As you can imagine, I’ve been so busy with our baby girl (who was a week late, born March 7) that I really haven’t had time to blog (or read, or crochet, or sometimes cook). But that’s OK, I’ve enjoyed lots of baby snuggles during the past few months.
I was fortunate enough to have a little over five months off of work with my daughter. During this time, I got to experiment with making my own baby food (she’s now discovered she likes the organic pouches best, but she’ll still eat my food).
I started off making making her cereals: rice and oatmeal.
Oatmeal
The oatmeal wasn’t so bad, but the rice was a booger to make. I started off trying to process it all into a powder before I cooked it, but quickly learned that wasn’t the best method. Cook and THEN process is best!
As you can kind of see in the picture above, I used an emulsion blender. Best thing ever! No need to dirty a food processor or blender when you can do it all in the cooking vessel or storage bowl! I used the cup that came with my emulsion blender.
Fruits and vegetables were much easier. I used fresh when I could find a good sale and frozen when I couldn’t. Aside from very ripe bananas, avocados, and pears, I steamed everything on the stove and then pureed. I mashed and pureed the bananas, avocados, and pears raw.
Once I got the food processed and thinned (with cooking water) to a consistency that I liked, I poured it into ice cube trays and froze it overnight.
Plums, Bananas, and Pears
I started having so much fun with making my daughter’s food that it almost became an obsession (my husband stepped in and told me I needed to slow down).
Two-thirds of our freezer drawer full of baby food.
If you’re trying to decide if you want to make your baby’s food, try it! The process isn’t awful (unless you leave the emulsion wand in the blending cup with food and it crashes to the floor), you know what’s in your baby’s food, and it’s cheaper than buying jars and pouches from the store.
Diary of a Missouri Foodie 