It’d never really crossed my mind that buying baby food in jars from the supermarket was a possibility. I guess I assumed it was for people who had a lot of money or for people always on the go and fed their baby’s out and about. But then again had I ever really thought about the prospect of making my own baby food? What was baby food? I think this was a question I asked myself the first time a friend said, “are you going to make your own baby food?”. I came to realize that the first foods for a baby were just straight fruit and vegetables cooked until they were soft enough to mash up with a fork. Easy. The hardest part of making your own baby food is how time consuming it is, but if you don’t have anything else to do (other than study for the biggest test of your life that is) then you’re laughing! So this morning I came downstairs with Poppy and tucked her into ther high chair and started making her breakfast. I realized I needed to cook the sweet potatoes and broccoli we had bought for her before they went bad. So I wrapped the potatoes in tin foil and stuck them in the over at 450 for an hour. They were massive sweet potatoes so I thought an hour was needed for these beasts. Then I got the steam thingy out and popped it into the saucepan, filled the pan with some water and chopped and threw in the broccoli. I fed Poppy her breakfast (warm oatmeal and pear) and pottered around until the broccoli was soft. Then I threw it into our mini food processor and voila! a few whizzes later and Poppy has herself a weeks worth of dinner! When the sweet potato was ready I peeled the skin off and threw that into the food processor too and voila! a few more weeks of dinner. To store everything I do the whole ice tray thing and freeze it. Every meal time I pop a cube out, give it a spin in the microwave and its soft and warm and ready to eat. Poppy loves sweet potato and broccoli. Today I did something a little different too. I keep hearing about how you should start introducing different textures and stuff. So I decided to boil some brown rice, chop it a little further in the FP and add it to the sweet potato. It was a trial run and Poppy wasn’t too sure tonight when she tried it but don’t they say you have to introduce new foods to baby’s about 10 times until they realize they actually like it. So I’ll keep giving it to her every night before I switch to something I know she likes like straight and plain sweet potato. Here are a few photos as always!!
Emily I think you may have just totally changed my mind about making baby food. With Ethan I worked full time so there was no way I was able to so I just bought the jars. This time I was like I am not going to go through the hassle of buying all the little containers and lids and have even more things to store. But after reading your post and the fact that all you do is put them into ice cube trays I think I am going to do it! So what will you do when Poppy starts to eat more advanced foods, like for example the jars have stages and they have like little meals will you just mix more things together? Also I was reading on my birth board and they say avocado is a great 1st food cause it is already soft and it has great nutrients in it. Have you tried that?
Monica, I’m so glad!! You can totally do it, its so easy. Yea the more Poppy gets used to eating just straight fruits and vegetables mashed up and the more I see that shes not allergic to anything specific the more I will start mixing things together. Like my sweet potato and rice experiment. The next thing I want to try is chicken, grilling or boiling chicken and then throwing that in the food processor with either some formula to help whip it up into a more creamy consistency or possibly using vegetable broth to give it more flavor. What I did the other day for ideas was go to the baby food section and look at some of the combinations of food they sell and seeing what could go together but really you can be as creative as you want. Monica I think you should listen to this podcast from New Moms New Babies about making your own baby food. After I listened to it I was totally inspired and felt so much more motivated to try different things. I love this New Moms New Babies pod cast show, they are really fun ladies and talk about really good topics. Take a listen.
http://newmomsnewbabies.com/introducing-solid-foods-your-babys-diet/
Yea I gave Poppy avocado once but haven’t give it to her since because I wasn’t sure if you could freeze it and because she didn’t like it straight off I only used a couple of small spoonfuls and then I ate the rest. Well I haven’t thought to buy it again. A friend did tell me that Avocado has a high occurrence of allergies and would show up on the 3rd or 4th time of feeding it to them, she said if they were allergic their mouth would swell up and it could affect their airway ultimately. So just be aware and maybe have some Benadryl in the house when your giving Grace avocado.
Let me know if you have any more questions Monica, hey there are a ton of baby food recipe books out there that give good ideas for combinations of stuff and the ages you can give them at. There are also a ton of websites if you don’t wanna get the books, I use them from time to time for ideas. But really just steam any fruit or vegetable!! and mash it up! Poppy loves banana too and you don’t even have to cook it, just stick it in a bowl and use a fork to mash it into a pulp. So good!
Oh Em! You’re proud of Poppy and I’m so proud of you! You’re such a great new Mum. I just love all your photos of everything, they’re so special for me to see.
What does your website say about cooking white fish in milk and serving with mashed potato, that always seemed a good one to me. Happy eating!
Aww thanks Mum, I’m trying to be a good Mummy for Poppy. They say not to give cow’s milk to babies before 1 years of age but I wonder if I could steam the fish and then mix it up using formula with the potato. That sounds good! I think we still have some Talapia too. I just looked on babycenter.com and fish if fine to give a baby after 6 months. Thanks for the idea!! I’m so glad you like all the photos, I’m trying to take photos everyday but today I worked at the tearoom and Drew doesn’t always think to take photos when hes just at home with Poppy. Its been really wet and miserable here in wake Forest and alot of people further up north are getting snow storms the worst for 90 years, 30 inches of snow they are threatening on the news. Chris and Duane may be snowed in for the weekend. Well tomorrow Poppy and I are having lunch with my friends Marla and Jacquelyn so I’ll get some photos there to post. xxx