So, you’re thinking about making homemade baby food. Before you get started, it’s important to realize that making homemade baby food is not an “all or nothing” proposition. In today’s busy world, it can be next to impossible to find the time to simply sit and rest. If you start to make your baby’s food and soon feel overwhelmed or believe that it’s just not working out for you, then take a break and regroup. Your baby’s taste buds and tummy will surely thank you for all the fresh and wholesome foods that you prepare for him, but he needs a parent who is relaxed and joyful far more than he needs homemade baby food. This chapter will show you the easiest and most convenient ways to make your baby’s food fresh in as little time as possible without feeling like a short-order cook.
Having made food for both twins and a singleton, I learned how essential it was to develop a simple, streamlined, and time-/cost-effective process. With just small additions to your current routine and a few easy steps, it can take as little as one hour per week. Really, I’m not exaggerating! If you have just one hour per week, you can make a large supply of homemade baby food. And you can do it while you’re cooking your family meals. Remember, baby food is nothing more than food for grown-ups that has been mashed, blended, or pureed.
A few reasons why making homemade baby food is a wonderful choice
Quality Control: Whether you choose to make organic or conventional foods, when your baby’s food is fresh and homemade, you have total control over the ingredients. If your baby is prone to food allergies, you can ensure that no allergenic foods are slipping into baby’s meals. You literally handpick and choose!
You Have the Gadgets: Everything you may need to make fresh and wholesome baby food is probably already in your kitchen. Now, this doesn’t mean that you can’t buy a new gadget or appliance; in fact, making baby’s food from scratch might be the excuse you’ve been looking for to go out and buy that new food processor!
Fresh Foods with Expanded Tastes and Tailored Textures: With homemade food, your baby will be exposed to a greater variety of tastes and textures. Let’s be honest, those jarred foods won’t come in flavors such as Banana ’Cado (here) or Pink Potatoes (here)! The texture of homemade baby food might make the transition to table foods a bit less stressful for your baby as well.
Your Baby’s Needs on Your Baby’s Schedule: In making homemade baby foods, you are the chef who knows exactly what your baby wants and needs. Because you will be controlling the texture and ingredients of her foods, you will know what foods are best suited for your baby at any given stage.
Laying the Foundation for Healthy Eating Habits: Raising babies to prefer the taste of fresh, real, whole foods over highly processed, chemically laden versions is one small step in combating childhood obesity. Healthy eating habits will develop far earlier when you expose your baby to a variety of tastes. You will find that you become dedicated to making and feeding your little one only high-quality, fresh, wholesome, and nutritious baby foods and snacks. Your baby will benefit from learning to love whole, nonprocessed foods, and these healthy eating habits should last a lifetime. You may also be surprised to find that making homemade baby food changes the way you think about feeding the rest of the family, too!
Economical Bonus: Believe it or not, you actually save money when you make homemade baby food. And you save not only on the cost of the actual baby food, but in the nutrient ratio as well. You get more nutrient-dense foods per dollar, and your baby gets more nutrients for his growing body.
The Fun and Pride Factor: Making baby food is actually a lot of fun once you find your groove. Shopping for the foods you will be cooking and experimenting with new ingredients is not only rewarding, it’s a lot of fun. The results of your culinary efforts will bring you pride and joy when you puree and blend baby food creations, unleashing your inner creative chef for that very special little customer.
Essential Kitchen Ingredients
Before we get started, let’s go over some kitchen essentials. These are ingredients to always have on hand for preparing fast, fresh, homemade baby food as well as quick dinners for the whole family. Having just a few of these items from each group will allow you to whip up something tasty and nutritious in no time!
Fruits: apples, avocados, bananas, peaches, pears
Vegetables: carrots, green beans, peas, sweet potatoes, winter squash (butternut, acorn, hubbard)
Grains: brown rice, oatmeal
Meats and Proteins: chicken breasts, eggs
Other: herbs, spices, plain whole-milk yogurt
Incorporating Baby Food Making into Your Routine
The key to making the homemade baby food process flow smoothly into your already hectic life is to cook in batches, buy extras, and exploit your oven. As you make your shopping list, add an extra pound of carrots, an extra pound of bananas, a few avocados, and an extra pound of sweet potatoes to what you already planned to buy.
