is recommended to wait until after one year to introduce tomatoes to babies.  

Baby's first crackers coming up next... 

Before I go earlier this week Mark was home with Julia a little daddy daycare and I guess Julia was missing our little yoga routine and started her own see for yourself... too cute!!