Kaitlynn's Place

Have you ever considered making your own baby food? Whether you are the parent of a special needs child that needs pureed food or the parent of a baby just starting out to eat, making your own baby food has many benefits.

Benefits:

• Assurance that the proper hygiene was used to prepare the food.
• Assurance of nutritious value, freshness, and filler free food.
• Satisfaction of custom making baby food that best suits your child’s tastes.
• Ability to make the baby food organic, vegan, or any other lifestyle that you abide by.
• It’s cheaper than prepackaged baby food.
• It can be made and stored in bulk.

Basic Methods to Cook Baby Food:

1. Baking
2. Boiling
3. Microwaving
4. Steaming

   
Steaming is one of the best methods to keep all the food nutrients intact. With steaming, the nutrients are cooked into the food. If you don’t have an electric steamer,  just place the food in a colander and place the colander over a pot of boiling water, then cover the colander with aluminum foil or a lid. Microwaving also keeps in most of the foods nutrients. If the food is something that you wouldn’t bake for yourself, then don’t bake it for baby either. When boiling foods, be sure to put as little water as possible in pan. You lose a lot of the nutrients when you boil foods in a lot of water. 


Once you have cooked the baby food, you can move on to getting it to an age appropriate and swallowing ability texture and consistency. For older kids with good swallowing ability, a simple mash, food mill, or chop in the food processor is suffice. The texture will still be a little lumpy by just mashing the baby food up.  For smoother textures, use an emulsifying blender. Add water, stock, juice, milk, etc.. to the blender a little at a time until you get the food to the right consistency for your child.

Storing Baby Food

Refrigerator
You have to store baby food just as you would the food that you eat. If you have made enough baby food for just 2 or 3 days, then store it in on the refrigerator shelf in an airtight container. Dip each serving out as you use it. Do not feed baby from the food container, as it can grow bacteria. 

Freezer

You can make large batches of baby food and save yourself a lot of time. Once the prepared baby food has cooled, pour it into ice trays. Cover the ice tray with saran wrap and freeze till solid. Remove the baby food just as you would ice cubes. Place cubed baby food into freezer bags. Label freezer bags with type of food and date prepared. There are also specialty baby food trays on the market, but I find a 30 cent ice tray works just as well. Now, you have individual servings of baby food that you can thaw individually and use as needed. It takes about four hours to thaw in the fridge or you can microwave for 20-30 seconds. An entire months worth of baby food in just one day.


That is all there is to it. Simple, affordable, healthy, and fast….who could ask for anything more~

As far as recipes, your imagination is the limit. Of course, follow the pediatricians’ cardinal rule of only introducing one new baby food four days to new eaters. The pediatrician should also give you a list of foods that are high allergens. Aside from that, get inventive with your recipes. Here are some examples:



Peach and Ricotta Cheese
Ingredients:
1 peach
2 drops of  lemon juice
2 tbsp ricotta cheese
1 drop of pure vanilla

Method:
Cut the peach in half and remove the pit.
Rub 1 drop of lemon juice on each half of the peach.
Roast on a baking dish, cut side up, at 425 degrees for 20-30 minutes.
Allow peach to completely cool.
Mash peach flesh with ricotta.
Stir in vanilla.

Brown Rice with Pumpkin and Peach

Ingredients:
1/2 cup cooked brown rice
1 cup of peeled and diced pumpkin
1 cup of peeled and diced peach
2 tbsp chicken stock

Method:
Add peach and pumpkin to a heavy boiler.
Add chicken stock.
Simmer for 20 minutes.
Stir in brown rice.
Cook additional 10 minutes over low heat.
Mash or blend to desired texture.

Creamy Butternut Squash

Ingredients:
1 cup of diced butternut squash
1/8 cup cream cheese
1 tsp fresh chopped parsley

Method:
Steam butternut squash until fork tender.
Add chopped parsley and cream cheese.
Mash or blend until desired consistency.