This is Tejal, filling in for Tanya — hello! I’ve missed you! I just got back from parental leave, which means that I’m now strategizing and scheming about what I’m going to eat each day with a sweet, sticky, roly-poly 6-month-old baby.
You could say I’m eating a more salted version of whatever she’s eating. Khichdi with yogurt! Broccoli aligot! Sweet potatoes with tahini butter (above)! But here’s what surprised me in the last few weeks: Anything that my husband and I cook for ourselves has the potential to be baby food, with some tweaks.
Sweet Potatoes With Tahini Butter
Hetty Lui McKinnon’s comforting butternut squash congee with chile oil is baby-friendly if you hold the chile oil. Pull a piece of paneer out of Priya Krishna’s beautiful coconut saag and mash it with a fork right into the greens. (You can watch Priya make the dish here.) And Melissa Clark’s adaptation of adas polo ba khorma becomes porridge-like if you simmer a half cup or so of the cooked lentils, rice and sweet onion-date mixture in stock.
So rather than keeping to soft dishes or plain-tasting foods, I’m looking for a wide variety of ingredients, textures and flavors. And if a dish really won’t work for the baby in its final form, the strategy is to find at least one tasty thing to take away from it during the cooking process — a piece of roasted carrot from this carrot tart can easily be set aside (and mashed with some melted butter) before the tart is put together.
