Beaba Babycook...making Baby Food

I have the Beaba babycook and used it to make all of my daughter's babyfood. I bought baby food storage containers so that I could freeze extra food and take food with me when we went out and it worked great. I loved it and loved being able to make her food.

Totally not worth it just use a food processor and ice cube trays. We switched back and forth between jar & fresh with no problem.

www.wholesomebabyfood.com
that is the best resource I have found for making my own baby food! It was recommended to me by mamapedia moms... It gives you recipes, tells you when different foods can be introduced, gives you sample baby schedules, etc. If I am out and about, I try to get something she can eat (ex, yesterday I ordered a baked sweet potato as a side to a meal... she got the potato and I ate the rest...) If that's not possible, I just do whatever is the most convenient. My DD prefers the homemade foods to jarred... so I have no issues getting her to switch back and forth. Also, if you are interested, I found these PERFECT containers to store the food in (I don't make enough at a time to bother with the ice cube tray trick...) from the Family Dollar. They are about 2 oz each, comes with 12 in a $1 package...

I have the Beaba Babycook and love it. Actually used it today to steam so carrots for my 2 year old. It is one of the best baby products I have bought. It's all-in-one steam, puree and defrost too. Bought a bunch of babyfood containers for the freezer and take out a single serving the night before and defrost in the fridge. If we were out of the house I did use jar food and my daughter had no problems switching between the two.

wholesomebabyfood.com is all you'll need. Well, that website and a decent food processor and lots of ice cube trays. Seriously Wholesome Baby Food is the best website out there for baby food making. It has so much information and recipes and charts on when to feed what and the nutritional content of every food. It is amazing and I recommend it to everyone. I've done it with two kids and have loved it. I usually took it from home if we were going to a restaurant or something. But when we went to visit Grandma & Grandpa for a week, they ate Gerber. They far preferred the stuff I made for them at home over the bought stuff.

It's not as hard as you think. I just dedicated one night/week (about 2-2.5 hours) to making baby food. That included cooking to pureeing to freezing and cleanup. It was totally worth it. Good luck.

I never pureed my son's food, I just gave him very small bits of whole foods. I have not used the machine myself. However, I do have a few friends, that have the baby cook. They LOVE it! The only gripe (from one or two) was the size, actually. Mainly, they just wanted to make huge batches and the appliance, is fairly small. I have a friend in an apartment and she said, it was the perfect size. I do personally think making (if you can) the food, is better. They are not watered down and actually taste like real food. I have tasted jarred food and in my opinion, it tasted like an attempt at real food. I think so many kids struggle with transitioning to table foods, because all the sudden they have these strong tastes, they aren't used to. There is more nutritional value and no preservatives, in homemade food. Jarred food will never be better then making your own. The child will always benefit more, from handmade food. As for the baby cook, I have heard raved about the quality and ease of the appliance. I have never met anyone who regretted it. If you want some good puree recipes, this site has some nice ones:

weelicious.com

This site is awesome, for homemade baby food!

www.wholesomebabyfood.com

Look into the cookbook "Deceptively Delicious" by Jessica Seinfeld. Even though it's for making regular everyday meals but with vegetable and fruit puree's mixed into them - thus the deceptive part! It tells you how to prepare all of the puree's right at the beginning of the book... so baby food AND good recipes. It's at Kohl's for around $5.

I make all of my puree's in a Magic Bullet - and that works great.

I use a magic bullet that I bought to make baby food and it works pretty well. It can take a while to purée certain foods, but it's not that bad. A small food processor would probably work well too. I put the purées into ice cube trays and freeze it. We have only needed to feed baby on the go a couple of times and I just brought frozen cubes in a Tupperware container. We did have access to a microwave though. I did by some organic gerber food just in case but haven't used it yet.

Please do not buy anything! You only need some ice cube trays, cling wrap and a food processor --and a pot. Seriously.

Wholesomebabyfood.

As to feeding when out and about, bananas and avocados are your friend ;-) This summer when we'd go to the Zoo, I'd just put some of my frozen ice cubes of food in little plastic dishes (the ones toddlers get snacks out of, for instance), and the food would be defrosted and ready to go by lunch time.

