Baby Food

On a scale of 1 to BAD, how awful of a mom am I for stealing some of the food I made for my son for my lunch today?

Sweet Potato with Baby's black beans and chicken.

Now before you go all weird on me thinking I'm all weird, hear me out.

I'm working to impose a new rule:

• If I wouldn't give it to Baby, I won't eat it either.
• If I wouldn't eat it myself, I won't give it to Baby.

Fine, that's two rules.

But to my first rule, "If I wouldn't give it to Baby, I won't eat it either" means I'm working on not eating crap like deep-fried-Oreo-Twinkie-corn-dog bites. Obviously this rule only goes so far, especially when it comes to coffee, wine, and ice cream cake. (In case you are wondering though, Baby and I are both huge fans of gluten (since neither of us have a gluten-intolerance) and chicken not marketed as "hormone-free" (since all chicken is hormone-free).)

And to my second rule, "If I wouldn't eat it myself, I won't give it to Baby," it means that when I smelled one of those nasty pre-packaged baby foods on our vacation, I gagged myself and tossed it before Baby had to gag. 

So I'm one of the new mommas who makes her own baby food. And since almost my whole graduating class at Concordia had babies within 2 months of each other, I'd like to share:

• what I make
• how I make it
• cost per serving
• and Baby's favorite combos

And to all my Concordia momma friends - I can't wait to be sitting by you in the Walz Arena in 22 years when all our kids graduate from CUNE. 

Anyway, for those of you not interested in this, make yourself an ice cream cake. You absolutely won't regret it. 

Foods I've Made:

First off, just want to say I know it can be a button pusher when discussing cereals vs. veggies and purees vs. baby led weaning. So I'm just hear to say: this is what we did. 

And what we did was a have a very messy baby and very messy floors...which unfortunately coincided with my Swiffer wet jot mop breaking. I'm open to new mop suggestions because scrubbing the floor with a bucket of Pine-Sol is getting old quick. Though the shine and smell is amazing!

Okay, but really, here's the outline of what we introduced when:

• 4.5 months - Introduce suuuuper milky rice cereal, about 1x per day or 1x every 2 days.
• Really, this was just about teaching him to use a spoon. Don't be fooled. It's a steep learning curve. I'm reminded:

• 5 months - Introduce bland veggies, about 1x per day or 1x every 2 days.
• We started with avocado and sweet potatoes.
• 6 months - Introduce a variety of veggies, fruits, grains, puffs, yogurt, peanut butter, etc. 1x per day.
• 7 months - Same, but 2x per day.
• 8 months - Same, but now apparently he's a big boy eating 3x per day.

Below I've included:

• the foods I've made, categorized by how I make them
• some favorite combos
• how I puree
• how I freeze
• and cost per serving

Steamed: I use our rice cooker which has a steam basket. Steaming veggies maintains the nutrients whereas boiling loses some of them. Then, I puree and freeze (see below).

• Broccoli
• Zucchini
• Sweet Potato
• Cauliflower 
• Carrots
• Spinach
• Squash (acorn, butternut, spaghetti, winter) - Although baking them was easier. Seriously, don't steam them.

Baked: I halve these bad boys (and almost lose 12 fingers in the process...don't ask me how to cut these in half), place them face down in a big pan with a little bit of water, and bake at 400 for about an hour or until a toothpick easily came in and out. Then, I scoop out the insides, puree, and freeze.

• Squash
• Pumpkin

Boil: After boiling, I puree, and freeze.

• Chicken - I didn't know you can boil chicken? But I did. I used chicken broth and boiled the chicken until the internal temp was 165. Pureeing the chicken was no joke. I added more liquid, and it basically turned into finely shredded chicken. Not Baby's favorite, but Baby Boy needs protein.
• Apples - I just peel and slice the apples, add a bit of water, and boil until soft.

No Prep (basically): I peel the ripe fruit, puree, and freeze. I rinse and drain the beans, puree, and freeze.

• Mango
• Pear
• Peach
• Kiwi
• Plum
• Black beans
• Great northern beans
• Garbanzo beans
• Beets - Yeah. He wasn't a fan.

No Prep (for real): Pretty sure you can figure these out...

• Cottage cheese
• Peanut Butter
• Full Fat plain Greek yogurt
• Avocado
• Banana

Favorite Combos:

• Full fat plain Greek yogurt with peanut butter and pureed apples...I actually like to eat this for breakfast myself
• Any fruit with the chicken...The chicken is a little dry, so the fruit sweetens it up and helps it slide down his throat.
• Black beans and sweet potato...Again, obviously I like this for myself.
• Any fruit with Garbanzo beans...Similar to the chicken, the beans are a little dry and flavorless so the fruit helps that.
• Spinach with an orange veggie...It's just pretty!

Pureeing

I puree Baby's food with this immersion blender. It's KitchenAid because KitchenAid does everything better, and it's red because everything is better red. To be honest, I'm not sure if you have an immersion blender that isn't red, that it will work properly.

Haha. I'm sitting laughing here thinking about the first time I used my immersion blender.

One would think the name would give it away - IMMERSION blender. That means you have to IMMERSE it. 

Yeah, totally tried to use it like a handheld mixer. Twirling around my immersion blender...trying to get the sides...wondering why the heck anyone would use one of these...Hahaha...

For all I know, I'm still using it wrong. But! Whatever I'm doing, it works:

Oh yeah, when I first started making baby food, I added some breastmilk to it to make it creamier. I read mixed reviews if you should add the breastmilk/formula before or after freezing it. I wasn't overly concerned and added before. Now, I don't add breastmilk unless if when I thaw it is too chunky. If it's too runny (like zucchini usually is), I add rice or oatmeal cereal.

Freezing

Then, I freeze them in individual little 2.5oz pods. The specific ones I bought are no longer available, but there's only 42 thousand other options that are basically identical. When he was little, he would just eat 1 pod per meal. Since about 7 months, he eats 2 pods per meal.

After they froze, I pop out the pods, stick them in a Tupperware, label them by food and date made, and I've got breakfast, lunch, and dinner ready to go for the little guy!

Cost per Serving

And lastly, here are the price per servings from one of my grocery trips/baking days. On this day, I spent a total of $21.50 on food, which yielded 71 servings, which averaged $0.30 per serving.

*Note that I classify a serving as 1-2.5oz pod.

**Also note that I'm a bargain shopper, so Baby eats the foods that are on sale!

Apples - $0.70/serving

1 apple = 2 servings

Mango - $0.29/serving

1 mango = 3 servings

Pears - $0.17/serving

1 pear = 2 servings

Peaches - $0.47/serving

1 peach = 2 servings

Sweet Potato - $0.31/serving

1 potato = 3-4 servings

Cauliflower - $0.19/serving

1 head = 10 servings

Black Beans - $0.25/serving

1 can = 4 servings

Garbanzo Beans - $0.22/serving

1 can = 4 servings

Beets - $0.25/serving

1 can = 4 servings

Chicken - $0.32/serving

1 breast = 4 servings

If you made it this far, bless you.