How to make homemade baby food!

Making your baby's food is a commitment. It takes time, energy and most importantly... will. However, it's the best feeling knowing that your baby isn't ingesting extra sugars, acidic dyes, etc to preserve the shelf life of jarred and/or packaged baby food.

http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/ is an excellent source for knowing what's what in the solid food feeding world. It gives age appropriate lists of veggies and fruits that are safe for your child. It also has several recipes and "how to's" on making your own babyfood.

So, let's get down to business shall we?

This first picture how-to is done the old fashion way... steaming your food by using a pot with a steaming basket inside. Later, I will show how to use the newer steam bags to steam your food (found here: http://worldofwebs.blogspot.com/2009/12/homemade-baby-food-steam-bag-method.html).

1. Wash all of your veggies and fruits BEFORE you do anything with them. This will wash off any dirt or foreign things that you don't want your baby ingesting. Also, don't forget to take off any stickers from produce if you're buying from a store (local markets usually don't apply stickers to their produce).

2. Transfer your veggies/fruits from the strainer into your pot that already has a little water and a steaming basket. Usually, I fill the pot with enough water but not too much that it covers the bottom of the straining basket.

*Before placing your food into the steamer, peel any skin away and cut into pieces. I didn't have to here of course, because I am using peas.

3. Turn your burner onto "high" or an appropriate temperature to steam your food. Place the top on the pot and steam away!


4. If you want to, stir the food while it is steaming so that the steam evenly cooks all of the pieces.


5. Check your food to see if it is soft. It should be soft enough for you to "mush." When it is soft, transfer by spoon or pouring your steamed food into a food processor. I am using the KitchenAid mini-processor. It's a perfect size for making baby food.




6. Now - don't get rid of that pot just yet. Pour yourself a nice measuring cup full of the water you used to steam your food in. It will probably resemble the color of the food you just steamed. We will use this to dilute your puree later.

***If you are steaming carrots, please use FRESH WATER to dilute your puree. This will help reduce the possibily of Nitrates leaking into the water, and then pouring them into your food.

7. Now... put the top on to the processor and pulse your food.

8. Check it a few times to check out the consitency. You will notice that the consisteny is usally very thick with veggies and some fruits.

9. Now we will use that measuring cup full of steam water (fresh water for carrots) to dilute and smooth out your processed veggies. The younger your baby, the "soupier" it needs to be. As they get older, they can take thicker processed food.

Slowly poor in some of the water. Only add a little water at a time to make sure that you don't put too much in and ruin your batch. (Although, if you do add too much water, you can always add cereal to your thawed out food cubes later.)

10. After you've poured in some water, pulse again. Repeat this step until the food has reached the desired consistency. Here, I've processed and added water until I liked the consistency.



11. This is where ice cube trays or babyfood freezer trays come in. I mostly use these silicone trays that measure exactly 1 ounce. It's important to find out what each cube holds so that you know exactly how many ounces your baby is eating. You can do this by filling up a bottle that has marked ounces. Fill it up to the 3 ounce mark and pour the water into one cube of the tray. If your water in the bottle now reads at the 2 ounce mark, you'll know that each cube can hold 1 ounce of food. If it reads 1 ounce, you know that the cube holds 2 ounces. So on and so forth.


12. Pour your pureed babyfood from the processor into the freezer tray. I used to spoon each cube until it was full, but that took FOREVER. So now, I do it like this. Just blob your pureed food into the trays and then smooth it into each cube until they are all full. Now, if you don't think you have enough food to fill the entire tray, start at one end, not the middle.


14. Once you've smoothed out your food into the trays, cover with foil and place level into the freezer.




15. Once your food is frozen, pop them out and into a ziploc freezer bag that is marked with the name of the food and the date it was frozen. This will ensure that you will always know how old the food is.



I use this method for freezing cubes of homemade baby food because it frees up space. Some people use baby cubes (http://www.babycubes.com/) to freeze them, and then thaw and feed from those same plastic cubes. I don't use that method because if I need a plastic baby cube (usually to fill with cereal), they're all used up with frozen food in them! When I need a cube of food, I take it out from the freezer bag and then place it into a plastic baby cube, defrost, and serve! :P

Now, if this looks like too much for you and/or you're interested in the steam bag method of homemaking your baby's food, look here: http://worldofwebs.blogspot.com/2009/12/homemade-baby-food-steam-bag-method.html