beginner to making my own baby food

So this week I ventured into the "make your own baby food" world - I just bought a few veggies (started with carrots, sweet potatoes, and peas) and got recipes off of wholesomebabyfoods.com, cooked 'em, threw 'em in the food processor, and voila! (Well, except for the peas which I had to strain and that was a PITA.)

Any suggestions on more veggies (and/or fruits but I'm trying to do lots of veggies) that are relatively easy to make (I'm a working mom, and not a gourmet chef either, so I'm trying to be realistic)...

TIA!

 

I found fruits easier to make my own. The other veggie I had good luck with is squash - acorn or butternut, sweet potatoes is a huge hit here! The veggies - I didn't dig straining, ended up too chunky. Bleh

Fruits - baked apples, peaches, plums, etc etc.

Once we got to meats though, I baked 3 bone in chicken breasts with 4 or 5 apples, deboned and skinned the chicken then pureed the apples and chicken all together, and they LOVE it! It's so easy to get the meat down them! But, this is not a thin puree, it's pretty chunky so you babies probably won't like it for awhile, until they get used to more texture.

Happy cooking!

 

You can do almost anything. I started off with carrot, parsnip, (sweet) potato, butternut squash, pumpkin because they have a sweet taste. Then I went on to peas, sweetcorn (these are a bit more of a pain because of the husks) broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, tomatoes, spinach (all of these have a stronger more bitter taste and will probably go down better if you mix them into one of the sweeter things). Avocado is good too (you can't freeze it like the rest of the stuff though). I used a hand held blender for everything and there wasn't anything that didn't go into a smooth puree (some things needed more liquid than others), no straining! I always made batches of things and froze the extra in ice cube trays.
Fruits I started with apples, pears and bananas (also don't freeze) and then moved to nectarines/peaches, mango, apricots, plums blueberries, and (once they were older) strawberries. I would combine those in different ways too.

I'd recommend checking out the Annabel Karmel webiste. It has lots of good information and recipes. Here is the 6-9 month page.

 

I started out making pears, apples, squash, sweet potato, and peas. They love love love homemade pears the most. My blender got the skins of the peas fine enough so I didn't have to strain them. My food processor couldn't do that.

Just a sidenote: I was told by my pedi not to homemake carrots until 8-10 months because of the high concentration of nitrates. I know a lot of people do it, but I buy them jarred

 

I've done pretty much everything the pp's have mentioned, but I thought I'd add my guys love avocado and banana mixed together. I don't prepare it ahead of time because it's so easy, and it browns so quickly due to oxidation. But I just mash both with a fork until they're the right consistency.

And I buy a huge jar of applesauce (unsweetened) and just puree that (they don't need it pureed anymore, but when we started). This is way easier than baking apples and blending, and cheaper.

Good luck!

Laura

 

I LOVED making baby food for my first son.. can't wait until the twins are old enough to eat! We started with Avacado and Bananas, seperately and together.. they were so easy to make right before he ate them.. But like everyone else said we used basically any vegetable that was in the produce section.. Making the food is awesome because I think they'll get used to thicker food and start eating chunkier food sooner.. At least that was the case for my son. It's always fun to mix the foods too! Before you know it you'll be throwing your dinner into the blender and they'll just be eating the same thing you eat!

 

Fruits are definitely much easier to prepare. My daughter's favorit was: 1 pear, 1/2 apple, 1/2 small potato. Cook until tender in water (you can add a tiny hint of cinnamon - but only if you want to) and then food processor, blend it and it's done. You can keep it in the refrigerator for about 3 days after you make it.

 

I made all of my DD#1's food and now am making all of the twins' food. (except I buy unsweetened apple sauce) Some things I have learned along the way....

I bought like a dozen Ice cube trays so when I do have time I can make a lot of food at once. (many different varieties).

I discovered that my pampered chef scoop perfectly fills 1 compartment of an ice cube tray. OMG this has saved me SOOOOO much time. So neat and tidy.

I bake, microwave and use a vegetable steamer . Depending on what and how much I'm making.

I use a food mill to remove the "skins" on peas, prunes, corn etc

Now that the babies are eating more I am freezing in larger portions. I use Silicone muffin pans. I put each pan on a cookie sheet and then I can stack them in the freezer. I LOVE THESE PANS. The pan peels away from the frozen food and I am left with these perfect pucks of food. They look beautiful- professional even. They stack wonderfully in my freezer bags. This would probably save a busy, working mom a lot of time. Last week I baked a butternut squash, a couple of sweet potatoes and a couple of regular potatoes. I blended them all together and froze them in my silicone muffin pans. Add your choice of meat- delish!

I have found that the easiest- minimal work high yield- foods to make are Butternut squash, sweet potato, potato, zucchini. I also freeze bananas. If you mix them with other fruit like pears, pineapple mango etc the don't brown and the taste soooo good in a fruit "medley". Even if they turn brown so what, they still taste good.

Good luck with making your own food. I have tasted the commercial baby food and YUK! If I wouldn't eat it myself I won't feed it to my kids.
Did I mention how much I love my silicone muffin pans. I :wub: them!

 

I was going to do this and went on youtube to see if they had anything on pureed foods. They have numerous videos that show you how to do it and tons of ideas. http://www.youtube.com/user/newmums#p/a/u/1/Vmc_GXrK27w

 

Avocado with Banana and greek yogurt -- great taste. The greek yogurt is more natural without the sugar. When avocados get to the right texture put them in the fridge to keep longer and they won't continue to ripen in the fridge.

Heather

 

I love cooking for my children and we tried just about everything, the most used items in our kitchen are the steamer and the food processor. I made large quantities and froze fruit, vegetables and meat in the 1/2 cup ziploc containers. I would take a few different items out of the freezer the night before and mix different items together. My guys loved kiwi fruit (I put it in the food processor and served it on its own or with oat cereal) and now at 15 months it would have to be my sons favorite fruit, I cut it in quarters and he can't get the pieces in his mouth fast enough.

Peas, green beans, Broccoli, cauliflower, pumpkin, sweet potato, carrots, zucchini, beets, squash, brussels sprout, avocado, apple, pear (freeze immediately or it goes brown), prune, plum, nectarine, apricot, peach, mango, blueberry, cherry, blackberry, banana.

Good luck

 

A friend of mine says she makes dinner for her family, then takes a bit of everything and throws it in a food processor with some water, and voila! It's good because she eats very well... Now if you're like me and end up eating cereal for dinner... well then it probably won't work well for you (or me... lol).