Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Simply Homemade: Baby Food

Brecken is just getting to the point where he's beginning to eat baby food on a regular basis. As I did with Taeya, I'll be making my own. I find that it really doesn't take long at all, it costs very little and I can even make baby food for different stages.

This week, I started by peeling, cubing, and boiling 4 or 5 large sweet potatoes. I first took out about two cups of the hot water from the pot, I then strained the rest of the water off the sweet potatoes and poured about 1/3 of the cooked potatoes into my Vita-Mix. I pureed the sweet potatoes and added a little of the reserved water until it was the smooth consistency I was looking for. I put it into ice cube trays to freeze in small portions.

I then repeated the pureeing process two more times. However, the second time, I left some small lumps in the puree mixture to make it like a stage 2 baby food. On the third batch, I left larger lumps and also froze it in a Popsicle tray as I was out of ice cube trays and knew that Brecken would be able to eat the larger portions by the time he is eating the larger lumps.

Making baby food is very quick and easy. Best of all, by making it yourself, you know exactly what your baby is eating. Since I aim to have my babies eating table food by the time they are 10 months old, I really only have to make a few batches of baby food before they're eating what our family eats. I start offering finger foods as soon as they can pick it up. Brecken already feeds himself baby Mum-mums and loves them! At just under 5 months, he does really well getting the mum-mum into his mouth, sucking and even chewing on them.

Some of the things I puree into baby food are:
Bananas, Mango, Avacado, Pears, Peaches, Mixed berries, Peas, Organic carrots.
I've done applesauce in the past but this time I just bought a jar of 'no sugar added' applesauce because it's cost effective and what we eat as well. I purchase organic fruits/veggies sometimes but I'm not super worried about everything being organic. However, I do only buy organic carrots for babies because there is something that non-organic carrots can have that isn't good for young babies.

I don't do any sort of pureed meat because it's not realistic to what we eat. When he's a couple months older, I'll begin offering him small pieces of chicken to start with. He'll also get protein from beans and eggs. 

If you've made baby food, what do you make? What advice do you have regarding baby food? Everyone does it a bit different and I'd love to hear what you think.

6 comments:

  1. This is great! I will be sure to post this on my blog.

    I would like to make baby food for my son, but we lack the freezer space right now. One question: How do you thaw them out? Do you pop one out of the ice tray and put in in a bowl in the fridge, or put it in a ziploc and run it under hot water, or something else?

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  2. I usually just take out two cubes and throw them in a bowl in the microwave. I start with 30 seconds, stir them and then do another 10-15 seconds. Just be sure you stir it really well and test it yourself to make sure there are no hot spots.
    If it's a cold fruit that isn't really supposed to be heated, I do the same thing and just get it to the point where they're not hot. May still have a few ice crystals in it that disappear when I stir it up. If I plan ahead, I sometimes put them in a small container in the fridge and let them thaw out that way.

    Best of all, if we're going out, I can just bring the ice-cube frozen and it'll thaw while we're out. Just be sure to use it when it's still fresh.

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  3. I did not make my baby food for the other 2 kids.....but with Trenton I am a totally different mom, for obvious reasons. I want him to have the very best that I can give, and I feel that making my own food is the best I can give! I was saddened to learn at the doctors today that he is really low on iron, but now I know to add more iron to his diet! Tonight I wilted some green leafy spinach and added it to bananas that he loves.....and he got some iron and loved it :) I am going through "Super Baby Food" and doing a lot of what it suggests. We have done avocado, peas, beans, sweet potato, squash, carrots, apples, pears, bananas, cereal and tonight spinach! He is doing well but HATES the peas and beans. It might just be my chopper, but i am absolutely SURE it is a consistency issue. Do you have issues with peas and beans? If so, what do you do to make it smoother?

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  4. Brecken has yet to try either peas or beans but my vitamix purees Everything so I won't have that issue. I can even put apples in, core and all and it will puree the seeds. Sorry...maybe you can cook them longer. He's old enough that you can probably start adding more texture to his foods though.

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  5. I love the idea of using trays and never thought of doing "stages"...if I ever have more kids doing this for sure! thanks,
    Lina
    fancy frugal life

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