Baby Food Part 1:Purees
Wow...5 months and it's been silent here. Trying to adjust as a working mom, volleyball coach, and wife has not been easy. Any teacher can tell you that the end of the year can be pretty hectic with finalizing grades, inventory for next year, approving standards and lesson plans for next year, etc.
At almost 8 months old, this chunker is loving food! I decided from the beginning that I wanted to make my own baby food. From what I have thought of there are 3 things to consider when making your own baby food.
1. Peace of mind. Never having bought baby food I assumed they were full of preservatives just like adult food. However, I have already made up my mind to make her baby food and I'm stubborn--so I'm sticking with it. Baby food today many times is just the food itself, no added preservatives. Still not 100% sure how it can stay on the shelf without refrigeration for that long.
2. Price. The next thing to look at is the price per ounce. I have always heard that it's MUCH cheaper to make your own.
3. Your time. As a working mom I'm already extremely limited on time and energy. During school I just do a few batches at a time during the weekend. During my trackouts I do large batches of food throughout a week to have a large batch ready. I maybe spend an hour every few weekends to take care of it.
If you choose to then make your own food, it couldn't be easier. Don't waste your time buying any fancy equipment. At a minimum you'll need a knife, cutting board, pot, cook top, blender, freezer, ice cube tray, and freezer bags. My big machines I always break out that make my baby food making job MUCH easier is my juicer, blender, and spiralizer for my KitchenAid stand mixer. My spiralizer has a peeler, corer, and slicer. This makes my job a lot easier when working with apples and pears. I'm not a big fan of having to peel anything, so this makes my job at least a little bit easier.
I make my own purees, juice, and snacks. To keep this post from being so HUGE I'll break them into 2 parts. Stay tuned for the juices and snacks post next. Most of the purees are for stage 1. Stage 1 simply means there are NO chunks. Stage 2 has some chunks and stage 3 has a lot of chunks. Before feeding your baby anything always check with your doctor. It's recommended that you feed your baby 1 food for 4-5 days to make sure they don't have any reaction to the food before either combining it with something else or moving onto another food. Once you have a good variety of food they'll eat then you can start making your own blends.
Baby Food Purees
Supplies:
Food you're going to puree (fresh or frozen ideal)
Knife
Cutting Board
Pot
Ice cube trays
Freezer bags
Directions:
1. If using fresh food peel, cut, and core (if needed). Good rule of thumb is if it's a thick skin it needs to be peeled: sweet potatoes, apples, pears, peaches, mangoes, etc. If it's a thin skin it doesn't need to be peeled: peas, green beans, blueberries, yellow squash, zucchini, etc. If using frozen food just pour into pot.
2. Add chunks to a pot with water and boil until fork tender. Do NOT add any seasonings, especially salt.
3. Strain, reserving cooking liquid, and blend. Add the reserved cooking liquid as needed.
4. Pour into ice cube tray. Tap tray on counter to remove any air bubbles.
5. Place trays in freezer and let set up about 4-10 hours.
6. Twist trays back and forth to loosen cubes. Place frozen puree in labeled freezer bags and put back in freezer.
7. Remove however many cubes you need as you need them.
SWEET POTATOES
1. Bake at 350F for an hour.
2. Remove skins, cut into pieces, and add to blender with water (or breastmilk). Cooked potatoes are a pain to cut so I just peeled and threw the entire potato into my blender and used a knife to cut it into pieces in the blender.
3. Repeat steps 4-7 above.
APPLES AND PEARS
1. Peel, core, and slice. I used my handy dandy spiralizer to make this job much faster. Only thing I'm not crazy about is the corer is kind of small and leaves behind small pieces of seeds or seed coatings which leave hard things in my baby food. So I always go behind with my small paring knife to remove the remainder of the core.
2. Repeat steps 2-7 above.
PEACHES
1. Peel and cut off seed. Unfortunately you have to peel and cut by hand because of the giant pit in the middle. I live in the South East so there are TONS of fresh peaches this time of year, but if you don't have that luxury or want to spend the time peeling and cutting just get frozen peaches.
2. Repeat steps 2-7 above.
CARROTS, GREEN BEANS, AND PEAS
1. I used frozen so just threw it into a pot. If you choose to use fresh peel the carrots and remove the ends of the green beans.
2. Repeat steps 2-7 above. I can never get green beans perfectly smooth so if your child isn't ready for stage 2 foods you'll need to blend yours more than I did.
BLUEBERRIES AND MANGO
1. Again, I used frozen and just have to throw in a pot. If using fresh, clean blueberries first and mango needs to be peeled and cut off seed.
2. Repeat steps 2-7 above. Below you'll notice I put some of the mango puree into small jars. These are 4oz jars that I use to make the next week of new food she'll be eating. Now I don't have to thaw anything out, it's ready to go, perfectly portioned, and saves me some time.
BANANAS AND AVOCADOS
1. Remove peels and seed of avocado.
2. Cut into chunks.
3. Mash. We used a baby food masher we got from my parents. It's amazing, but you could just as easily use a fork and bowl.
4. Eat. We just feed her right out of the bowl we mashed it into. Both of these turn brown really quickly so can't be made in bulk or advance, but is nice because you don't have to thaw anything out.
Phew! I don't know about you, but I'm tired just thinking about all of this work. Honestly, it wasn't as bad as you might think. I took a week making 2 or 3 batches at a time and it took me no time at all. Once everything is done, I lay it out in my freezer so I can quickly grab and go. So, was all that time worth it?
PRICE:
Total=$30
Made about 100 meals (4oz)
Per Meal=$0.30
Per Ounce=$0.08
COMPARE:
Organic baby food in pouch=$0.40/oz
Gerber baby food=$0.21/oz
I count this as a win! It was so much cheaper making my own food than to have to buy it premade. Now that I have a good selection I can make my own blends. We love green beans and apples, sweet potatoes and pears, carrots and peaches, etc.
Does this encourage you to make your own now? I feel so accomplished now that I have a freezer full of food that I can use whenever. If I need to travel somewhere or send her to daycare I just throw 4 cubes into an 8oz jar. I prefer glass jars instead of plastic containers because I microwave her food. Also, these jars fit into the warmers at daycare perfectly.