Going against the grain (literally), here are some suggested first foods for babies (6 to 8 months) in the following order: LAMB, VEGGIES, RICE, FRUIT leaving the highest in sugar trial meal LAST so they have a flexible, more savory palette rather than crave the sugary foods.  There are two books I can’t live without and I highly recommend:  ORGANIC BABY AND TODDLER COOK BOOK and GASTROKID.  These meals need a food processor, but if not a great blender will suffice for the following.  These aren’t full on recipes as I kind of just prep the ingredients and mix and match as I go.

First solid lamb prep (6 months):
I typically go to Trader Joes and buy their New Zealand lamb steaks (bone in). You can get the ground lamb at Gelsons which is great, but pricey.  I hear terrific things about the lamb at Costco but I don’t shop there.  I have bought lamb at Whole Foods before as well, but no longer go there.  The pre-ground meats are generally more expensive and if you have a processor, you can save by doing it yourself at home. You can cube the meat raw or cube the meat, then boil or roast, and transfer to processor for puree.

Cube the meat off of one steak bone (freeze the other steak for later), boil until the pink is gone and an even gray/brown, strain, then place the cubes into the processor, reserving half a cup of the lamb broth to help puree the meat to the right consistency. As it is pureeing, I drizzle olive oil into the puree. There shouldn’t be any big clumps in the meat and should be broken down to a soup like consistency. There will be small shards of meat that are tiny enough for your baby to swallow. You can add breast milk to cool down the food if you are serving immediately.  This will cook about one ice cube tray of servings. With the reserve, I pour the puree into ice cube baby food trays and freeze.  One cube at the beginning is suitable and is about a 1.5 tablespoons.

Reserve the lamb broth.  You can freeze it, or keep in the fridge for up to a week and use to help add healthy fats to your kids puree foods. This is great when you don’t have a surplus of breast milk to help the puree consistency or to cool down the meal in time for feeding. And, it’s an amazing concentration of high folic acid protein fortified fat source.  I use it for my pasta sauces and all sorts of things.

Lamb is served exclusively at this stage; 1 serving per day for 2 weeks along side regular breast feeding and breast milk bottle routine feedings. These solid servings do NOT replace a breast milk feeding at this stage.  They supplement.  Do not skip a feeding or bottle because of the solids meal.  This is an initial trial and you don’t want your milk supply to be affected.

Sweet Potatoes and/or Zucchini (7 months):
Cube vegetables. Boil, roast or steam, just so they get tender enough to put in the processor. If roasting, I would drizzle with olive oil. Once veggies are cooked, puree with olive oil and some lamb broth, or breast milk. Cook, process and store separately so it makes for easy modification later if they like or dislike any, you aren’t tossing out options that you can’t identify which they like or dislike. Once you have established their taste for either, consider putting them together.  Both are really easy to digest and tasty.  You can later add peas and carrots however both are pretty sugary so use sparingly. If using frozen peas, it’s a great way to cool down a hot serving just to the right temperature, and they dissolve very quickly in the little one’s mouth so you don’t have to worry about the swallowing/choking. Store in the freezer (couple of months) or refrigerator (for two days).

Brown rice and fruits or veggies (7.5 months):
Prepare organic brown rice on the stove or in the microwave.  I take all the rice and process it with reserved boiled rice water to a puree.  I make a couple of rice servings at a time, and store them in jars for that week.  Then, I can modify each simply without.  Take half an avocado and place into the processor with a cup or so of the cooked rice.  Puree avocado and rice, drizzle with olive oil and if you have any reserved, lamb broth use that.  You can substitute the avocado for peas, carrots, applesauce, blueberries, bananas.  Applesauce and frozen blueberries is an awesome to cool down any of the food in a jiffy. My little guy (8 months) LOVES the rice, blueberries, bananas and applesauce at breakfast time.  I even sprinkle a tad of cinnamon in there too.

Lamb for 8 months and up:
Now this is where it gets fun because what you eat can be shared a bit more with them.  We don’t eat any cow meat in our house.  Only pork, lamb and fish.  We have lamb in our diet once a week whether it be lamb burgers, lamb meatballs, lamb chops, lamb steaks. Whatever we have leftover, as long as it isn’t overly seasoned, we set aside and drop it into the food processor for our little guy to enjoy. All of the above: lamb, rice, veggies or rice and fruits – go so well together at this stage so if you have prepped and frozen these items separately, it’s a breeze getting the babies meal ready to go.

At this stage, he is eating two meals a day, morning and late lunch/early dinner.  A couple of weeks ago, we made lamb steaks, roasted alongside some medley potatoes (purple, sweet, and fingerling) that we seasoned with olive oil and rosemary.  Once my husband, Sadie (3yrs) and I finished, we set aside a small steak for Ernie, cubed it (steak and potatoes), and processed it together.  He had it for lunch the next two days.  Even better, a few weeks back, while at a BBQ holding a lamb chop and Ernie (who has two bottom teeth), he just grabbed it and put the fatty part in his mouth.  I was shocked, didn’t know what to do because when I took it from him he screamed. So I just held him while he held the chop and pacified himself for the next 20 minutes.  Before the night was done, he had gnawed on three of my half eaten lamb chops.  The kid LOVES lamb.

General lamb and meat recipe notes:
It’s pretty easy to adapt many online recipes from epicurious or whatever to your babies needs.  Just kill the salt, minimize the garlic or onion, and avoid nuts. But once you know how to prepare the lamb and make it suitable for your baby to eat, the possibilities are endless as most lamb recipes can be modified easily (less spice, no salt, etc). My oldest loves lamb and pork (pork is her fave).  She eats generally everything we give her.  She has an open mind about food and loves to try new things.  I believe lamb played a huge role in setting her palette this way.  We eat Mediterranean food primarily and now, so do our kids.