Sunday, September 20, 2009
Homemade Baby Food in 5 Steps
I received an e-mail from a blog reader of mine who said:
"I noticed that you make your own baby food. How ambitious of you! I find it time consuming and well, I don't really know what to do and as a result I end up just getting the jarred baby food from the store. Do you have any tips?"
Thanks for the e-mail! Personally, I don't find it too difficult or time consuming to make Little One's baby food. Whatever fruits, veggies or meat we're eating, I'll just put aside some for her and prepare/cook/puree it for her. I also make batches of baby food sometimes and just freeze it in ice cube trays. When I'm ready to feed her, it's easy to pop out a few ice cubes and warm them up for her. She eats her veggies, fruit and meat with her cereal/pablum and then nurses right after. Little One seems to like her baby food.
So far, she's had sweet potato, butternut squash, green beans, peas, sugar snap peas, carrots, avocado, yellow/wax beans, peaches, apple, banana, and strawberry. She loves everything except green beans. She'll eat them and finish up a bowl of green beans, but she looks rather disgusted when she does.
Okay, 5 steps for homemade baby food:
Today I'll just show you how I made Little One's apple sauce.
1. Wash and cut/quarter apples.
2. Place in pot and cook until tender but not mushy.
3. Place cooked apples into fruit press and mash through colander. If you don't have a fruit press like this (they're not too easy to come by these days), just place cooked fruit or veggies in food processor and puree. I only really do the apple sauce and a few other fruits in the fruit press. The rest I do in the food processor or use my little hand-held blender.
4. With a spoon, scoop pureed baby food into ice cube trays. Let cool.
5. Freeze until needed. You can use ice cube trays with covers or you can remove the frozen baby food from the trays and put into freezer bags to prevent freezer burn. In photo below: Peaches and apples.
**Though I prefer Little One eating homemade baby food, I must add that I DO use the baby food in the jars from the store on occasion. My brother and his wife gave us a few dozen jars of baby food for Little One (thanks, guys!) and if I'm going out (like when we went on our day trip to Tobermory), I pop a jar into the diaper bag for Little One.**
Speaking of Little One, here are a few photos.
We had her sleeping in our room in her playpen/bassinet. Hubby moved her into her room and put her playpen in the living room.
In this photo, I was trying to reason with a 10 month old.
Me: Little One, please take a nap.
Little One: (squeals in delight and makes funny faces)
Me: You need to sleep so you can grow. Babies grow in their sleep.
Little One (still smiling and babbling away)
*sigh*
Instead of napping, she wanted to play.
Do you see what I see??? Hallelujah!!! She's napping!!!
*sigh* If you look closer, you can see that the cattle are out...AGAIN! That's like every day this week!!!
Close up of cattle. Up to no good, as usual. They're not supposed to be in this field behind our house.
After a very short lived nap, Little One is wide awake and ready to play again. Oh! Oh! This time she wants to STAND UP...On her own!!! Granted, she's using the couch to support herself, but it's still pretty freaky seeing a baby so little standing on her own!
Ha! Ha! Mommy, you're in trouble! Someone's going to have her hands full! ;)
Daddy's finally home from work and gets to watch the news with Little One while Mommy cooks supper.
I love her sweet, cheeky, adorable smile!
"I noticed that you make your own baby food. How ambitious of you! I find it time consuming and well, I don't really know what to do and as a result I end up just getting the jarred baby food from the store. Do you have any tips?"
Thanks for the e-mail! Personally, I don't find it too difficult or time consuming to make Little One's baby food. Whatever fruits, veggies or meat we're eating, I'll just put aside some for her and prepare/cook/puree it for her. I also make batches of baby food sometimes and just freeze it in ice cube trays. When I'm ready to feed her, it's easy to pop out a few ice cubes and warm them up for her. She eats her veggies, fruit and meat with her cereal/pablum and then nurses right after. Little One seems to like her baby food.
