I am so super excited today to share this recipe for avocado chocolate pudding with you. My sweet friend and amazing kids recipe developer Renee from Raising Generation Nourished agreed to let me share this sneak preview into her brand new cookbook called Nourished Beginnings Baby Food: Nutrient-Dense Recipes for Infants, Toddlers, and Beyond. Inspired by Ancient Wisdom and Traditional Foods.
Nourished Beginnings is an incredible resource for the Paleo, primal, WAPF, and ancestral living communities. The book is divided into 4 parts:
- Simple starts for baby
- Nourishing meal ideas for the whole family and babies over 6-9 months
- Transitioning into toddlerhood
- Traditional staples
"Simple starts" has vegetable purees, meat and fish purees, fruit purees, drinks, and simple soups. Even though these are all excellent for babies, you know what else they are good for? I think these are great options for anyone feeling under the weather. Sometimes you really just need simple and easy to digest (yet nutrient dense) food to help you recover, and I am definitely keeping these recipes in mind the next time anybody here has the flu!
The rest of the recipes are really, honestly, great for the whole family - not just toddlers and young kids. But, if you do have youngins that you want to feed a healthy, nutrient-dense, NO processed foods diet this is the book you need!
I think one of the strongest selling points of this cookbook is how straightforward and easy all of the recipes are. Renee knows how to artfully combine whole, real food, nutrient-dense ingredients to create dishes packed with flavor but that do not require a lot of time or effort to cook. I imagine her cooking style developed out of necessity as a busy mother doing whatever it took to feed her (adorable) girls the best food possible, and now you can benefit from all her hard work to save time cooking for your children!
One thing I love about Renee's recipes is her philosophy that "every bite counts" - which is especially true for babies and toddlers. It is also so important to introduce children to real foods very early on so that they learn to love the taste of fresh foods and not the ultra-processed foods that pass as kid food on the Standard American Diet (SAD). When you are armed with the recipes in Nourished Beginnings, you will find it easy to raise your kids with healthy homecooked foods. Plus, you will save a TON OF MONEY by making your own baby food. Have you seen how expensive it is to buy the good stuff??! I don't even think you can buy pre-made baby food that uses pasture-raised and grass-fed meats, anyway.
One thing to note is that Renee does use some dairy in a few recipes, but in nearly every case you can make a substitute or omit. I whole-heartedly support dairy consumption if it is well tolerated. She also uses gluten-free grains like buckwheat, rice, oats, and quinoa a few times as well as sprouted beans. So, this book is not strictly Paleo and is more in line with Weston A Price Foundation/more broadly Real Food.
Here are some of the recipe I am excited to make myself:
- Squash medley soup
- Nutrient-dense green soup
- Nutrient-dense vegetable breakfast porridge
- Beef and liver meatballs with bone-broth gravy
- Chicken "zoodle" soup
- Herbed cauli-rice and veggie bowls (wow, so many veggies here!)
- Maple roasted acorn squash
- Mini breakfast quiches
Now, let's check out this sample recipe Renee is letting me share with you! I hope you enjoy it :-) And make sure you pick up a copy of her cookbook, too. This is a great gift idea for any new moms in your life!
Nourishing Raw Cocoa Avocado Pudding (Paleo, AIP) from Nourished Beginnings
Published 10/12/2016
Here's what Renee says about this recipe: "Rich and creamy chocolate pudding with a nourishing kick! Because this delicious pudding is mostly avocados, I make it every so often as an after school snack, too!"
Ingredients
- 3 ripe avocados, pitted and scooped out of the shell
- 1 tsp vanilla extract (this one is alcohol-free for AIP)
- 1/4 to 1/3 cup raw honey
- 6 tbsp (42g) raw cacao or carob powder
- pinch of sea salt to garnish
Instructions
- Put everything, except the salt, into your food procesor and blend until smooth. Serve each bowl with a pinch of coarse sea salt if you wish.
Cook time: 00 hrs. 00 mins.
Total time: 5 mins.
Tags: paleo, AIP, gluten-free, egg-free, vegan, autoimmune protocol
