As you may or may not know, if you follow me on Twitter (and why wouldn’t you, may I ask?? http://www.twitter.com/rebeccagoings), I’ve started making homemade baby food for my baby daughter Sophie.

It’s kind of weird I never thought to do this with any of my other five kids.  Perhaps being “older” I now have the perspective of being “wiser” as well, who knows.  In those early days, I longed for ease, and the easy thing was to go grab a jar off the shelf and dig in.  Who wants to be slaving away in the kitchen making baby food all day long?

But as I got older, I’d tried my hand at making jams and canning, which turned out to be quite fun.  After I had Sophie, I wondered if making baby food could be as fun.  So I began to look into it.  Seriously, people, it’s NOT hard, not at all, nor is it really “time consuming.”

In fact, (if you followed me on Twitter you’d know) I’ve started a You Tube vlog, and two of my videos are about how to make baby food.  (Vlog addy: http://www.youtube.com/user/beckabecks – check back, as I’m hoping to get some more vids posted soon.)

Basically, if you have a blender or a food processor and know how to bake potatoes or steam veggies, you can make your own baby food.  It’s so easy because young babies don’t get spices until they’re between 8-10 months old anyhow.  You’re simply cooking the fruit/veggies and pureeing them, then freezing them for later.

Bananas and avocados don’t need any cooking, as they’re soft enough as it is (I know! You can give your kid an avocado. Who knew?? I sure didn’t before I started this endeavor).  If you are leery about cooking veggies, start with these two.  Throw them into your food processor and whirl away.  Now, you do want to puree them for a few minutes to make sure you get all the chunks, as a first foods eater can’t have chunks.  If your baby is older, you don’t have to worry about the chunks so much.

Don’t worry about the avocados and their penchant to turn brown.  They won’t lose their flavor.  If it grosses you out, put only a miniscule amount of lemon or lime juice in it.  Citrus doesn’t agree with baby until they’re older.  A little spritz of the juice won’t hurt, but never feed an infant straight orange or citrus juice without first asking your doctor.  Recommended age for that is around one year old due to the acidity.

Once you’re done with the puree, spoon the mixture into ice cube trays, cover, and freeze for about 24 hours.  If you want to feed the baby immediately, you can refrigerate a portion.  The ice cube trays are genius, because each cup is about an ounce of baby food.  So one or two cubes and you know how much your baby is eating.

The beauty of bananas and avocado is they don’t need any water to puree them, either.

Some other veggies, however, need some water to get that baby food consistency.  Sweet potatoes is one.  Prick ‘em with a fork, cover them in foil, and throw them in the oven for an hour like you would baked potatoes.  When they’re nice and soft, cut them open and spoon out the “meat”, don’t use the skin.  Puree with a little bit of water for about 3 to 5 minutes to get rid of chunks, and repeat with the ice cube trick.  Once they’re frozen, just pop them out of the trays and put them in Ziploc baggies.  Be sure to label what it is and the date, because some foods can look the same as others in your freezer.  You might want to run some hot water over the bottom of the trays and use a spoon to pop out the food.  They’re not as dense as water ice and won’t crack out of the tray easily.

You don’t want to water-bath can or pressure can your baby food, because young infants are more prone to botulism, I’ve learned.  Their guts aren’t developed enough yet to fight off any bad bacterium that may or may not infect your food.  Freezing, therefore, is the best option.

Making the green beans was fun, as I had a bag of frozen beans that could be steamed all at once in the microwave (it was a special steaming bag.)  So, I pulled it from the freezer, threw it in the microwave, cooked it in the bag, then poured the contents into my food processor with a little water and pureed for a few minutes.  Easy peasy.  The beans, however, won’t get to be a fine puree like storebought beans, because Gerber has more of a straining system than we at home have.  So green beans should probably be given to a baby whose used to eating little lumpies.

Pears are easy.  Peal them like potatoes, cut them into chunks and steam on the stove for about five minutes.  Puree & freeze.

Apples, do the same, however, you’ll probably have to steam them for a little longer as they’re not as soft as pears.  You can also bake apples in a dish with some water in it, then puree with some of the reserved baking water.

Making baby food is great in more ways than one.  First of all, you know exactly what you’re giving your baby.  JUST sweet potatoes.  JUST pears.  No preservatives or added flavoring.  Second, it’s cheaper.  Gerber charges between $.50 to $.65 cents for a two ounce jar.  Compare that to my $.06 an ounce for bananas ($.12 for two ounces).  $.11 an ounce for green beans ($.22 for two ounces).  Over time, that adds up.  And two large sweet potatoes makes 30 ounces of food!  Not to mention the fact you’re not making any more trash than you need to.  Sure, you can recycle plastic or glass baby food jars, but it’s less work for all of us if you make your own baby food.  And, your pantry space doesn’t need to be taken over by jars and jars of food–a big issue for me since I’m already hurting for shelf space after a grocery run due to my ginormous family.

All in all, this was the route I decided to go.  Sure, I’m a stay-at-home mom with some “time” on my hands, but anyone can make baby food, even if you take time out of a Sat. or Sun. or even while you’re making dinner for the rest of your family during the week.  A little effort goes a long way.  With minimal effort, my freezer is now full of bananas, pears, sweet potatoes, green beans, avocados, acorn squash and applesauce.  And the cool thing is, if I want to mix and match flavors, the sky’s the limit, really.  Just defrost some different flavors together and mix ‘em up.  Your baby will LOVE it, if my baby is any example.  And the wonderful aromas in your kitchen will only reinforce what a great idea it is to make your own baby food at home.

It’s just gotta taste 1,000,000 times better than that processed store-bought baby food!

~~Becka

(who confesses to having 4 jars of store-bought baby food on the shelf only for when we go out and about and I don’t want to worry about defrosting ice-cube foods in public… )