How we do it: Making baby food

I made all of Tinks baby food and I plan to do the same for Lulu.  I love making them their baby food and I feel like it's so much more nutritious than store bought.  Many moms that I have talked to would like to make baby food but often feel intimidated.  It is actually much easier than it seems.  Here are my step-by-step directions for making baby food:

1.  Buy the ingredients.  For Lulu this means buying a few sweet potatoes and pears.  These are the two foods other than rice and oatmeal cereal that she has eaten.  I will be adding squash, apples, banana, and avocado in the next few weeks.   I will show pictures of making sweet potatoes and pears.

2.  Peel the veggie/fruit.

3.  Cut it up.  For the pears, I use an apple slicer and for the potatoes, I cut it into small cubes.

4.  Put into Babycook.  I have a Beaba Babycook that I got from Wiliams-Sonoma and I love it!  It is wonderful because it does everything and I only have to use one appliance to cook and blend the food.

5.  Add water to the Babycook and turn to steam.
6.  Once the food is steamed, remove the steam basket from the steamer.  Pour the water into a different container.

7.  Pour the steamed food back into the blender.

8.  Try blending the food.  If it's too thick, then add in some water.  The pears need little to no water added but the sweet potatoes need a lot of water to achieve the desired consistency.  I add the water that I poured out previously.  This water contains nutrients and is superior to simply adding plain water.

9.  Blend until desired consistency is achieved.

10.  Once I am happy with the consistency, I get out the cleaned ice trays.  I have ice trays that have lids which I highly recommend because it makes it easier to store them in the freezer.  I then pour/scoop the baby food into the ice cube trays and then place into the freezer.

11.  Place into freezer.

12.  Get baby food ice cubes for the next day out and put into fridge the night before feeding.  I have a few containers with lids that hold the ice cubes.  I plan a few cubes per meal.

13.  Warm the baby food.  I warm it in the microwave for a few seconds and test it to be sure of the temp.  If it's too think, I add breast milk to thin it.  If I need more food or forgot to get it out the night before, then I just heat the frozen cubes until they are slightly warm.

14.  Feed to baby!

Ok, so it looks like a lot of steps, but really it's so easy!  Plus, Lulu loves it and I know exactly what is in her food.  I store the cubes in plastic bags in the freezer and I will explain storage of frozen baby food in another post.