Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Today I want to talk about baby food.

Making baby food for Lucas is something I always figured I'd do as a stay at home mom. It's very budget-friendly and incredibly easy, two things I am a big fan of! Having the time to do it is also a nice perk, although I sometimes have to break each batch into 3-4 steps done over the course of two days, when my stage-5 clinger monkey will let me put him down for long enough.

To make your own veggie puree, you pretty much just steam/bake the veggie in question, add water, and puree. Then I freeze them in ice-cube trays and store so I can just defrost a few cubes at a time for meals. For fruit, I just wait until the fruit is ripe, then puree with water if necessary, with a few exceptions like apples and persimmons that I steam instead. Occasionally I add a little seasoning, like cinnamon, nutmeg, dill, etc., but no added salt or sugar.

I feel good about giving him food of which I know all the ingredients. I do give him store-bought sometimes, which is no big deal. There are plenty of good brands that have the exact same ingredients as my purees, with maybe one extra thing to keep it shelf-stable. If we bought him all his food pre-made, though, it would take up almost a third of our grocery budget every month!

I'm lucky in that Lucas will eat pretty much whatever you put in front of him. We usually mix in a little cereal (oatmeal and mixed-grain) to these as well, and also Greek yogurt (to the fruit). I haven't given him much meat yet -- meat purees are expensive to make and annoying. I may go straight for table food on the meat front. These are the purees I've given him so far:

1. Acorn squash
2. Applesauce
3. Banana-Blueberry
4. Beans (red and white, made from dried beans cooked in the crockpot)
5. Broccoli
6. Butternut squash
7. Carrots
8. Eggplant
9. Green Beans
10. Mixed Veggies with Spinach
11. Peas
11. Sweet Potatoes and Chicken
13. Yams

Today, I decided to add a little new variety to his diet, so I headed to Trader Joe's to explore the produce section. Okay, I went to buy wine and cookie butter. But they have produce there too, so it worked out. These are the new purees Lucas will get to try out this week:

1. Eggplant-Spinach
2. Butternut Squash-Cauliflower
3. Carrot-Turnip
4. Mango-Strawberry

The mango-strawberry is from frozen fruit, which works great for produce you want to use but that is out of season or difficult to find a ripe/tasty enough fresh version in stores.

We're nearing the last few months of purees for Lucas as I begin to transition him to table food. I'm going to miss giving him purees, actually, feeding a toddler seems much more daunting to me for some reason! Thank goodness for Pinterest, it's giving me lots of ideas. Let's just hope Lucas doesn't turn picky like his Mama was anytime soon.

1 comment:

  1. Regarding meat, I used to cook up a curry stew with potatoes, carrots, and other vegetables (and meat of course) and then puree that and ice cube it. Stewart loved it! Hooray for making baby food!

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