How to Make Your Own Baby Food

I have found that making my own baby food is not that difficult and much cheaper, so I have been making it for a few months now. My baby “graduated” to second and third stage foods so I feel she’ll have no problems with mixed vegetables in the food that I make for her.

What I use:

Steamer – I received it as a briday shower gift (yes, from my mother in law). It has two baskets that stack up to offer two levels of steaming (the most fragile vegetables on top, those that need a little more cooking on the bottom).

Smoothie blender – it’s huge, but works very well. This thing is so loud that it even scares me – I usually make the baby food when baby is asleep or outside for a walk with daddy.

Recycled baby food jars – I like to use the glass ones instead of the plastic ones. I’ll write a separate post on what I do with the plastic baby food containers.

Oven and pot with water – we all have that in our kitchen.

Fresh vegetables – I try to get organic, but not always. I use green and red peppers, sweet potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, squash, zucchini, carrots (one or two as I am aware of the nitrates problem), beets (the same problem with the nitrates), spinach, snap peas, green beans.

Tofu – soft or extra soft for extra protein

Rice – overboiled and cold.

Sterile formula, mommy milk, water (boiled),  meat or vegetable broth (boiled), or squeezed vegetable juice.

How to set up the jars for storage and the vegetables:

Put the glass jars mouth down on a clean cookie sheet and place on the rack in the middle of the oven. Turn the oven on to 450 degrees. Let it heat, maintain temperature for 15 minutes. Turn heat off and leave in the oven to cool (usually overnight). Leave in the oven until ready to use and handle only with clean hands.

Place the lids in a pot of water, bring to a boil and boil for 15 minutes. Pour while still hot into a strainer, let them cool/dry for a few minutes and use immediately.

Steam the vegetables until very tender.  Let cool to room temperature. Peel skin off of green or red pepper slices. Clean the rough edges off snap peas.

How to make the baby food:

Place vegetables in smoothie maker. I usually place two or three kinds of vegetables at a time to save some time and effort, but I also process one kind at a time too. Add liquid of choice. In some batches I add tofu, in others I add rice, others I leave as they are.

I like to mix cauliflower with carrots and spinach, red pepper with carrot, spinach with zucchini, broccoli with green pepper, snap peas with zucchini, sweet potatoes with cauliflower, etc. The possibilities are endless.

How to jar the food:

I pour the smoothed vegetables into jars trying to touch/handle the mix as little as possible. I quickly add the lid and wipe the jar clean. Since I do not boil the vegetable mix before jarring, I store the jars in the fridge. They have lasted up to 10 days.

Problems:

There is no variety for baby. Theoretically, for 10 days she would be eating the same foods for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I tend to mix half a jar of bought food with a jar of plain vegetables every once in a while to add taste variety.

Potatoes are not easy to swallow. I have been avoiding regular potatoes as my baby couldn’t swallow it. Try adding enough liquid to the other vegetable combinations to make it easy for baby to swallow.

Since the mix is not boiled prior to jarring, the food will go bad eventually. Don’t make so much that baby can’t finish it within a week or so. Also, pay attention to the texture/smell of the food before giving it to baby to avoid feeding her stale baby food. Toss all leftover food when you notice one jar that went bad.

This is all I can think about right now. Bon apetit!

Add a comment May 7, 2009