Baby food: cheats apple crumble

Ensuring healthy gut microbiome can help reduce the risk of infections. Supporting healthy microbe for your baby can be achieved with breast milk, wholegrains, prebiotic fibres – such as apple, banana, onion, oats – and the use of probiotic foods such as yoghurt or kefir.

Ingredients

1/3 cup walnuts
1/3 cup almonds
3-4 apples, grated
1 tsp lemon juice
1/3 cup desiccated coconut
1/2 cup oats or cooked quinoa
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup milk (any)

1. Blitz nuts into a fine powder using a food processor or small blender.

2. Place the nuts, grated apple, lemon juice, coconut, oats or quinoa, cinnamon, and milk into a saucepan.

3. Cook on a low/moderate heat for 10-15 mins until the apple and oats are soft.

4. Serve with probiotic yoghurt.

Puree texture:

Place cooked ingredients in the food processor or use a hand blender to blitz until smooth

Lumpy texture:

Serve once cooked.

Finger food:

Once crumble is cooked on the stovetop, you can place the mixture in a small baking tray lined with baking paper and bake in the oven for 10-15mins at 180°C until golden brown. Once cooled, cut into long finger lengths as a hand-held finger food.

Jenny Douglas is a registered dietitian with around 20 years experience working with families and is a leading expert on baby and child nutrition. Co-author to the YUM cookbook with Nadia Lim, Jenny is also director of Jumpstart Nutrition – a company of dietitians working to improve nutrition for families. Jenny holds regular workshops around NZ and sees families in her Dunedin clinics or online. Visit jumpstartnutrition.co.nz, Facebook.com/JenniferDouglasDietitian or @jumpstart_kids_nutrition_nz on Instagram.