Make your own baby food

My baby is now 8 1/2 months old already. Gosh, wonder why that amount of time goes so slow when you're pregnant.
He's been on solid foods for about 3 months now. I started him out slow because he was so sensitive to what I ate. Thankfully he seems to be past that now. I haven't tried cabbage or broccoli yet, but hurray I can eat chocolate now.
I started him out on jarred baby food, just because he wasn't eating too much and jarred baby food is so quick & easy. Now that his appetite has increased, I'm making his baby food. The jarred baby food gets expensive pretty quick. I bought 4 pears for around $1.50. The amount of baby food it made would have cost arountd $5.00, so over time, making your own baby food saves quite a bit of money. Making your own baby food is so easy too and it probably tastes better.
Basically, you peel the fruit or vegetable, if you want to, cut into chunks, put in a pan, with a little bit of water and cook for a few minutes until soft, or put in a bowl with a little bit of water and microwave for a few minutes. Dump the contents of the pan/bowl into a blender and puree.
The book, Super Baby Food, is the bible of making your own baby food. It contains everything you would ever want to know. There is even a crash course in nutrition section. It suggests freezing the puree in ice cube trays and then store in the ice cube tray or baggies or whatever. I did that with my first son and it was kind of a pain putting the puree in the ice cube trays, waiting until it's frozen and then putting in containers or baggies. What I'm doing this time around is pouring the puree into the empty baby food jars I've been saving. Fill the jars with the puree, freeze and when you need a jar just pull it out of the freezer and thaw. So far, it has been working out great. Much less time consuming than the ice cube tray method.

For recipe ideas, I really like the book Blender Baby Food. The recipes are simple and don't call for bizarre ingredients. So far I've made pears, peaches, nectarines, applesauce, green beans, zucchini and bsnanas. Bananas are the easiest to make because they don't need to be cooked, just unpeel, throw in the blender and puree. Bananas should be fed to your baby everyday as they are a super food. Avocados should also be fed everyday as they help with brain development. Avocados mixed with bananas are great.
Mixing different fruits together along with rice or oatmeal cereal and formula/breast milk is a good way to mix things up and is also a good way to get a little extra fluid in the baby if they are rejecting the bottle or breast.


More Make Your Own Baby Food