Batch cooking and exploiting your oven saves time and energy—your energy and the energy that powers your oven. Is your oven always packed full of foods to be cooked, or do you typically have one lonely roast in that cavernous space? Stuff your oven full of foods that you will be feeding your baby. When you are making the family dinner, add a few sweet potatoes to bake in the oven. Peel and wrap some carrots in tinfoil with a drizzle of olive oil and place them next to the sweet potatoes. Don’t stop there! Cut a few apples in half and place them in a small baking dish with a bit of water and put them in the oven, too. Once you have all these foods cooked, set them aside to cool and then store them in the refrigerator. You can puree them after your meal if you have time, or the next day.
Tools You Will Need to Make Homemade Baby Food
As mentioned earlier, all the tools and gadgets that you will need to prepare fresh, nutritious homemade baby food are probably already in your kitchen. Following is a full list of tools that would be ideal.
Blender and/or Food Processor: You will use this for pureeing, blending, and mashing foods. There is no need to buy a fancy baby food maker, as a blender/food processor can perform many tasks and will give you far more value for the money.
Immersion Blender or Stick Mixer: This wand mixer comes with a few attachments for blending, chopping, and even whisking. Great for whipping up “on the go” meals, the immersion blender or stick mixer can blend your foods directly in the cooking pot. You can use it for pureeing small amounts of foods or creating soups and smoothies for the whole family. It’s easy to use and easy to store.
Food Grinder: While this tool does have its advantages, it limits you to grinding foods in small quantities and/or “on the go” meals. However, this limitation makes the food grinder a great choice for taking to a restaurant, because you will be able to grind up fresh food for your baby right at the table. Food grinders are seldom able to create a texture fine enough for those “stage one” baby foods but would be great for chunkier foods.
Ice Cube Trays /Storage Containers for Freezing: If you don’t already have ice cube trays, then go out and buy three or four of them to use for freezing food cubes. You can buy regular plastic ice trays, stainless steel ice trays, or even silicone trays. If you want to have some fun, buy silicone trays that come in cute little shapes like hearts and butterflies. I have often thought it would be great if we could just dump baby food purees into the ice maker and then voilà, out pops frozen baby food cubes!
Freezer Bags: Invest in some heavy-duty freezer bags for storing the frozen food cubes you will pop out of the ice trays. You can recycle the bags by washing in warm soapy water and drying on a dish rack.
Strainer/Colander: A strainer or colander is wonderful for holding and draining fruits and vegetables after they have cooked and even for rinsing and cleaning the food.
Small-Holed Strainer/Fine Mesh Strainer: A fine mesh strainer is good for straining more textured foods to make a finer and smoother puree. It’s especially useful for separating green bean and pea skins from puree. You can also use it with cheesecloth to make yogurt cheese!
Stainless Steel Steamer Basket: The steamer basket is a must-have and is very inexpensive (usually around $5 at most). It’s used for steaming fruits and vegetables, of course, but it can also hold foods that you will be cleaning and rinsing and even steam-cook meats such as dices of chicken or pork.
Masher: Invest in a good potato masher and you won’t have any regrets. A potato masher is perfect for mashing vegetables and fruits when baby graduates to a thicker or chunkier texture.
Cheese Grater, Four-Sided: This is very useful for when your baby is moving on to more finger foods and beginning to self-feed. Using a cheese grater, you can grate meats, fruits and veggies… and yes, even cheese!
Sharpie or Permanent Marker: You really need this if you will be freezing your baby foods so that you may label the freezer bags with the food cube type and the date you prepared and froze the food.
Recommended Appliances for Making Homemade Baby Food
Stage One: For the thin, watery purees that make up baby’s first solids, use a blender, a good hand/wand/stick mixer, a Vitamix, or a food processor. For best results, select the “liquefy” and/or “puree” settings.
Stage Two: To create the thicker purees required as your baby moves on to more texture, work with a blender, a good hand/wand/stick mixer, a Vitamix, a food processor, a food mill/grinder, a “ricer,” or a potato masher. To get a thicker texture, simply adjust the settings on your machine to “blend,” “mix,” or “puree,” then use more of a pulse than a continual whir.
Stage Three: As your little one gets ready to enjoy the textures of your family’s meals, use a blender, a Vitamix, a food mill/grinder, a “ricer,” a potato masher, or a food processor to create chunky, thick purees and “table foods.” If you want a more chunky texture, change the settings on your chosen appliance to “grind,” “mix,” and/or “chop”; again, you should use more of a pulse than a continual whir.