So far, she's had sweet potato, butternut squash, green beans, peas, sugar snap peas, carrots, avocado, yellow/wax beans, peaches, apple, banana, and strawberry. She loves everything except green beans. She'll eat them and finish up a bowl of green beans, but she looks rather disgusted when she does.
Okay, 5 steps for homemade baby food:
Today I'll just show you how I made Little One's apple sauce.
1. Wash and cut/quarter apples.
2. Place in pot and cook until tender but not mushy.
3. Place cooked apples into fruit press and mash through colander. If you don't have a fruit press like this (they're not too easy to come by these days), just place cooked fruit or veggies in food processor and puree. I only really do the apple sauce and a few other fruits in the fruit press. The rest I do in the food processor or use my little hand-held blender.
4. With a spoon, scoop pureed baby food into ice cube trays. Let cool.
5. Freeze until needed. You can use ice cube trays with covers or you can remove the frozen baby food from the trays and put into freezer bags to prevent freezer burn. In photo below: Peaches and apples.
**Though I prefer Little One eating homemade baby food, I must add that I DO use the baby food in the jars from the store on occasion. My brother and his wife gave us a few dozen jars of baby food for Little One (thanks, guys!) and if I'm going out (like when we went on our day trip to Tobermory), I pop a jar into the diaper bag for Little One.**Speaking of Little One, here are a few photos.
We had her sleeping in our room in her playpen/bassinet. Hubby moved her into her room and put her playpen in the living room.In this photo, I was trying to reason with a 10 month old.
Me: Little One, please take a nap.
Little One: (squeals in delight and makes funny faces)
Me: You need to sleep so you can grow. Babies grow in their sleep.
Little One (still smiling and babbling away)
*sigh*
Instead of napping, she wanted to play.
Do you see what I see??? Hallelujah!!! She's napping!!!*sigh* If you look closer, you can see that the cattle are out...AGAIN! That's like every day this week!!!
Close up of cattle. Up to no good, as usual. They're not supposed to be in this field behind our house.
After a very short lived nap, Little One is wide awake and ready to play again. Oh! Oh! This time she wants to STAND UP...On her own!!! Granted, she's using the couch to support herself, but it's still pretty freaky seeing a baby so little standing on her own!
Ha! Ha! Mommy, you're in trouble! Someone's going to have her hands full! ;)
Daddy's finally home from work and gets to watch the news with Little One while Mommy cooks supper.
I love her sweet, cheeky, adorable smile!
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City girl moves to the country, falls in love, and marries a farmer. She tries to incorporate her city ways with her new country lifestyle and blogs to keep in touch with friends, family & students who live far, far away :) Can this city girl go country? Watch as she learns all sorts of exciting things about life on the farm and in a small rural community. *UPDATE* We are now parents! Our baby girl was born on Nov. 11, 2008 (at 28 weeks gestation- 12 weeks premature, but she's quite the trooper)!!!
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15 comments:
Oh my God Chris! She is getting so big!I cannot believe she is standing on her own! Did you put her in that position or did she pull herself up?
Was busy with work stuff so only now catching up on your latest posts. Crazy stuff's been going on in your world huh? From the looks of things I think you need a vacation! Talk to you sometime this afternoon, I'll give you a call around 3.
T:
Sorry we were out...AGAIN. It seems Little One and I have been out a lot these days. My housework is suffering because of it, but I am spending time with my baby, so I guess it's okay. I'll be home tonight if you want to try calling then. I could try calling you too though. Let me know.
No, she didn't pull herself up :) I put her there and she did all the rest!
C I had the same set up when I made baby food for my children! I loved using the icecube trays. I love all your photos. So much fun to see your little one grow!
Peace!
hi c
i used to make tc's food - i would steam diced carrots for her when she was still learning to feed herself. she liked picking up the little squares and gnaw on them. i would also mash fruits or sometimes dice them...
that's great that you are making your own food - no added sugar or salt...etc.
word ver:
binea
oh she is such a doll!! I love her cheeky smile :)
Your baby food looks so yummy. The only thing i could never puree myself was meat- i prefered to give jars but almost everything else was homemade! It it's not good enough for me to eat, it's not good for baby!
