After weeks of procrastinating I finally broke down and dedicated one day to making baby food. Let me just preface this post by saying that I was overwhelmed and doubtful with the idea of making my own baby food. I didn't think I had the time or patience to do it. But after reading a few articles on baby center's website and looking at some pins on Pinterest, I decided that I could do it and boy was I right! It was probably the easiest thing to do next to making Mac and cheese. Time consuming. But soooo easy! I ended up making 180 servings for under 10 dollars, which translates to about 3 months worth of food and 5 cents per serving. Just to give you an idea, on average, one jar is about 90 cents to 1 dollar. Are you kidding me? That would mean that in 3 months I would have spent about 162 dollars! Whoa, that's silly. I'll take the 10 dollar route. Plus, with my husband being the only one working right now (I just started my interior design business in November of 2013) it helps to save money when we can, and it's better for your kids! It's a no brainier! Anyways enough about that rant, here's how I made some of the things.
First, you want to buy organic. Yes, it's more expensive but you are saving so much money anyways, get the good stuff! Plus, if you have any farmers markets like sprouts, whole foods or Vitamin cottage you can usually find produce super cheap! Next I washed the crap out of everything. Even though I was peeling most everything you still want to give it a good wash because when you cut into the fruit or veggie it can allow bacteria in.
Every item is prepared slightly different but for the most part you are either steaming, boiling or cooking the item. Since Brantley is just under 6 months, there are certain foods that he cannot have yet so this post is just for the foods he can eat now, if your little one is older then you can customize your meals:) For apples, peaches and pears I boiled them till they were soft enough to put a fork through. Green beans and carrots, I steamed them. And for sweet potatoes I bakes them in the oven. You basically just want to get them soft enough so that when you put them in your blender or food processor, it doesn't have to work so hard:) You will need to add water to the foods to thin them out, you can use tap water or what's better is to use the liquid that the food was cooked in because it holds a lot of the nutrients that escaped using the cooking process.
Once the cooking and blending was done I let them cool. You don't want to pour the hot purée in the ice cube trays otherwise you will end up with a weird consistency once frozen. Once cooled, I poured them into ice cube trays. You can use breast milk storage bags but I found this method was the easiest.
Once they are frozen, pop them out and put them into ziploc bags with the name of the food and the date you made them!
And voila! You have a shit (pardon my language) ton of baby food that your baby will love!
In other news, Brantley has decided that he is going to roll over, hold his own bottle and sit up all in one week. Can you please slow down! I'm not ready to have a toddler:(
We spend most mornings staring at the dogs and smiling:)
Then we take naps....
Or simply just play in our crib....
Lately I have been in DIY mode and trying to save money on things I want but can't justify spending money on. I found a onesie online that I liked but they wanted 18 dollars for it! I made mine for 4:) I used a piece of iron on fabric transfer that i got from hobby lobby and cut my shape out ironed on!
Hope everyone is having a fantastic day! Oh and ps....GO BRONCOS!!!!
