Author: Gauri Kshirsagar
This is a very simple recipe to make and is one of my personal favorites. Simple because the same recipe can be made in different varieties to suit the child’s age. For e.g. to begin with I started simple rice water as the first weaning food for my twins. Later on I added a bit of seasoning, ghee, eggs, fish and so on. It is very easy for the baby to swallow and can be made thicker or thinner as per the need of the baby. I am noting down the various changes I have made to this recipe according to the baby’s age:
| Age | Modifications |
| 5-6 Months | Cook the rice, strain the rice and use only the rice water as a first weaning food, add jaggery water as a sweetner |
| 6-8 Months | Smash Rice and Dal (can use a food processor) into a fine paste and add jaggery water as a sweetner |
| 8-10 Months | Smash Rice-Dal with vegetables (can use a food processor) to make it into a fine paste, add seasoning, salt and jaggery water as a sweetner. |
| 1 year onwards | Rice-Dal with vegetables, seasoning, salt and sugar as a sweetner. (you can also add eggs and fish) |
RECIPE It’s easier to make this dish in a pressure cooker with with separators
(Proportion for 1 serving each for twins)
- 3-4 teaspoon of rice (I have always preferred the “Indrayani” or “kollum” brand of rice)
- 1-1.5 teaspoon of moong dal (green gram lentil)
- 2 cups of water
- Cut and scraped vegetables like tomato, potato, carrot, beans etc
- 2 teaspoon homemade Ghee (clarified butter)
- Handful of coriander
- For Seasoning: ½ teaspoon cumin seeds (jeera), pinch of Turmeric powder (haldi)
- Salt and sweetener for taste (Sweetner: Jaggery water after 1 year I used sugar.
Method:
- In one of the separators of the cooker add the rice and dal, wash and add 1 cup of water. Add Cumin seeds, turmeric powder, ghee, salt and sweetener(sugar or jaggery).
- In the other separator add cut vegetables with a cup of water
Rice-Dal & vegetables in separators - Close the lid and keep the cooker on high flame for one whistle and on low flame for 3 whistles
- After the lid opens up, remove the separators from the cooker.
Cooked Rice and Dal - In a jar of a food processor, add the vegetables and mix well. In this mixture add the rice-dal and mix till the desired consistency (If you want it more granular with chunks, rotate only for a few seconds and if you want it as a fine paste, rotate it for a longer time)
- DO NOT DISCARDE THE LEFT OVER WATER IN THE VEGETABLE SEPARATOR. This can be used to make the khichdi thinner.
* Boiled egg (cut into small pieces) and deboned fish (pomfret or lady fish) can also be added in the vegetable mix
*Thanks a lot for visiting my blog. Please do ‘★ LIKE’ the post if you found it to be useful.Your comments, suggestions, criticism and all opinions are very much appreciated. Please do write your queries in the Reply/comments section and I will try to get back to you asap.
Raising Twins™ 
Thanks for prompt response.
Pondering over detecting if new food is suitable and its quantity is sufficient. Following is our experience. Please do share any tips you may have.
1. Observation for acceptability of feed
Does baby reject or protest or relish?
Taste and texture has been altered to make it suitable for baby. Atleast 3 attempts are tried before taking the new feed off.
2. Observation for post feed response
New feed was stopped incase of vomiting, rashes, cold/cough, loose stools.
Incase of constipation, tried reducing quantity or adding more fluid during preparation.
3. Observation for sufficient quantity
We usually start new feed in small quanity (1-2 tablespoon ) and gradually increase. If baby demands feed or frequency between feeds is lesser than usual, we sense that quantity is not sufficient and try to increase.
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Hi Chaitra,
Following are my views on the above mentioned points by you:
1)Most babies do relish bland food in the begining. More than the taste I suppose the texture is more important, so that the food is quite comfortable to swallow and doesn’t cause a gag reflex. There is no hard and fast rule for 3 attempts, but you can make that decision for your baby
2) This step is very important to avoid allergic reactions during weaning. Constipation can be also due to ragi, jaggery based foods or iron supplements (iron causes constipation ). To avoid constipation addition of fruits and vegetables in diet is very important and also adequate amount of water.
3) Quantity of food, I think a mother can be the best judge of this….it all varies from child to child.
Thanks for your input
Ragards,
Gauri
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Hi Chaitra,
For a 8 month old baby I recommend approximately 1-2 tsp rice (raw) with 1/2 tsp moong dal (raw). You can use simple veggies with it like 1 inch of a carrot, small piece of potato and a slice of tomato (introduce each vegetable one at a time). Do add 1 tsp of ghee with salt and jaggery for taste. make it thick or thin depending on the baby’s eating habit. DO NOT force feed though.
Regard.
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What are your recommendations for quantity of rice, dal, veggies for 1 meal for 8 month baby?
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Nice one….u have added the veggies only after introducing each separate ly or have u directly mixed and introduced.? Thanks
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Each one in the gap of 4-5 days…. than continued together
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