Make Your Own Baby Food

One of the things that I've really enjoyed during with all three of my children is making baby food.  For some this might sound like a horrible waste of time.  'Why make baby food when you can purchase it so easily from the store?'

There are many reasons that people choose to make their own baby food.  Mine is not for health purposes necessarily, although I do like knowing exactly what is in the food I'm feeding my baby.  My reasons are primarily two-fold:

1. It's a bit more economical.
2. I enjoy it.

My general rule of thumb in grocery shopping is to only buy produce {and meat} that is on sale during a given week.  If I'm going to make baby food for a member of our family, I simply purchase more of that produce than the rest of us would eat, cook it up, and freeze it for the baby.  It's amazing how many servings of baby food you can get from just two sweet potatoes, for example.

For some strange reason, I have gotten a great deal of satisfaction out of making baby food.  I guess that's why I have a blog titled Only From Scratch.  I like to cook and bake, and I enjoy doing it starting with the basics and ending up with something delicious.  Making baby food is similar to putting together a meal for my family.  When I heat up that little block of frozen peas, I smile remembering that I put that together for my baby.  {You can go ahead and think I'm weird, that's okay--just trying to be honest with you!}

Up until having Mason, I just did a bit of online research on how to make baby food.  There are some great materials out there, but this time around, I wanted something more concrete.  So, I purchased a little baby food cookbook by Annabel Karmel, titled, Top 100 Baby Purees.

I noticed in the store the other day this same author has several other cookbooks on food for children and families.  Her recipes are simple, which is great.  And, the nice thing about the baby food cookbook is that she breaks it down by age of the baby, so you know exactly what is appropriate at each stage of feeding.

The basic supplies for making baby food:

-Food processor {this is all I've ever used}, blender, or specialty baby food blender, like this one:

.
-Freezer containers for storage.  Ice cube trays work great, and usually each cube is 1 oz. capacity.  Several companies also have storage containers specifically for baby food.  I use a combination.  I have an ice cube tray that I use.  Once the food is frozen, I simply pop it out and store the cubes in freezer bags.  I also purchased these storage containers, you can find them here.

-Vegetables, fruit, and water.  It's pretty basic.

My friend, Mary Beth, shared a great post on how she makes her baby food, which I'd encourage you to read if you're considering this.

One of the greatest things I like about making baby food is that you have the privilege of offering a variety of foods to your baby much earlier than if you purchase them from them a jar in the store.  Avocadoes are one of our favorite foods, and you just can't find that in a jar at the store.  This is a great first food for babies!

Next week I'll be back with a recipe or two for baby food.  You see, I've been buying food lately, because I wanted to get a good head start with Mason and I wasn't in the mood to cook {it's that pregnancy related lack of motivation I get in the beginning}.  After buying a good set of food, though, I realized just how much money I save if I make it at home, so once we go through the batch I purchased, it's back to homemade!