Making Baby Food

I breastfeed Maci as her main source of food but she started eating solids just before turning 6 months. I make her baby food at home but I'm not a baby food snob. I make her food because I want it to be healthy and I want control over what's in it. I also think it's super cheap and super easy. I make no-frills food that she really enjoys. I'm not sure why there are baby food recipe books...

This is what I do:

For breakfast, Maci has fruit. Bananas, apples, mangos, watermelon and peaches are what she's had so far. 

With bananas, peaches and mangos I just peeled them and mashed them with a fork. I don't freeze fruits or premake them because there's no prep involved. I gave her chunks of watermelon and she slurped the juice and gummed at the fleshy part. It's one if the messier meals, but easy. Since apples are hard, I give her cold, peeled chunks in a Nuby Mesh Feeder (I got mine for $3.50 at Ross) and she loves to sooth her itchy, teething gums with them. I've also steamed and puréed peeled apples for her and served them warm. They were a little too tart for her so I mashed in a little banana and she ate it up. 

For dinner, Maci has a veggie. She's had pattypan and yellow squash, sweet potato, carrots and avocado. Ya, avocado is a fruit but it's savory in my opinion so I feed it to her at night. When she's having avocado, I just cut it in half, mush up one side and feed it to her directly from the shell. I store what she doesn't eat in a ziplock bag in the refrigerator (with the pit) and give it to her the next day. Storing the avocado with the pit, helps it to stay green longer. Just like a banana or apple, it starts to turn brown after it's opened) One avocado can last us 5 days because she doesn't eat much yet. The squash came from my Mom's garden. I peeled and chopped it into 1inch or so pieces and used the Baeba Baby Food Maker to steam then purée it. I did the carrots the same way. I wasn't at home when I made sweet potatoes so I peeled and cubed one large potato used my Mom's double boiler to steam them. I added the water from the pot to the potatoes after they cooked for about 15 min and mashed them with a fork. One potato was enough for about 2 weeks for us so I froze half of it.

Here's Maci having her first bite of solid foods, a banana! We had no baby spoons so we used this tiny spatula from Walmart that I still like to use. It's soft and flexible so she can gum on it. It's also easy to wipe the food from her face with this. Dr. Brown's has a spatula spoon but i've never tried them. I just ordered some Nuby Weaning Spoons because I really like the flexible tip instead of the hard ones. 

 We use the Stokke Tripp Trapp Highchair in Walnut 

We have the Baby Set in walnut and the Cushion in Silhouette Pink

Here's my pattypan squash that we grow in my parent's garden. It actually has no taste so I only gave it to her for about a week before we moved on. It's good when sautéed with salt and pepper for an adult though! 

Here's my Baeba Babycook. The one I have is from 4-5 years ago,  it was my sister's. They have a double one now which is cool but this one works just fine. It takes about 15 minutes to steam a full basket of veggies. I haven't tried meat in here but you can use it for that too. After it steams, you dump the veggies from the basket back into the container and purée it. You can add the water back in if you need to thin it a little. Only one thing to clean!  I also like the Kalorik Baby Gourmet, which I gave to my sister as a gift a few years ago. It's on a ridiculous discount on Amazon right now for $30!

Here's my Mom's double boiler setup. (I couldn't be bothered to find the right top) On the top, I used the steam pot that has holes in it and the regular pot on the bottom. Here's something similar. I don't have a double boiler but I do have a rice cooker that does the same job. 

I got these 3.5oz containers at Target for $2.19 for 8. They are the perfect size. She only eats half of one at every sitting but I'm sure it'll be a whole one in the next month or so. There's something so gratifying about a set of full containers in an even number all ready to eat!

So for a pack of 8 containers- $2.19
One sweet potato about 1 lb- $1.00
We'll round up to $3.50 even though I also got the containers for 5% off from the cartwheel app)
$3.50 made six, 3.5 oz jars. Gerber sells a three pack of sweet potatoes, 2.5oz jars for $2.94. Can't beat making food!

**Quick tip: Freezing veggies is really convenient for us. I can defrost the containers in hot water bath half an hr before i want to feed Maci. What's even more convenient is storing the veggies in breastmilk storage bags. We don't have a large freezer so the back take up only a small amount of room and can be frozen flat and stacked together neatly. When you're ready to thaw, place the bag in a hot water bath for 10 min then empty it into a bowl.**