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Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Peachy Keen!

Hi everyone! Melissa asked me to do a guest post on her blog about how I make my own baby food for my almost seven month old. I was thrilled to be asked to do this..I am passionate about providing my baby with the freshest of foods and knowing that he isn't getting any added sugars, juices or preservatives. A major plus! So I am gonna take you step by step showing you the way I make my baby food, as well as how I store it all.

First off, I will say that so far I have made peaches, plums, cantaloupe, mangoes, pears, apples, green beans, peas, sweet potatoes and acorn squash. I will continue to make a variety of other fruits and vegetables as my baby grows and is able to try new things....blueberries is next on my list! I also plan to make chicken, turkey etc for him as well.

To begin, I will tell you that I shop at Costco for all of my fruits. I buy in bulk so that I can make large quantities so that I always have a variety of foods available daily. Last night I made peaches, so for me, my puree machine can hold about three peaches when cut and pealed.

So here are my peaches all washed and ready to go....A tip here is to always use the fruit or veggie the way that you would eat it yourself, even if its extra ripe that always makes for a more abundant flavor of the food.
Next is to get all of the tools ready that you will need. A cutting board, knife, peeler, fruit of choice and your puree machine/food processor or pans, whichever you choose.
Go ahead and peal your fruit. Getting every bit of skin is not necessary, just try to get the majority. I will say with veggies, I sometimes will buy it frozen so that it's ready to go and not needing to be pealed and cut, just washed...depends on how much time you have.
All pealed and ready to be cut!
Then, I cut up all my peaches into cube sizes.

Here is my baby puree machine. I was blessed that my parents gave us this to make baby food. If you are interested in this sort of thing, go to the Williams-Sonoma website. I have to add in a bit about this machine. You can steam and puree all in one thing! Easy clean up and it will even do meats when I get to that point! But, you can easily use crock pots to steam/cook, or just steam your fruits and veggies over the stove and use a food processor or blender to puree to your baby's liking. So here are my peaches ready to be steamed....
Steaming away!
The nice thing about fruit is that there is always a lot of natural juice left over. The juices left from both veggies and fruit, are what contain all of those good extra vitamins. I try to always use some of the juice. You can see I poured the extra juice into the green bowl. For fruit, I usually add a tiny bit back into the fruit. For veggies, like sweet potatoes they tend to need all the juice plus some water to make it creamy. Of course it also depends on whether your baby can chew chunks of food as well. For my baby, he needs it to be pretty smooth and without chunks at this stage in his eating.
All pureed! It's beautiful!
Now for the storage! I got this tip from this website called Wholesome Baby Food. This site has great tips and recipes!

So you can grab an ice cube tray and your pureed food. Each ice cube is about one ounce. So for my almost seven month old, I use three cubes for one serving.
Pour the food into each cube and put into the freezer to freeze overnight!
Viola! The next day, take the ice cube trays out and remove each cube. I usually need to use a butter knife to get them out. They are the perfect size!
Next, you label a freezer bag....
This is what my freezer looks like right now! This is the freezer door. The fruits are on the top shelf and the veggies are on the bottom one.
Each night I take out what I will be feeding my baby the next day, so that it can thaw in the fridge overnight. But, if you forget you can always just put the cubes in a bowl and thaw over a bowl of warm water for twenty or so minutes.

The outcome?? Is a happy, healthy, well fed baby like so...

He is open mouthed and ready!

It's so yummy he has to lick it off of his bib! :-P
And officially the end result! Happy baby!
I hope this all made sense and gave you a good detailed explanation of how I go about making baby food! You can find me at Our Little Guy, if you have questions!

Happy baby food making!!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Plus all the food in your freezer helps it run better!!

Melissa G said...

Alicia, thanks for share this with us! Great post!

My mother in law gave me a tip on peeling peaches. Boil water and pour it over the peaches then let it sit for a minuet or two and the skin will peal right off! I tried it and it's so easy!

The Bailie Clan said...

You made that look so simple! I guess it would all depend on price. I know some would say it's cheaper to make it from home. But with my first/last, kid, I got all my baby food for a penny a jar - COUPONING! soooooo I'd have to figure all that out - the price of it. It sure looked pretty nice, having that freezer full though! ;)

Becky K. said...

Makes me want a baby so I can do this too. I don't think my 18 year old would be too happy if I fed him his food pureed. Smile!!!

Loved this post. Great idea ladies.

Becky K.

Deanna Rabe - Creekside Cottage Blog said...

Alicia

How awesome! That is a great machine for doing baby food. I love the photos of Cayden enjoying his yummy food!

So simple and great to know what he is eating!

Brittany Ann said...

I love the freezer tip! That's genius!

Alicia @ refinedisaiah648.blogspot.com said...

That is great Melissa about the peach skin!! I will have to try that!!

I have found that it is way cheaper to make it myself. I often find myself comparing the costs and we are saving...But at a penny a jar, well I couldnt beat that!

Lyryn said...

This is so VERY cool! I'm book marking this so I can make them!!!

Tatiana said...

This is really amazing! I am totally doing this when I'll have my baby. Thanks for this :)
PS: about my christmas cards, no I didn't design the ones on my page. I just got them from different places in order to get some ideas of how I should make mine for this year :)

Unknown said...

I made my own babyfood. Made it ALOT easier than buying it all the time.

Sassyfrazz said...

Great post, Alicia! I need to make my own baby food for Cole, and sometimes I do. Right now, he is eating table food with us (most of the time) and that is great, too! Thanks for the helpful hints and information! Your baby food processor looks super!