It's such a rewarding thing to make your own baby food! And cheaper too. Don't buy the Beaba though, it's made of plastic and you will be pouring hot foods into the container which had issues because they were using plastics with BPAs and estrogen-leeching chemicals. They may be BPA free now, but an oversight like that made me steer clear of the product intended for infants. I bought a Cuisinart and still use it often for cooking. They even make Cuisinarts with metal or glass basins I believe.

One more thing - don't make carrot baby food. There is a chemical produced by making it at home that commercial makers avoid through their processing. You might want to plan on buying organic carrot baby food every once in awhile to keep it in your baby's diet. I didn't buy any and now my 2 y/o DD doesn't really like carrots and I think it's because I just didn't make or buy them when she was little.

I didn't buy much baby food, just in the beginning when I was getting the hang of making it. I froze it in ice cube trays and popped it in bags when we traveled for longer periods of time. Of course, I bought jars for the times when we were out and about over lunchtime, but I usually planned to be home then anyway.

I love making baby food!!!
I bought a $10 chefmate food processor from Target and that worked out beautifully! It is small and you can throw it in your diaper bag if are going to grandma's, you can process her dinner. I also heard the bullet is good too. (Trying to save you money :)) I would be fresh fruits and veggies, also I would buy organic canned food as well and process it. I would buy high quality deli meats and I would also cook chicken and hamburger and process it.
On occasion, I if it would process, I would stick the dinner we would eat in there, like spaghetti. I LOVED it!! Let me know if you have any questions, I can give you more detail, but I just wanted to let you know, its not hard at all, its actually fun and your baby doesnt have to eat nasty jar food. I cant wait to do it again for my new baby.

I made all my own baby food for both my kids. I just used the Kidco baby food (found it at Babies R Us but One Step Ahead has them too) and a hand blender from Target. I used home made stuff at home or out and about (just put in in containers with lids). My kids did eat jarred food at daycare. I never noticed them having any difficulty switching between my food and jarred food, although I was worried when they started daycare. I used the 100 Best Baby Purees cookbook and First Meals for recipes, and both were awesome.

All you need is the small size Cuisinart (or other mini processor) and ice cube trays. Once you are beyond single ingredients the first month or so, you can just puree whatever it is you are eating (assuming you are eating a healthy diet). We fed our home pureed food when we went out. We had friends that travelled with a mini food mill and just pureed whatever they ordered at a restaurant for their daughter. I think you will avoid difficulty getting her to eat real food later because she will have always eaten it. (There is something odd about making cooked spinach that you should google before you do it).
Good luck,
D.

I thought about getting the beaba babycook too but after reading online reviews it didn't sound like it was worth the price. A couple of people complained about a brown crust that formed in the machine after use. I suggest you look at reviews on amazon. The price is cheaper there too if you decide to buy it.

I made a lot of my own food when it was just a single ingredient. I just bought organic or farm produce, peeled it and usually roasted it. Sometimes if I didn't have time I boiled. Then I just put it in the cuisinart. I put it in the baby food jars so that way I could accuratly measure how much he was eating. When out we just used the jars, usually Earth's Best.

I made all my daughter's baby food with a Cuisinart mini prep. We already had one, but it is a lot cheaper than the Beaba (about $50) and can be used for other small kitchen tasks. I took homemade food when out, but I wouldn't worry too much about using some jarred food. Homemade usually has much more flavor so if your baby is used to it, I'd imagine that he/she would go back easily.

I also second wholesomebabyfood.com - great resource. Also, Annabel Karmel's book "Top 100 Baby Purees" has some interesting combos to introduce more tastes to baby.

I have the babycook and love it! One of its biggest benefits in my opinion is that you can do everything with it and don't need any other appliances- it steams, purees, reheats, and defrosts. I don't have to dirty a pan or other utensil. It fits nicely into the cabinet above my sink.

When we travel, I buy jars of Earth's Best just because it's easier and more convenient. My little girl didn't seem to love the jarred food, but she ate enough of it for me to be satisfied. She definitely prefers the real stuff, though!