Make your own baby food at home!

Guest Post by Bert

There are tons of cookbooks and products out there for making your own babyfood. I did not purchase any of them. In fact, I didn’t decide to make my own baby food until my son was ready to eat meat. That’s when I looked at the packaged meat baby food and decided that I would never eat pureed meat from a jar, why should my kid? Did I buy a special food processor or a special baby food cookbook? No. I’m married to Mr. Frugal (and as a result we live pretty debt free aside from our student loans) so purchasing something was out of the question. Plus, it’s not rocket science – anyone can do this! And as I’m sure my Nana would say, “We made our own baby food back in my day. We didn’t have to buy anything fancy.”

What do you need to make your own baby food?

1. Blender, food processor or my personal fav, the handy chopper. It’s really very easy to use all of these tools and you’ll get the same result – pureed food that your baby can eat. What I did, for example, is I cooked a chicken breast then I chopped it up. Next I put it in my hand chopper with a little water. I kept adding water to the chopper until I got the consistency that I wanted. The difference between the three tools really is the way you get the food out. A blender is better for liquids so you might find that approach to be rather messy.
2. Food – You’ve got it! You can’t make baby food if you don’t have regular food. It’s past the gardening season for those of us who live in the northern part of the States, however, if you Southerners can grow your own! This summer I planted green beans so that I could make and freeze some for my daughter who is four months. You’ll want to do the same thing for any veggie or fruit that I did with the chicken. Cook or steam it, place it in the chopper, add a little water as needed and viola! You’re very own green baby food! If you don’t have access to a garden I have heard from some nutritionists that frozen veggies are second in line to fresh. If you need to eat on a budget but still want to provide a healthy and nutritious meal for your baby go the frozen route before you eat anything from a can.
3. Baby cube trays. Freeze your pureed foods. Your baby will not eat an entire thing of chicken in one sitting so you’ll want to pour the food into the cube tray. I then put the tray into a freezer storage bag. The food can be stored that way for no more than six months. Obviously any kind of freezer burned food should not be consumed.

As far as fancy cookbooks go I think they looked cool on my shelf but really I never used one baby food cookbook. My favorite site for inspiration was WholesomeBabyFood. And here’s my favorite recipe from there as a way to get your baby to eat meat (they are yummy!) and make sure that they get a veggie or fruit in as well:

J&J's Baby Meat Balls* (from WholesomeBabyFood)
Ingredients:

• Ground Turkey, Beef or chicken
• Plain baby cereal (boxed type)
• Pureed veggies or fruits
• Spices as desired
• Wheat Germ

Directions:

• Place 1 part lean ground beef/turkey or chicken into a mixing bowl
• Add 2 parts baby cereal and 1/2 part wheat germ. Use Spices that you find appropriate (you may use bread crumbs if you choose)
• Add pureed veggies and/or fruit to moisten the mixture
• Mix together as you would when making “adult" meatballs.
• Bake in an oven at 400 degrees until brown and cooked thoroughly – Cover with tinfoil, be sure not to burn the meatballs as they will become tough on the outside and baby may not be able to eat them.  (*Ground turkey, rice cereal, wheat germ, pureed sweet potato, dash of cinnamon for example)

I think that you’ll find that making your own baby food is really easy and you’ll have peace of mind as you have the control of what goes into the food itself. Also, you’ll save a buck or two and create less waste because you won’t be throwing anything away. Happy feeding, Mamas!

Elizabeth (aka Bert) Anderson married her college sweetheart in 2005, and started her journey into motherhood in 2008 with the birth of her son.  She started blogging in 2009 as a way to keep track of her thoughts on being a first time mom, especially her struggle with postpartum depression, and as a way of reaching out to other moms who are struggling with the same things.  This June, Bert had another first in her motherhood travels - a little girl!  Even though she's newly a mother of two, Bert maintains that no matter how many children you have you will always be a "first time mom" because there's a first time for everything!  Visit her blog, at FTM. Bert is a contributor for She Thinks Media.