Book Review: Petit Appetite

When I was beginning to think about feeding Adeline foods beyond breast milk or formula, I started to do some research online about how to know what to feed her and when.  I knew that I wanted our choice to not buy many prepackaged foods to extend to her, but there seemed to be so many guidelines that even include holding off on healthy foods like strawberries and honey that I wanted to make sure I didn't miss any of those.  The internet offers plenty of resources, but I felt like I really wanted something tangible, you know, like a real life book I could hold and flip through pages, underline and make notes in...that sort of thing.

I settled on the Petit Appetit cookbook by Lisa Barnes because it seemed to be a manageable size while still including plenty of information about what foods are appropriate for each stage, how to select, store, and prepare various foods, and how to feed my daughter beyond the months of purees and smashed bananas.  I also like the title and cover; I'm not gonna lie; I'm slightly biased toward French.

The Petit Appetit Cookbook comes out of Lisa's experience feeding her son, teaching other parents how to cook for their children, and interviewing expert dietitians, nutritionists, and others.  Barnes realizes that each child is different, and the book rightly reflects that reality.

The first half of the book sets the stage for the recipes in the second half.  By helping the reader understand how to most effectively use the book, Barnes shows that making your baby's food does not have to be time consuming or expensive.  For example, I can puree 1 pound of carrots and make 8 individual 2-oz. servings.  This takes me a total of 20 (easy) minutes, and I usually do 2 pounds.  So for 20 minutes of steaming and pureeing, I can make 16 dinners for Adeline.  I think I pay $2.00/pound of organic carrots, so that's 16 "jars" of carrots for $4.00.  Not bad!

The recipe section is divided according to age and development stage.  The book begins with 4-6 months  and goes up to 2-3 year olds.   Barnes also discusses how to incorporate baby's meal into the family's meal time.

One aspect of the book I like, beyond the various stages of eating, is the ability to quickly scan through and see which foods are vegan, vegetarian, gluten free, egg free, sugar free, or do not require any cooking.  The layout is really intuitive, and finding the information I am looking for at each stage is very easy.

I also appreciate Barnes' ability to make it so easy to make my own baby food.  Adeline has been eating "solids" for 4 months now and we have yet to buy a jar of food. I don't say that to pat myself on the back but to show that making your own baby food really can be easy!

If you are interested in making your own baby food, stay tuned because next week I will include the items I have found to be most useful for making Adeline's food!



Disclaimer: I am an Amazon Affiliate, which means that if you click one of these links and end up buying the book, I get a (very small) portion of your purchase which supports my blog habit!.  This does not influence which books I post; I will only recommend something I really like.