Homemade Baby Food... - Canyon Country,CA

I used a book called Super Baby Food. The author is Ruth Yaron.
It has everything you need to know.

My favorite baby food cook book is by anabel karmel. she also has a website - just do a search on her and it should pop up. also, the website, wholesomebabyfood.com is a good one.

we really enjoy making baby food.

I just got fresh fruit and veggies and steamed them till soft... rice, chopped up noodles, meats chopped really small... etc. Then I used ice cube trays to freeze the food in small portions. Cover trays with plastic wrap and when they're frozen pop em out put them in freezer bags. Label and date them so you know what they are and how old they are... I just used a sharpie marker. You can add cinnamon to apples and pears to flavor them if they are tart. You can even do that with leftover spagetti, soup, stew (soft foods you had for dinner). At 9 1/2 months, he can probably eat more than a younger baby... I started out with simple things like cereal and pureed the fruits and veggies after steaming them to make them really smooth when my son was first starting to eat food.

the book Super Baby Food is a good resource. some of the stuff you have to take with a grain of salt but all in all, it is a very good reference guide. it has an excellent guide for introducing new foods to your baby month by month. it has some great information on nutrition and a good guide on how to cook grains, beans & veggies. there is a section in the back on healthy recipes for toddlers and the whole family which i found pretty good.

you can try the websites www.wholesomebabyfood.com and www.homemade-baby-food-recipes.com.

as for how to store, you can freeze the food in ice cube trays and then store in freezer bags in your freezer. that makes it very easy. :)

i started making my own baby food with my first baby, and am doing it again for the second. if you have any other questions about it, feel free to message me. :)

good luck!

Hi M.,

Check out a site "wholesomebabyfood.com" loads of useful info. I am making food for my 6 1/2 month old, and it is soooooo much cheaper than buying jars. And very easy too. A good book to get is super baby food; for feeding babies and toddlers.
Hope this helps!
L.

I recommend "First Meals" by Annabell Karmel. Great baby food and young children recipes!!

I make my own baby food. Basically I just steam veggies, some fruit, meat, etc.; puree it with breastmilk or water; pour the puree in ice cube trays; freeze and pop out ice cubes and defrost when I am ready to feed the baby.
I bought the Super Baby Food Book which was very helpful but can scare you if you take it too seriously.
Let me know if you need any more info.
O.

The Super Babyfood diet book is great! It has toddler recipes, as well as a step by step guide to what foods at what age and how to make batches of babyfood and freeze as well as homemade grain cereals and how to prepare about any fruit or veggie you would ever want. We love it and it's so easy! It's an inexpensive book sold at all book stores or you can check it out at the library. I really think it's a must have book if you want to make your own. ;) Good for you!

I only made my sons food.....after I had him, I ate all healthy, unflavored foods so I could share with him....
Go and buy a baby food grinder, you can put hot steamed veggies in there and grind them up to the perfect texture by hand...
I would just make him some of what I was having and if there were leftovers I'd just store them till the next day in the fridge.....
Start off with one food at a time, and a couple days between foods to make sure he's not allergic....maybe peaches, steamed carrots, broccoli, asparagus, pretty much anything; the grinder will hold back anything big and only the mush will come out the top.
I never bothered making tons to freeze and store, I myself don't like eating frozen foods much so I tried to make just enough for the meal....

what i do to make homemade veggies is steam the veggie of choice, but don't over cook it. Then i simply put it in a small blender and add condensed milk for texture. You can get it in a can at costco to help save money. i then taste and sometimes i add some seasoning, your choice. I hope that helps

Hello, I was a mother who believed in making baby food and it is a cheaper way of feeding your baby. To make the food,

1. boil or steam the vegetable or fruit, I prefer boiling. 2. Put it into the blender with a little water and blend.
3. Take a ice-cube tray and pour the blended food in the tray.
4. Put a piece of Suran wrap over it, and put it in the freezer.
5. After it is frozen, take them out of the cube tray and put them in a freezer ziplock bag and store the food up 6 months.

6. When you are ready to feed your child you can take the food and defrost it, or put it in the microwave for about 50 seconds and it should be thawed. (be careful with the microwave because it can get too hot for the baby)

Yay on making your own homemade baby food. I had so much fun doing it. I gave my baby such a healthier start than the wya I was raised. She eats every vegetable and every fruit, more than I can say for myself. It was so much cheaper to buy fresh fruits &veggies, or even frozen works too. My tools for making homemade baby food was first I ordered the "Fresh Baby So Easy Baby Food Kit" from Amazon. I did so much research before I gave birth to make sure I was going to do things right and of all the books and videos I bought, this kit did it and said it all. I fell in love with the covered food trays that I actually went back and bought 6 more. The covers made it so easy to make a few different foods all at once and being able to stack them all and not worrying about the food absorbing other smells and such. The kit also has a great cookbook and tells you how to go about making it. The one thing was cool it offered an area for you to keep nots in case baby wa allergic or had any bad reactions to certain foods. Very informative. Next two things I went out and got and were my best friends were a Magic Bullet blender. It made life very easy and quick. Plus I could use it for myself as well and not have something taking up counter space that cant be used for anything else really. I also went to Wal-Mart nad bought a $10 microwave steamer. It rocked! Even though I am done making homemade baby food..I still use it and love it. I used to go out and buy all my fruits and veggies I'd need for the month and I'd take an entire day of making baby food and I'd be good for a month. (You do need lots of trays though and a deep freezer to get a months worth of food done in one day...lol) Making homemade baby food was so much more affordable, you control the ingrediants and in turn you have a healthier child. My daughters Pediatrician always encouraged us, saying that homemade baby food babies were healthier because there was more variety of fruits and vegetables and they generally ate healthier. My daughter is 19 months old and has never had a cold or anything and my doc says her healthy eating habits have a lot to do with it. So Good luck to you and have fun with it.

