Moong Dal Soup

Ever since my little one 'Anshika' started eating solids I was in search of tasty, delectable and appealing baby food to make eating more interesting for her. Some days she eats and some days she doesn't and moreover making your baby eat is always time taking process but sometimes very challenging and frustrating too. Cooking homemade baby food became very interesting when Anshika started liking new foods.

I started gathering recipes from friends, experienced moms, my mother, older sisters in the family, books on baby food for over a year now, reinventing and recreating the old recipes with a new twist was like experimenting flavors in your lab (kitchen). So I thought why not introduce my new line of recipes especially for babies,toddlers and kids on Padma's Kitchen. You can find many interesting baby food recipes going forward, that's my promise to all the new parents, Good Luck and Happy Parenting!!

Baby Food - Moong dal soup with Carrot and Spinach

Moong Dal Soup with Carrot and Spinach is a hearty soup which is rich in protein from lentils, Vit A, iron from spinach and Vit A , beta carotene from carrot. You can feed this soup to babies from 9 months and up. As the age of the baby goes up you can make this soup even chunkier and add more veggies to it. If your baby is older than 18 months you can mix it with some cooked rice and feed. It is a very common recipe in India and moong dal helps with digestion and produces less heat to the body compared to any lentils.

Source: My Mother
Cuisine: Indian
Prep & Cooking time: 20 mins
Servings: 3

Ingredients:
½ C split yellow moong dal (lentil)
½ C shredded organic carrot
handful of spinach, roughly chopped
a pinch of turmeric powder/haldi
a pinch of crushed black pepper
1½ C baby water
salt to taste
2 tsp of ghee (clarified butter)

Method:

• Rinse the split yellow moong dal and soak it in one and half cup of water.
• Meanwhile shred or grate the carrot and clean, also rinse and chop the spinach.
• If you have a pressure cooker, combine all the ingredients except salt and ghee. Pressure cook till 4 whistles, takes around 15 mins.
  
• If you do not have a pressure cooker, cook it in a medium sauce pot with double the water over medium heat for 30-40 mins or till the lentils are tender.
• When its done add some salt and ghee and feed your baby when the soup is still lukewarm.
  
• Consistency of the soup should be easy flow like tomato soup. As the age of your baby goes up you can thicken it by adding less water and also some spice too, like garlic or ginger!
  
• You can store the leftover in refrigerator and feed it in 2-3 days, but heat in microwave or stove top every time you feed your baby. You may notice that the dal solidifies once you cool it so you may add some water to loosen up but at the same time add some salt.
• You can also feed this soup with cooked rice to babies older than 1 or 1½ year and who are eating chunkier foods by now.

These homemade baby food recipes are simple and rewarding to make - become head chef for a very special little customer!