real life test kitchen: d.i.y. baby food
I’m afraid I haven’t had much time for cooking the past few weeks… well, not for me anyway. Isadora has started eating food, and so my Sunday culinary adventure consisted of steaming and pureeing fruits and veggies for her virgin palette. I’m using a great book, Cooking for Baby from williams-sonoma.com. It is so inspiring! I’ve started with sure-fire hits: sweet potatoes, apple sauce, and peas (which get a mixed review). Cooking our own baby food sounds a little high-maintenance, but it’s not really. And I never eat canned or jarred veggies, so why would my baby? The cookbook makes it easy, breaking it down month-by-month on what flavors and food can be introduced when. I’m personally looking forward to “amarath and plum swirl” (month eight) and “minced pork and pear” (nine to 11 months). Before long, we’ll be moving onto the joys of homemade macaroni and cheese.
Did any of you cook for your babies? I’d love to hear about your trials and tribulations! — Angela M.
August 20th, 2008 at 5:19 am
Oooh, amarath and plum swirl sounds great! My sister made her own baby food, using a food mill. She thought it was great. She usually just ground up whatever she and her husband were eating, depending on if it was appropriate for her son’s age, of course. She still uses the food mill to grind up fruit to mix into yogurt.
August 20th, 2008 at 7:01 am
I make most of my babies food. It is fun to look in the freezer and see all the interesting colored cubes I have made.I get alot of ideas from this site: wholesomebabyfood.com it is a great resource with tons of tips and free recipes.
August 20th, 2008 at 7:07 am
We made all of our son’s baby food. It was so easy with a steamer and a food processor… and lots of ice cube trays to freeze it into portions. It got a little more time consuming as he aged and we had to actually chop up the veggies instead of pureeing them, but still worth it.
August 20th, 2008 at 7:23 am
We just went on vacation with friends who have a 9-month-old, and they are doing all homemade baby food. I saw the Babycook ( http://tinyurl.com/5w28gy ) in action all week and I think it might be the best labor-saver I’ve seen in a while. It steams the food (with a timer, so if you forget you don’t run into trouble) and then you dump the steamer basket into the container and there is a little food processor blade, so it blends it in the same container. All very self-contained and small; easy to use… Brilliant.
August 20th, 2008 at 9:43 am
I had a friend that was big into making her own food for her daughter and I think it’s a fantastic idea. And if you can store it, why not. Make a bunch and it has to be a least a little healthier I would think. She also used to used chicken broth with she would make the baby cereal so that it would develop her daughters flavor palette. I always thought that was a great idea.
August 20th, 2008 at 9:49 am
OMG Jaymie! I love that chicken stock idea. I do worry about her palette. This morning I was sprayed with those peas. She just does not like them. But she can’t eat apples and sweet potatoes everyday! I won’t give up.. not yet, anyhow.
And, Kate, I’m glad to hear your friend like the Babycook machine. It seems pricey to me. I am using a food processer and also a hand mill from KidCo and it works great.
August 20th, 2008 at 9:57 am
Is it really that rare that people “make their own” baby food these days? I read so much about it lately, and everything I read makes it sound like a new discovery that you can feed babies mashed vegetables…I guess I didn’t realise it had gone out of fashion for a while there…
August 20th, 2008 at 9:58 am
I made my daughters food and was stunned at how easy it proved to be. We kept it simple and used certain staples to anchor the day (a yogurt based snack with fruit, a bread and cheese based snack (when she was a little older), and up until she was two a dinner built around the Super Baby Food porridge (ground grains and beans cooked into a delicious muck).
Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron is a classic and was our goto resource. It’s one of those books where you can do as much or as little as works for your family, but she has some great ideas for freezing, storing, etc. as well as preparation. And the porridge… can’t say enough about it. We would grind lentils and rice into a fairly fine powder in the blender, then store the powder in the fridge and cook two days worth at a time on the stove top. When serving, or reheating the porridge, throw in a frozen food cube (sweet potato, avocado, etc) to cool it down and a little applesauce for extra nutrition and extra flavor and it’s a fine meal. I would say at least half of my now three year old’s body is made up of these ingredients.
August 20th, 2008 at 10:47 am
We made all of our baby food… it was so simple and easy. Usually we made what we were going to eat and took out some before adding any spices, to turn into mush. Or we’d add an extra veggie or fruit to cook and mash that as well.
Now they are teens and are really reluctant to eat veggies, oddly enough. Maybe I should return to the thrilling days of yesteryear and offer them mashed boiled sweet potatoes, a former favorite.
I can just see the eye-rolling now.