I used the book Super Baby Food by Yaron as a guide to start with. She lays out which foods to introduce and when. Basically what I did was heat up a veggie/fruit to soften it and then place it in a blender with some water to puree. The next step was pouring it into ice cube trays and freezing it. I would then seal the cubes into freezer bags. I hardly bought any jarred food. I applaud your effort to do homemade food for your baby. I never found it inconvenient or troublesome to do because with the little effort, you get a great amount of food and the confidence of knowing exactly what you're feeding your baby.

I have a coffee bean grinder and I put whatever we were eating for dinner and grinded it and gave it to my boys. spaghetti and meat balls, vegatables pretty much anything. It works amost like a puree I thought it worked better than my little baby food processor.

M.,

I have the book "First Meals" by Annabel Karmel and I've found it to be helpful. You can get it pretty cheap if you get it from amazon or ebay used. I don't find the whole book to be particularly useful but they have a great section on first foods, making baby foods and storage and handling suggestions. There is also this site that someone recommended but I havent' really looked at http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/ and you can find other sites just by searching. So far all I've made was sweet potatoes and apples. For both, I scrubbed them really well, peeled them, cubed them and then boiled them until they were really soft. Then I pureed them in the blender with a bit of the cooking water (I ran out of water with the sweet potatoes so I used distilled water) until they were the consistency I wanted. I've found with the blender, it does a better job if I make fairly big batches.

Good luck!

T.

I used a baby food mill with my son. It's a little thing that grinds the food up. It is only like $10.00 at BabiesRus or Baby Depot. I love mine. I used to put fruits and veggies in it, but you can also feed your baby table food this way. I would just wait to add the salt to our food until the end. I would grind up his food first or just add a tiny bit of salt to his. It was way better than buying the stuff in the jar. You can only keep the food a few days (2) or so in the fridge after this though. It's pretty much the same as how long you can keep the jarred food. I used to make a whole bunch of pureed veggies or fruit at one time and put it in ice cube trays. Once they froze I'd put the cubes in a freezer bag and store it for a month or two. It was really nice because I could take one or two of the veggie or fruit ice cubes out when I needed it. It was really nice to have the grinder too because it still leaves a tiny bit of texture to the food, but not too much. It gets the baby used to eating things that aren't completely smoothe. You can also place soft meats in the baby food mill. I used to put beef stew or roasted chicken in it. Have fun with it and hope this helps.

L.

I made baby food w/our first son who is now 6. Unfortunately, son #2 didn't get that! Too busy w/#1! Try going to babycenter.com or another baby web site for tips. I also had a book I really liked called 'First Meals.' Really good pictures & easy recipes. I didn't make too many of the recipes but it gave me tips on how to get started. I only made veggies & starches. I'd steam or bake depending if it was a veggie or a starch & then chop up & put it in the food processor w/a bit of water. Some people reccomend starting them off pretty soupy but I didn't really do that very long. My son was able to swallow & digest the more lumpy foods pretty easy. So, if I made yams or sweet potatoes, I'd bake them til they were soft, peel them (they'll be really hot so be careful!), cut them in chunks, put them in the food processor w/water & grind til I had the consistency I wanted. Mashed potatoes didn't turn out so well...always came out goopy & couldn't get the right consistency. I also had this other book I really liked but can't remember the name. It was a paperback, thick & purple. The nice thing was it had so much information in it beyond recipes. All kinds of activities to do w/your kids, cleaning tips & what I really liked was that it had all kinds of food listed, told you it's season, how to cook it & I think the nutrional value, as well. Good luck!

put about 2 tablespoons full in each compartment of an ice cube tray. once its frozen, empty the cubes into a huge freezer bag and label it and put the date on it, frozen babyfood should last 6 mths, defrosted should last a week. start with bananas, carrots, sweet potatoes, apples. maybe when you introduce it to your baby mix it with a little breast milk or formula so its really thinned out. and don't give up if your baby doesn't like a certain food, keep offering it with another food he likes. Hope it goes well.

Hi there - I make my own babyfood and found this great website!
http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/

Its a great resource! Good luck!

M.,
Good for you! My daughter is 1 year and I remember thinking that making my own food was such a daunting task- but it is actually SO simple. I started with a book called First Meals which walked me through everything. After a little confidence boost, I just started simple (and also bought some jars!) If you don't have a food processor or blender, I bought a Magic Bullet at Bed Bath and Beyond. It is really small and powerful enough to get the job done and now that I'm not making purees anymore, I'm not stuck with an enormous appliance that won't get used very often. Food can be spooned into ice cube trays (cool it in the fridge first and then move to the freezer). After that, I stored it in those Ziploc containers in the fridge. You can do freezer bags but you'll go through a ton of them!

Also check, www.wholesomebabyfoods.com for some great tips and recipes!

Good Luck and Happy Cooking!
K. and Zoey

I made my baby food exactly the way that carie b did! I would pop them out of the ice cube tray and put them in freezer bags.
It is pretty easy and nice to know exactly what is going into your baby's food.

my cousin and i were just talking about making our own baby food u pureee it in a chopper or blender then poor in bowl with any vegie .. im going to try it tooo

at babys r us there is a puree thing you can buy that is manual that i think is pretty cool. all you do is put soft fruits and veggies or even last nights dinner a little water and turn the handle down and it purees it in alittle bowl. i think its great because when your out on the go you just bring a fruit and the baby food is ready. check it out.

www.wholesomebabyfood.com is a great resource with recipes and it is free