adventures in making baby food
Food before one is just for fun. That’s what keeps popping into my head lately.
A few weeks ago, before we started the baby on cereal, I started figuring out which foods our little guy could have when he was close to 6 months old. I wanted so badly to wait until six months to start him on solids (we made it to just over 5 and a half months before giving him any cereal.) His pediatrician wanted him to try solids by six months. We’re all in agreement that the next few months are just to get him used to solids – the solid foods aren’t his main source of nutrition (yet).
That said, the thought of baby food in a jar makes me gag. I want him to taste food as it should taste. I really want him to like fruits and vegetables – and hopefully he won’t be as picky as me later on. (I don’t eat eggs, or mushrooms, or a variety of other weird-to-me foods.)
I love squash and I love sweet potatoes – but I like them in their plain forms. Without added sugar and spices. Most fruits and vegetables that I eat are rather plain. And I want my baby to experience all of that, without the ingredients I can’t read.
And then I learned just how easy it is to puree foods.
I’ve become *that* mom. The one that makes her child’s food. Until a year or so ago, I didn’t think I’d be that person, but here I am. A month into our little guy eating solids, and I keep researching what I can make next.
Mendie recommended trays she uses to freeze cubes of food. After talking to a few other moms, I realized that my food processor would do just fine in pureeing the food. So I set out on my food-pureeing adventure.
First up, butternut squash. I knew this wouldn’t be the first food he would eat, but it sounded like the easiest one for me to make. The first batch wasn’t as easy as I thought it *should* be. I cut the squash in half, but didn’t place it raw-side down into the pan with some water. The second batch was cut in half and placed “face down” in a little bit of water. It made pureeing it SO much easier.
Next, I baked sweet potatoes. Easy enough, except I got distracted by something and left them in the oven for an extra hour. No big deal, though. That made them softer and easier to puree! I literally just ran them under water, poked holes in them with a fork, wrapped them in foil and stuck them on a baking sheet in the oven (for almost two hours.) Once I remembered them, I pulled them out, let them cool and peeled them – dropping all of the potatoes into the food processor.
My third food was pears. I searched around on Pinterest for how to puree pears and then I kind of did my own thing, which may not have been the best idea. I cut the pears up (after peeling them) and boiled them until they were soft. I then threw them into the food processor, with some of the water from boiling them. Then I froze them in half-cube sizes.
The baby is not a fan of pears. I’ve tasted them, and they taste just like pears. They’re sweet, but they’re a different sweetness than what he’s used to, I think. I may wait a few weeks to try them again.
Pear face.
My mom made applesauce last fall, and gave us several frozen bags of it. I gave him a taste of it one evening, and he didn’t seem thrilled. This has been our week of applesauce, and he seems to like it more each day. I’ll call that a success.
(I refroze the applesauce as half cubes, so it wouldn’t go to waste.)
He has since tried the butternut squash. His favorite so far has been the sweet potatoes. We need to branch out, though. I don’t want him to turn orange!
Sweet potatoes!
Have you made baby food before? What did your child like most?
Bananas were Nate’s first solid and are the only fruit Graham has ever tried. Pureed peas; avocado; diced carrots that you steam till really soft then freeze…those are the foods that pop to mind. It’s also fun to combine tastes — like mixing pears or a fruit WITH your sweet potatoes. Have you tried just freezing them in ice cube trays? Also recommend Super Baby Food for tons of ideas.
I am thinking that peas might be in the near future. I borrowed Super Baby Food from a co-worker, for a couple of weeks. I wasn’t a huge fan of the book because it was just SO overwhelming, and not as organized as I thought it could have been. (Seriously, who has the time to read that entire book?) I’ve found a couple of great websites, though.
Once we get into knowing which fruits and vegetables he can handle, I’ll definitely try mixing them!
Bananas. I want to try those with him soon, too!
We started with pre-packaged rice cereal and oatmeal, but I’ve been making baby food for Emma since January. I got a Baby Bullet for Christmas and while not essential, it is nice to have. I started with peas and then moved on to squash, zucchini, and sweet potatoes. It took me a few tries to get the consistency right but now it’s fairly simple to make and refrigerate/freeze a week’s worth of food in a short period of time.
We just got back from an 11 day trip out of state so I did use jarred baby food (peas, squash (which was DISGUSTING in the jar), and prunes when she got a little constipated) during that time because it would have been too hard to travel with all the stuff I’d need to make her food or travel with frozen stuff, especially through airport security. As it was TSA tested her stuff for explosives. š
Keep trying with the pears. I gave Emma peas for a few weeks before she really started liking them. I’ve read that foods need to be introduced 10-20 times before kids start accepting/liking them.
Next time I make sweet potatoes I’ll have to bake it! I boiled it this time but I thought steaming would be near impossible and I know boiling sucks out a lot of nutrients.
Next up on my baby food-making list are bananas and apples!
I know my comment was super long but I wanted to add two more things… if you do travel and need jarred baby food, Gerber makes fruits and veggies that have only water as an added ingredient, and not a lot of funky chemicals. I felt better about giving that to Emma instead of some of the gross stuff out there (hello, turkey and potatoes are not supposed to come in a jar!).
Also, I appreciated your line at the top… food before one is just for fun… I give Emma rice cereal or oatmeal once a day and a fruit or veggie once a day. I don’t stress out if we miss a solid for some reason. I have to keep in mind that solids aren’t her main source of nutrition right now!
Okay, I think I’ve said enough now, lol.
I am really impressed that you’re making your food! I wanted to do that, for all of Ruffin’s but only ended up doing a few things. We had success with sweet potatoes, carrots, butternut squash and peas. Ruffin would eat most anything (and still will) if I put cinnamon on it. You could try that with the pears.
If you did ever need to use jars, we used the Earth’s Best organic ones (you can get them at ingles and babies r us). I tasted most of them and they weren’t bad!
Sweet potatoes can be super easy to prepare. I used to just pierce them with a fork several times, stick them in the microwave for a couple of minutes, then spoon out the insides and puree them (with liquid if necessary).
I’m on Pinterest now, and one of the people I follow is the momtastic blog. She has a whole section on baby food you might want to check out:
http://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com/
Wholesome is right!
Heheh I like the Pear face! So cute, lol!
Sweet potato (or kumara, as NZers call it) face is much happier! š