Cranberry Apple Oatmeal Recipe

My husband makes a mean cranberry sauce every holiday season. This year, he bought more frozen cranberries than we needed, so I've been using them for baby food.

Gerber Oatmeal Cereal

It's very simple and only involves three ingredients.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup cranberries (frozen is what I use)*
• 3 Gala apples
• baby oatmeal cereal

*IMPORTANT NOTE: Cranberries contain good stuff like Vitamin C and antioxidants, but since they are also acidic, it is not recommended that they be fed to a baby younger than eight months. And as always, introduce new foods one at a time to determine if baby has any allergies.


INSTRUCTIONS

Rinse your apples. Then core and cut them into small pieces (roughly half inch cubes). You can peel the skins if you want. I find that Gala apple skins get plenty soft and baby-eatable after being cooked and puréed, so I don't bother removing them.

Put the apples and cranberries in a large sauté pan. Fill pan with water until it about halfway covers the fruit. Then set the stove to medium-low heat and let simmer until most or all of the liquid has evaporated.

apples and cranberries in sauté pan

Drain the remaining water, if any, and throw softened apples and cranberries into a food processor. Blend until smooth. You can add whole milk, formula or breast milk while blending if needed—just make sure not to use whole milk until baby is at least one-year-old.

When ready to serve up to baby, mix desired amount of purée to baby oatmeal cereal. I use the Gerber Oatmeal Cereal and mix as much milk (or whatever nutritious liquid your baby is consuming) as needed for desired consistency. You can make the purée to oatmeal ratio whatever you want. I typically do about half and half so that the sweetness and tartness of the fruits are not too strong.

Cranberry apple oatmeal, soon to be on my children's faces

Henry (left) and Winry (right), aka My Messy Faces, December 2015

Storage tip from a previous post, Pumpkin Apple Purée Recipe:
I like to make a fairly large amount of baby food and freeze the rest in ice cube trays.

It's convenient since each cube is one ounce of food. You just take out however much you need the night before and let it thaw in the refrigerator until it's yum-yum time.

Ice cube tray tip: If you're having trouble getting the frozen cubes out of the tray, run warm water along the back for a few seconds. Then they'll pop right out.


Side Note for Turkey Season
While checking to see if cranberries were safe for babies to eat, I came upon a web article from Parents Magazine, Holiday Foods Babies Can Eat Too. It had some great food recommendations as well as a few recipes for babies.

Holiday Foods Babies Can Eat Too, Parents Magazine