That reasoning with a 10 month old made me crack up. I sometimes tried that with E and now with M...sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't! Glad she did nap a little though- i used to relish my time when they napped!
Thank you for posting this up. Liam is starting solids (just barely) and I want him to have home cooked baby food. I must admit, I won't have the time, but I will be making it in order to give him the best and your ice cube idea sounds like something that would help me with my busy schedule. Cook on Sundays and freeze for the rest of the week. Oh, and of course, your little one is such a precious baby. Hurray for standing up! I hope you have your jogging shoes ready mama for when she starts walking!
Love the "playpen/bassinet" photos. She will love all those beautiful pics you have taken for her when she gets older.
You're makin' a wuss out of me!!!LOL!!Great post!
You are not gonna freakin' belive this????
word verif....."prema"
She's so stinking cute, I want to eat her. I know that's wrong of me to say. Sorry.
Seems like there has to be SOME way to keep those stupid cows where they belong...how do they get out? Seems like I remember they even bypassed an electric fence?
Barbara:
Thank you! You know, even though I'm with her every day, I can still see how much she's growing! It amazed me today to see just how much bigger she is now!
I watched in awe when she was sitting on her own, playing, rolling around, laughing, trying to crawl...and then I cried! LOL! She's growing way too quickly!!!
Word ver: presto
Funny, because I wish I could just say "Presto change-o! Turn my house into a clean house!" LOL!
CC:
Yes! That's why I make her baby food from scratch. I know EXACTLY what's going in it. I pretty much just give her whatever we're having, but without the spices or anything else. Like if we're having sweet potato, I'll put some aside for her and puree it. She gets what we get. That way, I make sure we eat lots of veggies too! That isn't a problem since Hubby LOVES veggies!!
Great idea about the diced carrots! When she's a bit older, I think I'll try that tip! :)
Dina:
Thank you!! I have been thinking of you guys! I was going to call you on the weekend...and then the weekend was all of a sudden over! Funny how that happens, eh?
So far, I've only tried to puree chicken. She hated it at first, but I mixed it with carrots or sweet potato and she ate it. I think it's the texture that she wasn't fond of.
LO has started napping last week! AMAZING! Even if the naps are short lived, at least she's napping! I agree with you! Naps are good!!! LOL! :)
Just a girl:
Liam is growing soooo fast too! What a cutie!! To be honest, it doesn't take me much time to do her baby food. Whatever fruits or veggies we're eating, I just set some aside for her and do her food separately.
If you want some easy baby food that doesn't require cooking, avocado and banana are easy! Just mash them! No cooking required! LO loves them!
When I do batches of food, I do what you said. Cook on Sunday to freeze for the week. In the beginning, Liam won't need that much, so it'll last you a while! :)
Big squeezes for that precious baby boy! XO
Little One is so adorable. You must have the best pictures of her. :)
And the homemade baby food looks great. My girl is going to be 5 months this week, and I'm holding out to 6 before giving her solids. I'm hoping to make my own (fingers crossed) and collecting some recipes for rice cereal. Something about adding water to that stuff in a box doesn't sit well with me.
We'll see how it goes. I'll probably blog about it so stay tuned. ;)
~ humps
Humps:
I held out for the longest time. She was 9 months chronological when she started solids (6 months corrected). I wanted to wait an entire year with her on just breast milk, but she had other plans. She was clearly ready for solids, so I reluctantly relented. She's still being nursed though...which makes me happy.
Can't wait to read how the homemade baby food works out for you!
What a wonderful little Sweet Pea. She has the best, most happy view from that window! Don't feel bad about the sleeping arrangements... I chose the family bed and still have a Kling On. It's not me, it's him! One thing I do love though is when he wakes up and says in his weensy chipmonk voice "good morning, mom". Enjoy every moment because Kindergarten comes fast!