Does anyone else make their own babyfood?

Just wondering if anyone else makes their own babyfood? I would love to share recipes and tips. I'll start!

For me a batch is an icecube tray of food. I steam the veggies/fruit until they are super duper soft and then I run only the veggies cold water to stop the cooking process, this also helps them freeze faster later on. The fruits are too soft to do this and seem to fall apart, I just let them sit for 15 mins before I puree them.

I puree them in my food processor with some filtered water and then scoop then into icecubs trays. Freeze them and the foodsave them in batches so they don't get freezer burn. LOVE my FoodSaver!

This seems to be working well for me. With the foodsaver, I can makes like 4 bathes of food at once and then just use them as needed.

On Sunday nights, I pull out a week's worth of food and put them in a ziploc bag and keep them frozen. I take a batch to daycare too and she loves it.

I've made:

Carrots-bought fresh
apples-bought fresh 3 apples makes one batch, peel and steam.
peaches-bought fresh 2 peaches makes one batch, steam then peel. The skins come off so easily.
peas-just bought a bag of frozen, unsalted in the bag. One 1lb bag makes one batch
greenbeans-same as peas

I mix all of the purees with oatmeal and a scoop of formula. They really like it. I've mixed apples and carrots and that was a hit!

 

I made most of my own baby food, and it was so much tastier than the jarred stuff!

A lot of people on this site use http://wholesomebabyfood.com/, which has lots of recipes and advice about what's good at different ages. My favourite recipe, and the one the boys eat to this day for breakfast, is the avacado and banana.. the boys LOVE it.

 

I am just starting this. My boys are just now getting the hang of eating their oatmeal. I have made applesauce so far. This weekend I will be going crazy though and making a few different types.

One question, when you use the food saver how many do you put together in a package?

A website that I found with a few recipes on it is http://smittenkitchen.com/baby/ She has some interesting food combos.

 

I used to make as much of their food as I could. I would save the jarred just for going out or emergencies. My boys favorite was BPA (Banana Pears Apples) and I used the natural applesauce to save money (and time). I used the wholesomebaby food site too for a bit then just went to the grocery store and got ideas from the baby food isle. Blueberry Pear Apple was another favorite of the boys, but they didn't like it when I made it. I would test a combo by buying one of the baby food from the store and if they liked it I would make a batch.

Have fun!

 

LOVE HER BLOG! I had it bookmarked already but didn't see the babyfood post! Thanks so much!

I store one tray in a bag. We found that costco has the best price on foodsaver bags. I just use the premeasured 8x11 bags right now and it fills a bag about half way. It leaves room to reseal it if needed or I wash the bags and reuse them. You can only do this with fruit/veggies though, not anything with meat or dairy. I like to store them by type and then when I go in and pull out my week's supply, I have a little baggy for veggies and one for fruit.

I think since I made two batches of carrots, I may see if I can store them all in one bag this time or just make a bag for them to save supplies.

Here is a link to the costco bag kit: http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11492367&search=foodsaver&Mo=1&cm_re=1_en-_-Top_Left_Nav-_-Top_search&lang=en-US&Nr=P_CatalogName:BC&Sp=S&N=5000043&whse=BC&Dx=mode+matchallpartial&Ntk=Text_Search&Dr=P_CatalogName:BC&Ne=4000000&D=foodsaver&Ntt=foodsaver&No=0&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Nty=1&topnav=&s=1

 

I also have an apple peeler like this: http://www.transactionholdings.com/showcase/popup_image.php?pID=479&osCsid=3108fffd841b6befbfa782986696457e

It's so fun to use and fast! Works with pears too. My DD loves to eat the "snake skin" as she calls it.

 

I;m really enjoying making my own this time around. I find it very rewarding to see all those little cubes in the freezer, and it must be saving money too. I made a big batch last week. I have a freestanding veggie steamer and a cusinart, so I just throw a bag of stuff in the steamer (e.g. a bag of organic peas) then dump it into the cuisinart and puree. I bought special trays off of amazon that are very easy to dump the food into (you can just pour from the bowl) and easy to release food from. Then I freeze the squares in freezer bags. Right now I am defrosting one day's worth each evening, but I may have to switch to something more efficient as it does take time each evening to do this. I think when you have multiples this makes a lot of sense - you would be going through so much jarred food! Like PP, I am just using regular organic applesauce.

 

I did the applesauce from the smitten kitchen website and loved it. It was super tasty. Now I have to find out if my boys are going to like it. I will probably try it with them tomorrow night.

 

I was just at Target and two ounces of Earth's best is like 70 cents a jar. Each cube is about an ounce so I think we are all definately saving money.

Target is also having a sales on Gerber "go and throw" containers. Don't know why they are go and throw, they are not really disposable IMO.

 

I make most of my own baby food. I could not live without my food mill! It gets all the skins and strings out of the foods, and it's completely quiet...unlike my jet engine processor.

Try baking peaches. They have tons of flavor that way. I also want to try adding herbs to some of the veggies--mint with peas, basil with green beans. I'm such a foodie that I hope my kids are too.

 

FBMc-I like you idea of incorporating herbs! I'm totally going to try that! I'm sure your kids will love food if you are exposing them to great food early.

 

I am researching and getting ready to start making my babies food in the next month or so...question - which cubes do you use ? or what do you store the food in ?

Thanks
Sarah

 

Sarah, I use these but I've also heard that it's just as easy to use ice cube trays. I'm just an organizational nut, and I love that the Baby Cubes have their own lids and I don't have to pop anything out of a tray.

 

So how many would I need to buy do you think ? also can uyou use them in the mircowave ?
Thanks !

 

I bought two boxes to start, but I'm about to buy two more. I usually make about 6 oz of each fruit or veggie. They're also microwave and dishwasher safe, plus you can write on them with a dry erase marker. Gee, now I sound like an infomercial.

 

Thanks, this is what I needed to know !