It's baby food making time! I am such an amateur when it comes to making baby food. I have friends who have tried it and were successful so I thought I would give it a try. I think it is a great idea! When it comes to the first "real" food that your baby will eat it feels good knowing there are no chemicals or additives.
The first vegetable we tried with Kennedy was organic sweet potatoes/yams. I definitely should have done my homework before hand, but instead decided to wing it. How hard can it be right? I chose to boil the sweet potatoes, then peel, then cut into cubes, then puree in my blender. Once you get your consistency of puree you pour it into your ice cube trays and freeze them. Each cube is 1 oz/1 serving of food for a baby.
After I made my first food I decided to do a little more research to make sure I was doing everything right. This website is a fantastic resource and answered all of my questions! Even questions I didn't know I had until I started reading.
After reading I realized I didn't necessarilly do anything wrong, but I could have done a few things differently. For example, boiling is not the preferred method. Steaming is the first choice, with baking coming in second, and boiling coming in only before microwaving. This is due to the fact that certain methods retain more nutrients than others. I also learned that you can add water and even breast milk to the mixture to get the desired consistency. If you steam you can add some of the water that is left in the pot from the vegetables. (except carrots due to nitrates) If you add breast milk it needs to be fresh and not milk you have frozen and thawed. As most moms know once breast milk is thawed it is not suppose to be re-frozen.
Since we do not have an actual steamer I found this product from OXO that was only $17.00 from Bed Bath & Beyond and it will fit inside any pot. Cheap fix. My next attempt was organic carrots. They turned out great and I even added a little breast milk so Kennedy would be sure to love it! :-)
This batch is organic butternut squash. One squash made 22 servings!
Once the food is frozen in the ice cube trays you can pop them out and put them in freezer bags. They are good frozen for 1 month. We take out one at a time the night before and put it in the fridge to thaw.
Serioulsy, this is SO EASY so far! It took me less than an hour to make each of these and it is so much better for your baby. It is also very cost effective, even purchasing organic vegetables. With that being said, it is not for everyone. Not everyone has my work schedule and has extra time to plan and prepare. So I am not saying that everyone must do this. However, if you do have the time, it is worth it!
Kennedy enjoying her first night of carrots. It may not look like she liked them, but we could not get it to her fast enough!
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