Everything is more fun when you do it with someone! I’ve been making Soph’s baby food for at least a month. It’s been easy because she doesn’t eat much per day so it goes a long way once I make her food. She’s starting to eat more though, so I was happy when my friend asked if I wanted to do a day of baby food making. I’d say it was quite easy and efficient!
I took Soph over with me and she did her thang (lots of loud yelling) while we steamed, chopped, baked and pureed our hearts out! It makes me feel proud when I make her food. I’m not against store-bought baby food, we’ve given it to her, but I enjoy saving money while knowing the exact ingredients in the little bean’s food. Also, I have the time and tools to make it so I’d kind of feel bad if I wasn’t making her food. 😉
We made four different meals, two of which, I’d never made. We picked up a bag of spinach, a bag of carrots, three acorn squashes and 4 sweet potatoes. We used an oven, a microwave, a borrowed Beaba babycook, and a Cuisinart food processor. We also have two different methods for freezing and storing. My friend has these trays which stack well and have a lid but are a bit tougher to get the food out. I have these that have no lid (I use foil) but the food pops out easily and you can use them for brownies (their main purpose)!
I really liked making this food with two people because while my friend worked on one food, I would be working on another. First, we cleaned all the vegetables. For the spinach we de-stemmed the leaves, put them in the Beaba to steam and attempted pureeing it in the Beaba. The consistency seemed pretty difficult for our new eaters, it only lasts 3 days in the fridge (you’re not supposed to freeze spinach) and it didn’t make very much for the quantity of leaves we bought. For the carrots we peeled, chopped and steamed them in the Beaba. The Beaba did a good job of steaming the carrots but we weren’t able to fit that many in the container so we had to do two rounds of steaming. We, again, attempted processing the carrots in the Beaba but transferred them to the food processor because we didn’t like the consistency.
For the sweet potatoes we poked them with a knife, wrapped them in foil and put them in the oven at 425F for an hour. Once we pulled them out of the oven we peeled, quartered and threw them into the food processor.
The acorn squash is my favorite food to make because it’s the easiest and yields the most food. We cut the squash from top to bottom, scoop out it’s seeds, put the halves upside down in an inch of water in a glass baking dish, and put it in the microwave for 20 minutes. Once we pull it out of the microwave we scooped out the insides and threw it in the food processor. Most vegetables you could mash well enough with a fork, including the carrots, sweet potatoes and squash, if you didn’t have a food processor.
After splitting everything, We both ended up with two full trays and meals for the fridge for this week. We were happy that we didn’t buy any more food because we wouldn’t have enough freezer storage. We also learned that spinach isn’t worth our effort because of the small amount yielded and that we’d buy a lot more carrots next time. We’ll also be using our steamers next time, rather than the Beaba for steaming because we can do a larger quantity. Next time we’re going to try broccoli, cauliflower and turkey!
Have you pureed your own baby food? What was your favorite methods? What did your babies LOVE to eat?? Be sure to check over at my friend Beth’s site to see how myself and other mommy bloggers make time for ourselves!