Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Homemade Baby Foods

After many months of no posts, finally a few minutes to get back to recording a few of the things we have been doing over the past few months. It has been a busy few months with moving, having a baby, and the holidays, I was most often in a Daze. But life is starting to fall into a more consistent routine, if such a thing exists, and we feel a bit more settled in our new home. Today I am going to share something I have been working on over the past few weeks as our new little one is starting to love solid foods. At first she protested, but now she loves everything we are feeding her. There is no doubt that jarred baby food is expensive, crazy expensive, right up there with formula. I have always breast fed my babies, but I have always bought the jarred baby foods to introduce them to solids. This time I decided to try my hand at making my own. It is so easy, so inexpensive, and really quite yummy! I have enjoyed sampling them all. Check out how simple it is:

Choose your fruit or veggie.
We have done bananas, strawberry- banana, mixed veggies, sweet potatoes, carrots, and broccoli. Cook your veggies until soft. I steamed most of mine.

Place your fruit and veggies in your super awesome blender.
 We are so happy with our Blendtec that we purchased about a year ago. It is amazing, but you could go with any type of blender or food processor.

Add liquid to get things rolling and to obtain desired thickness. My liquid of choice was breast milk.

Pour or Spoon (depends on the thickness) into ice cube trays.

Freeze!
 Once they are completely frozen they pop right out if you stick a knife down the edge. Don't let them sit out long or they thaw and precious bits stick to the bottom. Pop them right out and put them into zipper bags or your freezer container of choice.

Homemade Baby Food
To serve I just pull out a couple of cubes and heat them for about 30 seconds in the microwave. A few of the thicker ones, like my sweet potatoes, I add a bit more liquid to thin them out. Baby girl, loves, loves, loves them. We now have a stock pile in the freezer and we continue to add more variety day by day. I plan to do some fruit and veggie combos, like spinach with bananas, etc. The possibilities are endless.

Cool huh! Now let's look at a cost comparison:

Homemade VS. Store Bought Baby Food

Homemade Carrots - 4 oz. = $.09
Store Bought - 4 oz. = $0.63

Homemade Sweet Potato - 4 oz. = $0.31
Store Bought - 4 oz.= $0.63

Homemade Bananas - 4 oz. = $0.10
Store Bought - 4 oz. = $0.63

I think you get the idea. Super cheap, super yummy. I think even if you bought organic fruits and veggies you would save some money. Plus you know what your baby is eating and it can be super fresh, think of putting all those garden veggies you are going to grow this spring to work helping your baby to grow healthy and strong.

In the near future I will be posting about how to can homemade applesauce. We did a bunch this fall and I even canned some for baby girl with no sugar added. It turned out super yummy. Not only does she love it so does the rest of the family. 

6 comments:

Kimberli said...

thanks for the tips! I've done a bit of this with fruits but never with veggies. I'll have to give it a try.

Hope you guys are doing well in your new home.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like you are feeding them very well! And the idea of adding your milk is a excellent idea! They get that good mix in it.
I used to make all my babyfood myself as well as the formula too.
One thing that I have found very useful is having a vacume sealer. I use the FoodSaver brand. You can buy them at Walmart. You can use them for any types of foods too! And food lasts much longer vacume sealed.
On some of the cooked foods like beans or squash, just cook the a bit and put on a cookie sheet in the freezer to get the liquids a bit more solid. That way when you vacume seal them, the juice wont ooze out.
It works great too for gravies! ;-)
Lynne

Shaun-ta' said...

Lynne,
We also have a vacuum sealer and it does work great for many things. I confess I don't use mine as often as I should. Thanks for the tip on giving liquidy items a little prefreeze before bagging them up, I will definitely have to try this.

Anonymous said...

Hi Shaun-ta,
I am glad to see you are still here on your blog. :)
Baby food is very important these days. Especially since many of the foods in grocery stores have become more scary to buy!
That is why I prefer to know what is actually in it.
Growing your own is also good because you know how it was grown too.
I love to blanch fresh green beans and also yellow squash. Then when they are chilled down in the ice water, it stops the cooking. Just like you are going to put it up for freezing.
I put mine on a cookie sheet and cover lightly till the liquids are starting to solidify. Then vacum seal it. Then put in the freezer.
It makes it nice to be able to open them up and toss them in a pot for a very short time. Dinner seems to take less time!
Great for babies too!
Lynne

Shaun-ta' said...

Yes, Lynne we still visit the blog once in awhile and hope to get back to putting up regular or at least occasional posts soon. The past year has kept me and Jacob very busy! I also took on the job of homeschooling my kids this year. It has been wonderful, but has really kept me hopping. Hopefully as I am getting more of the swing of it I will be able to get back to some of the things I had to set aside for a time.

Anonymous said...

We homeschooled my daughter too. It kept us busy too, but it is well worth it! I think it is a great idea. I would not want to be in a public school. Too many things happen these days and one cannot be too careful.
Do you know where the nearest LDS Place is to buy from? I believe there might be one in Jonesboro?
Where do you buy your seeds from?
Take care and enjoy!
Lynne