what’s sumner eating #2: pear walnut crumble

I never thought I’d be the kind of mom who makes her own baby food, but here we are. Every week we have 16 jars of baby food delivered from Yumi. I love that it’s 100 percent organic and freshly made each week. I also like that it inspires me to experiment with strong flavors for Sumner.

At this point, Sumner is eating purées three times per day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He’s also drinking four bottles per day. I feel like I’m constantly feeding him something. On the upside, we haven’t needed to use his g-tube for four weeks. Our pediatrician requires him to go at least 12 weeks without use and show adequate weight gain for us to talk about taking it out. We’ll see though. He previously went 16 weeks without using it and then completely started refusing food when he started teething. Like I said before, it’s two steps forward and one step back with this kid.

At any rate, on to this week’s breakfast concoction. Our CSA sent pears this week and Sumner very much enjoys them. I did learn from the last time that I did pears for his breakfast that smashing them is not enough. They need to go through the blender to break up the fibers. I’m calling this week’s breakfast Pear Walnut Crumble.

I typically make the base ahead of time and add oatmeal on the day of. I think the oatmeal gets a bit gross if it sits in the fridge for a week.

Ingredients

• 238 grams chopped pears (~2 pears)
• 60 grams coconut oil
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp ginger
• 10 grams walnut butter (optional)
• 2.5 milliliters maple syrup
• 7 grams oatmeal
• 40 milliliters juice
• 1 serving probiotic (optional, we like this one)

Fruit base

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Add the pears, coconut oil, cinnamon, and ginger to an oven safe container and mix to combine.
3. Bake for approximately 45 minutes or until fork tender. Make sure to stir partway through the baking time.
4. Allow pear mixture to cool to room temperature.
5. Place pear mixture, walnut butter, and maple syrup into a blender and process until smooth.
6. Divide between 5 four ounce containers and refrigerate.

Assembling for breakfast

1. Pull out one of your fruit bases from the fridge. Due to the coconut oil, it will be a bit solid.
2. Warm your juice or other liquid in the microwave for about 10 seconds to take the chill off and help with mixing.
3. Add the oatmeal, probiotic, and juice to the fruit base. Stir well.
4. Enjoy!

Notes

• Sumner is over a year old and we’re slowly introducing allergens such as nuts. You can omit the walnut butter if you’re avoiding nuts and/or allergens.
• You can substitute any fat or oil that you prefer instead of coconut oil. I like how neutral it is. You can also reduce the amount of oil if you prefer. Sumner gets extra calories snuck into all of his food on purpose to help him gain weight.
• As written, the recipe makes five jars at approximately 165 calories each. (Yes, we’re going for high calorie food here!)
• Justin (dad) took a taste of the fruit base and loved it. He even cleared the bowl. He said that it would be super yummy over ice cream!