By Readers Request

Friday, January 8, 2010

Making Baby Food 101




A lot of you have asked me to do a post on how I make Grayden's baby food and I am happy to oblige. I love doing it, Grayden definitely prefers it and it saves me a TON of money!



What I've Made:

I use this site for the recipes. So far I've made, green beans (frozen), peaches (frozen), mangoes (fresh), applesauce (fresh from the orchard), squash-a definite favorite (fresh), carrots (fresh), pea and carrot blend (frozen) baked cinnamon apples (fresh), sweet potato (fresh), bananas-the easiest (fresh), and pears (fresh).



How I make it:

I follow the directions on the website, if I need to thin the purees out a little I use the cooking water so it adds the nutrients that were cooked out.



How I store them:

I make about a months worth at a time and freeze it all! I store them in various plastic containers and even some glass jars (I pull those out first, so far I've never had an issue with them cracking). I wash and re-use the Gerber baby food containers and those work great. For Christmas we got these and I love how they stack. I even noticed that Dollar Tree has packages of 2 oz containers that would be perfect to store baby food in. Ice cube trays work ok but not my favorite way to store them. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to do this so I am open to other suggestions if anyone has them.

And I label and date them all so I don't forget what's what.

Every night I take the next days food out of the freezer and by morning it is thawed out.





Ok, I think that's about it....if there's anything I left out, let me know and I'll address them in the comments section!


Happy baby food making!

share this on »
{Facebook}
{Twitter}
{Pinterest}
16 Comments »

16 Responses to “ By Readers Request ”

Anonymous said...

Did you read my mind? I was wondering how to do this! or what anothers experience was from this! Thank you!

Whitney said...

I also made my son's food and it is one of the most rewarding things and so simple!

Anonymous said...

You can also pour the pureed food into ice cube trays. After it freezes, throw them in a ziploc bag! Each cube is about 1 oz.

Matt & Sabrina said...

We used the book Super Baby Food. It was so amazingly helpful! We used it on a daily basis!

Nicole said...

Awesome! I make my daughters baby food also and I absolutely love it.

I have some awards waiting for you on my blog!

Anonymous said...

I plan on doing this, too, and I love getting tips from someone that's made their own baby food! This is another awesome site, the girl that writes it is awesome and gets most of her ingredients from her local farmers market. It's worth checking out!

http://weelicious.com/

Cresent Moon said...

I also make my sons baby food, have not done the fruits yet and I use this website as well! Mays it easypesy! I love this site!

I too use the gerber containers that we had baby food from the store in they work good, only thing I don't like is that I have had a few spills as they don't seal as well when transporting so I make sure to put in plastic bags now!

Holly said...

I loved making baby food for my daughter! I never thought I would enjoy it so much!

Unknown said...

This is exactly how I make Ben's baby food! I even use the same website. I have just been recycling the gerber plastic containers, but thanks for the link to the stackable storage containers, I may need to order some of those. I use the glass jars too and have not had any problem with cracking either, but they usually aren't in the freezer for more than a couple days. Thanks for the post!

Celine said...

That looks like it would take ALL day to make. I'll need to make sure my husband has the kids for a while, or I would never get it done. I have the same stackable trays, and I love them. I only have two sets though, so I may need to buy more. Thanks for the website. It will give me more variety.

Anonymous said...

I bought the starter kit and freezer (ice cube) trays from these gals at http://freshbaby.com/ and have really liked their cookbook because it is so plain and simple (as opposed to the huge and overwhelming Super Baby Food book). I got the starter kit at Babies'R'Us, as well as a couple sets of the Baby Cubes that are so handy for sending food to daycare and for outings. For at home I just put the frozen cubes in freezer bags. Making my son's food is so fun and easy and really does not take that much time. Plus it's cheaper! :)

Aimee said...

When I made my daughter's baby food, I froze it in ice cube trays with lids, then popped the cubes out once they were frozen and stored them in ziplock freezer bags. The cubes don't really stick together or anything, and it's easy to pop a cube or two out at a time to defrost. They sell trays with lids at Bed Bath & Beyond, and the cubes are kind of curved on the sides and really easy to slide out once they are frozen.

Momma Bird said...

I made Cole's baby food too and he transitioned to table food well (I kept making the purees lumpier) and he eats fruits and vegs so well now! I loved doing it and it is so much cheaper. I was recommended several books but found the same website as you and it is amazing! I loved doing pears and sweet potato...they were easy and they were a fav. of Cole's and still are!

Unknown said...

I've always made my son's baby food and use the same website. I started out in ice cube trays (transferred to ziploc bags) and then out of necessity used recycled Crystal Light containers as my MIL didn't have any ice cube trays. However, my favorite is my silicone mini-muffin tray. It's the perfect size and the frozen cubes just peel right out.

The Busscher Family... said...

Love making home-made baby food, we did it with Grace & Jackson and it worked great! I also just froze them in ice cube trays and then popped them out into labeled zip lock bags. In fact we have some in the freezer waiting for Greyson. Fun fun!

Kate said...

I've been reading your blog for a while now, but for some reason I've never commented. Possibly because I'm not a parent, just a nanny and I guess I feel silly sometimes, but you're about my age so here goes...

The book "Unplugged Play" (which is awesome, it has activities for children aged 12 months - 10 years) has a recipe for homemade finger paints and I'm making an art kit as a birthday present for one of the little girl's I work with. The baby food cubes you got for Christmas look like they'll make the perfect containers for the project :) Thanks for posting!