Advice; best way to puree

[ClareC]

Am planning to start weaning my daughter in a couple of weeks, intend to mix BLW with conventional purees.

Made a sweet potato puree tonight to freeze in anticipation, steamed the conventional method in a steamer over the saucepan but when I came to puree in my blender the blender struggled to say the least, took ages to get a puree given the consistency (adding water and keep stirring ever 30 seconds!!)

Clearly this is not going to work long term........ any recommendations for kitchen gadgets to make easy work of pureeing, surely the beaba baby cook is a luxury not necessity?

[The Nappy Lady]

I used a hand blender and it always worked fine. The type you get for liquidising soups etc.

Something like the Kenwood Wizard. Mine has 4 speeds and also has a whisk and a chopping bowl attachment.

Do you want a load of little plastic bowls with lids (good for freezing larger potions as baby gets bigger), spoons and the like? I have a bag of weaning bits I'm trying to give away.

Molly

[Fuschia]

I used a stick blender, into a jug

[GinaG3]

I just used a blender in a jug too. Sainburys do a blender for ?4.99 and they do lots of little pots cheap too. :)

I have an Annabel Karmel baby food puree machine thingy ma jig - what a load of rubbish! Cheap and cheerful blender and jug is all that is needed.

[esme]

I have a magimix which blends / chops / purees anything in seconds - it's a mini one but you can get large ones too and it's fantastic... i agree that hand blenders work well too, can be a bit messy tho if you're not careful

[Pickle]

I also used a stick (hand) blender, was fine for most things. After a while I just used to mash things rather than puree them, which is easier for things like sweet potato etc. Just make sure you don't use a hand blender on normal potato or parsnip, you'll end up with a big glue-like mess!

[Emski]

Hand/stick blender worked fine for me too. Helps if you overcook the veg, and leave a bit of the cooking water in while you're blending. At the very beginning I also then pushed the puree through a sieve to ensure it was completely lump-free, but that was only with the first few batches before baby Emski became more used to 'solids'.

I also started on very liquidy baby rice - this gets thicker the longer it's left, so I remember being surprised at how runny it had to be in order for baby to take it. Thought 'solids' was a bit of a misnomer!

[jac428]

I have a Beaba Babycook (John Lewis, Jo Jo & Mothercare all carry) which was fantasic when they were first starting solids but for ?90 it was a waste of money as any blender will work. If yours doesn't work well I would try adding more water before you start the blending and the potatos gradually.

[R11]

A good tip for sweet potato is just to bake it in the oven. No need to wash, peel, chop, steam etc. etc. Just put it straight in for 45 mins/1 hr and when it's done the skin comes off by itself and the flesh is so soft you just mush it up with a fork. I never bothered with sieving even in very early stages of weaning (just becuase I'm a bit lazy!). I did use a stick blender too for other things but it wasn't a very good one, always left things a bit lumpy and has since broken! Now we're a bit further on I haven't replaced it so am just using a masher or fork and my baby is already used to lumps and doing well with the finger food/BLW stuff too.