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| Frozen butternut squash puree |
I realize this may sound a little strange, but I frequently forget that you can buy baby food.
When it came time for my guys to start eating fruits and veggies, I started buying carrots and sweet potatoes and pears (and more!) by the bagful and making purees. It just didn't really even occur to me to do it any other way.
Partly because we make most of our own food, so why wouldn't we make our children's food, too? But also because homemade purees are just SO easy. I bought a cookbook; I look up recipes online. But the gist is pretty much the same wherever you go: Steam (or bake), puree, and eat.
I make big batches of puree and freeze it in tablespoon-size portions in a couple of trays. After the food is frozen, I transfer it into freezer bags and label the bags with the contents and date. Later, we defrost the food in the fridge overnight or zap it in the microwave for a few seconds.
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| Baby food trays in the freezer |
I've been using baby food trays with "cubes" that have curved bottoms, which make it really easy to slide out the frozen food. Two each of these and of these, if you're interested.
(As an aside: Another bonus of making baby food is that I don't have to figure out where to store and how to recycle all those glass jars that commercially made baby food comes in. Phew.)
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| A batch of pear puree cubes in the freezer |
My favorite baby food resources so far have been: Cooking Light's new baby and toddler cookbook and the web site wholesomebabyfood.com. I also wrote down a few recipes (which we haven't gotten to yet) from my friend's copies of "Cooking for Baby," and "Top 100 Baby Purees".
I especially love that "Cooking for Baby" has a list of herbs and spices with suggestions for which foods they pair best with. For some reason, without the list in front of me, I just don't think about, say, adding a bit of ginger to that dish of carrot puree, or a dash of nutmeg on those pears. But the babies definitely appreciate the extra flavor -- and I'm all about doing everything I can to raise a couple of kids who like all sorts of flavors!
What are your favorite baby food resources?
My mom has told me she would make food when she was a new mother. And as you said, it's just soften and puree. What could be easier than that?! The containers you use to freeze the food are cute :)
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