Baby Food Recipes

[hollyxann]

The second I found out I was pregnant I knew I wanted to make my own baby food eventually. Or at least I'd like to try. So I was thinking I would make a recipe book or cards.
However, I have no recipes lol.
Do any of you make your own baby food?
Do you guys have any recipes or any ideas of where I can find some? I'd love to see them.

**Ok with the current response thus far...
what were your favorite or easiest foods to prepare? I know it's going to vary by child but what are your suggestions?

[Julie Billingsley]

I made my own babyfood for Logan. For first foods, I just boiled or baked fresh fruits and veggies as appropriate, then mashed them. I mostly used my blender or a hand grinder for pureeing the food, but if I had to do it over again, I'd get a kitchenaid food processor. Then when Logan was ready for more advanced foods, I just would either chop or mash/puree whatever we were eating. So I never had any baby food recipes, because as he got older he just ate what we ate for the most part.

Good luck on it!

[eranslow]

Check out wholesomebabyfood.com

Fantastic site w/tons of recipes :)

[hollyxann]

I have a magic bullet that I plan on using but I also have a small food processor to use too.

I just didnt know if there were specific recipes to follow or a certain way of going about this lol.

[newfiemountiewife]

What Julie said! I just threw some boiled carrots (for example) in the food processor. You can also freeze it too, so you can batch cook it! :)

[heathergw]

yep, what Julie said... and we totally skipped cereal, went straight to veggies, avocado being the first... so easy to scoop it out and mash with a fork and serve :)

[Darcy Baldwin]

You can always get a little baby food grinder if you feel like fork mashing can't get it smooth enough if you have texture issues...they're really cheap - around $20...and go in the dishwasher, and don't mess up big food processors.

You can freeze baby food fabulously. At first, I just dropped tablespoon sized servings on a try, froze them, then bagged them up. I'd take 1 or 2 out to thaw ahead of time, then use them to eat if we weren't eating something our boys could (taco night is kinda hard on an 8 mos old LOL). As your child needs more (or like our oldest, was eating vast quantities before I was ready to just let him eat straight from the table), I froze in muffin tins.

Something to always be watchful for. Never introduce more than 1 new food at a time, and make sure to wait a few days/week before introducing another new food. That way you can track down allergies more easily if you run into it.

[lovely1m]

I made all of Nicholas's baby food, only bought the cereals, never anything else. It was cheap and great for him and so easy! I would make batches and put them into ice cube trays, then pop them out after they were frozen and put them into freezer bags. I used wholesomebabyfood.com a lot.

[Sarah8914]

We do the ice cube trays thing. i love it!!! So easy!!! That website is fabulous. I was afraid to do anything myself so I also bought this book (though a more recent edition and spiral bound...) Fresh Start Cworkbook (http://www.amazon.com/Fresh-Start-Cworkbook-Personalized-Making/dp/097272270X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1290130554&sr=8-1-catcorr)

I've used it for 2 babies now and love it. With the first, I was just experimenting. The 2nd never had a jar of baby food!! But, my kids aren't huge on "baby food" anyway--even homemade. They move to table foods pretty quick so I never had to make tons and tons.

Here's some from martha stewart too: purees (http://www.marthastewart.com/portal/site/mslo/menuitem.3a0656639de62ad593598e10d373a0a0/?vgnextoid=13b3c137bf22f010VgnVCM1000003d370a0aRCR D&autonomy_kw=baby%20food&rsc=ns2006_m1)

[scrapperjade]

I loved making baby food for my DD. I just steamed (not boiled) veggies in a steamer basket and let them cool a bit before putting them in my magic bullet. I saved the veggie water to put in the veggies as needed to thin them out to a good pureed consistency.

If I made veggies for DH and I for supper, I always made lots extra to puree for DD. I froze everything in plain, regular ice-cube trays. Once frozen, I'd put them in freezer bags labeled with the food type & date.

I never followed a recipe at all. I would try each veggie seperately, one or 2 per week, to make sure DD didn't have an allergy to anything. Then I would mix foods together that tasted good. Once she'd been eating for a couple months, pretty much anything DH and I had for supper was what we'd give her. If we had spaghetti w/ meatsauce, I'd take a portion of it and blend it. Turkey dinner, complete w/ mashed potatoes, gravy & stuffing was blended. Chicken & broccoli casserole. Anything, lol. Full meals were blended & frozen. Some stuff didn't thaw nicely at all, but it was trial & error (anything with rice or potatoes didn't thaw well).

I actually really liked making baby food. I found it relaxing and very satisfying, knowing that I was giving DD the very best I could. Another bonus was that if you got some on your fingers, it tasted good to lick off, lol. And it was incredibly cheap.

[Teresa]

We received one of these as a gift and LOVED it!

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/m/products/beaba-babycook-baby-food-maker/

We made big batches of fruits and veggies and some shredded chicken recipes as Ella got older. Ice cube trays work awesome (and then once frozen, we put them into freezer bags). I'll be doing the same for Lily in a few months. We have a few cookbooks (I'll find my fav and link you to it in a bit). Ella's favorite was definitely sweet potatoes. It can be hard work to keep up sometimes, but it was very worth it to us in many ways. :) Good luck!

[Kara]

Super Baby Food is an awesome book.

[terrab]

I am a little OBSESSED with making baby food right now. I just love it. It is so much fun and I find it stress relieving at the same time. It is really easy and tastes so much better than store bought baby food. I borrowed a lot of baby food cookbooks from the library and my favorite so far has been Baby Love by Norah O'Donnell and Chef Geoff Tracy. Using frozen vegetables have been the easiest and since I live in Canada, the frozen vegetables are often healthier than fresh due to the flash freezing process. I had never cooked Butternut Squash before but it was so easy and so tasty. The most time consuming have been apples and pears because of all the prep work involved. But I have a good eater and he has enjoyed everything so far.

I even scrapped my latest adventure in baby food ;)

https://www.sweetshoppecommunity.com/gallery/data/545/thumbs/babyfood.jpg (https://www.sweetshoppecommunity.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=161666)