August 20th, 2008 at 11:33 am
I made all my kids’ early foods as well. It was super easy, and I liked having such control over what went into their bodies. I bought whole, organic foods and usually steamed or lightly boiled them. Sweet potatoes were a big favorite with all my kids - after a while, I didn’t even puree them but would just dig out little blobs of cooked potato and let it be “finger food.” My first daughter loved avocado and also tofu (though I waited til about a year on that). We would also grind organic whole oats into a powder to make our own grain cereal. I can’t remember now if I actually cooked that or just added warm water. I do remember that I experimented a lot with combining things they already liked, even if it turned out some kind of weird results … i.e. as toddlers, my girls loved a spread made of tofu, organic dates and a little peanut butter.
None of my babies liked strong-flavored veggies til much later. I would sneak them into things as best I could, but was never really successful at that. But at 14, 13, 8 and 4, and they all eat at least a few veggies, even green ones. And so far, none of them have come down with rickets or scurvy.
I got great nutritional info from “Vegetarian Baby” by Sharon Yntema. Seems to me that info would be helpful to anyone, not just vegetarians, as it helps you understand and plan for balanced nutrition. We froze the food in ice cube trays for easy storage, just like other have said. I miss the days of having a freezer full of orange and green ice cubes! To this day, I don’t really understand why anyone would buy jarred baby food except for traveling.
August 20th, 2008 at 11:37 am
One more thought about those peas, Angela - our pediatrician always reminded me that it can take some crazy number of exposures to a food for a child to finally get used to it. So it’s worth continuing to try it! Especially if you can mix it into other things she already likes. Good luck!
P.S.
None of my kids ever ever ever liked peas and not a one of them will eat peas to this day. Kale, edamame, celery, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini - bring it on. But not peas. I’m just sayin’.
August 20th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Yep we make almost all of our son’s food (he just turned 10 months) - it gets much easier - less time consuming around 9 months once they can eat/are more interested in finger foods. We still have a lot of frozen cubes in the freezer. We live in Japan so I try to use local ingredients. He eats a lot of tofu. Big favourites after the 9 month mark are little chicken hamburgers with grated apple and carrot, french toast also with grated carrot, potato, pumpkin and carrot cakes with lots of spices like garlic, black pepper etc. I’ve been surprised by how much he’s into stronger flavours. We pretty much eat yoghurt every morning with added oatmeal or wheatgerm, flaxseed oil and some type of fruit. He also loves blueberry smoothies with apple juice, wheatgerm, banana etc. We do keep a couple of jars of Earth’s Best handy though for when we are going out - it’s so hot that I either take a jar (so things don’t go off) or put frozen cubes in a used baby food jar and by the time we are ready to eat they are defrosted!! I always taste the jarred stuff and it’s yum…
August 21st, 2008 at 6:55 pm
avocados…the best baby food ever!! full of fat for their brains. Great mixed with cottage cheese and yogurt. If you are eating out or picnic..its a great food to take if you have a really ripe one, only need a spoon.
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:19 am
We made a lot of the girls’ baby food, but It didn’t seem like anything new, we just mashed whatever we were already having for dinner. I didn’t have a cook book but it probably would have made the meals more interesting. It seemed easier with our second child because we were already making food less spicy for the first. Although I will say my first, who ate whatever we were eating, has delevloped a very spicy palette.
August 31st, 2008 at 3:21 pm
I have been making my own food for my twin girls who are the same age as yours Angela but I wonder if anyone else finds themselves obsessed with it as I do. So far they like everything except nectarines but I worry that there’s not enough variety in the freezer, that if I don’t give them zucchini for a week they’ll stop liking it and that I haven’t yet given them, say, edamame.
It doesnt help that I have an extremely picky 4 year old and I’m trying to avoid that wiht my girls by exposing them to good wholesome tastes as early as possible.
September 6th, 2008 at 5:34 am
Have you tried mixing the peas into the mashed avacado? I do this when I make guacamole for the adults anyway and thought it might work as a covert mission to get baby to eat some peas
My mom made all of my food the same way growing up and I can’t wait to do the same for my children some day. It just seems like such a better alternative to feeding them all of the bad stuff in processed store bought foods.
September 8th, 2008 at 6:14 am
[...] 1. Peas + avocado can = baby food. “Have you tried mixing the peas into the mashed avocado?” asks Marcy. “I do this when I make guacamole for the adults, anyway, and thought it might work as a covert mission to get baby to eat some peas :)” Sounds good to us! See other DIY baby food ideas here. [...]
September 27th, 2008 at 5:02 am
I also used avacado early on with my daughter. She loved/loves them. I was specifically looking for a way to get some healthy fat into her diet. She has food sensitivities to dairy, soy, gluten, pork, canola oil, eggs, and all artificial additives. I felt I was living a nightmare while breastfeeding and then beginning foods with her. She also never liked peas at first, but now, after repeating her exposure to them, they are one of her favorite veggies. I also wonder, for those who have ground up grains for cereals and healthy additives for food, could anyone advise me as to how I could go about attempting that with Quinoa? I have another baby on the way, and I want to be prepared for this one to have a cereal source. (Because of the gluten, and my daughter’s inclination to poor plumbing, I coudn’t do rice cereal either.)