Homemade Baby Food Recipes

(I'm excited to present today's guest blogger, my friend and fellow first time mom, Chelsie. She is the mother of a 10 month old sweet little baby girl and is sharing her daughter's 6 favorite recipes with us today!

As always if you would like to guest blog, just shoot me and email with your idea. Firsttimemomanddad@gmail.com)

Hey there mommas! As our little bundles of joy become big, insatiably hungry bundles of joy, our pocketbooks are becoming noticeably lighter. One of the wonderful things about First Time Mom And Dad is the ability to share tips, tricks, rants, and… recipes!!
Like April, I make the vast majority of my daughter’s food. In the beginning, I purchased jarred food. After a few weeks, however, I realized that it just didn’t work for my family. My daughter simply didn’t like the taste and they are expensive!! Breast milk alone wasn’t cutting it, though, so I decided to try making a few dishes for her myself. After making that first batch of baby food, my baby girl gobbled it up and I was hooked. And, compared to jarred versions, I found it to be much cheaper too! My secret? I make it in bulk and freeze it. It doesn’t take much longer to make and I feel that it saves me time, which equals more playtime with my love! So, without further ado, here are a few recipes and some tips to help you if you decide to give making your own baby food at home a try. Good luck and have fun!

Four favorites for 6+ months … Sweet Potatoes, Apples, Peas, and Bananas
​All recipes will last 2 days in the refrigerator or 6 weeks in the freezer

How to Prepare:
Sweet Potatoes
Preheat your oven to 400’F. Take two (approximately 2.5 pounds total) sweet potatoes. Wash well and prick the skin all over. Place on a baking sheet or aluminum foil and place in the oven (Wrapping sweet potatoes causes them to steam and they aren’t as sweet). Bake for 40-50 minutes, or until soft. Let rest until they are cool enough to handle, then peel. Blend or mash with apple juice, formula, or breast milk until desired consistency.
Yields ~ 5- 3ounce portions at around $0.50 a portion.
Tasty combinations as your baby gets older: apples, peaches, pears, carrots, green
beans, peas, pumpkin, zucchini, squash, rice, chicken, beef, and yogurt.

​Apples
Peel, core, and dice a pound of apples (and kind other than Granny Smith – they’re a bit too tart). You’ll end up with about 2¾ cups. Put in a sauce pan with one cup of water. Bring to a boil and cover, reducing the heat to low. Simmer 10 minutes or until the apples are soft. Add more water if needed. Allow to cool slightly, then blend the apple and water in a blender until desired consistency.
Yields ~ 11- 2ounce portions at around $0.20 a portion.
Tasty combinations as your baby gets older: avocado, bananas, blueberries, pears,
sweet potatoes, carrots, zucchini, squash, chicken, beef, and yogurt.

​Peas
Place two cups of peas (fresh or frozen) in a microwave safe glass dish. Add ½ cup water, cover, and microwave on high to 5 minutes or until the peas are soft. Allow to cool slightly, then place in a blender with ½ cup formula or breast milk and puree 1 minute or until smooth. * An interesting fact: Peas cooked in the microwave contain twice as much vitamin C as commercially produced baby food peas. If you’d rather cook them on the stove, use the same amount of water and peas, place in a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 5-6 minutes. Puree as you would if microwaved.
Yields ~ 6- 2 ounce portions at around $0.17 a portion.
Tasty combinations as your baby gets older: apples, grapes, carrots, green beans,
potato, sweet potatoes, zucchini, squash, rice, chicken, beef, pork.

​Bananas
This preparation is simple and yet so much fun… take two or three bananas. Place them in a Ziploc baggie. Squish. J
Yields ~ 4- 2 ounce portions at around $0.28 a portion.
Tasty combinations as your baby gets older: avocado, blueberries, kiwi, peaches,
pears, apples, sweet potatoes, yogurt.

Baby food is so expensive!

Whether you prepare your baby’s food yourself or buy it in the store, it’s expensive! Now that the little boxer has become an eating machine, I am quickly finding out his food is making a dent in the family budget. In fact, Oliver’s food just got it’s own line item in the family budget!  

First of all, I have no freaking clue how formula families do not have to take out a second bloody mortgage to supplement both formula and solids. I’m freaking out over solid foods alone!  Up until this week Oliver was eating one 4-5 ounce serving of food a day.  Whether I made his dinner from fresh veggies, or just gave him a pouch/jar of organic food, it really only cost us about $10-15 a week, TOPS!  Now that the little beast is up to 8-12 ounces of food a day, it’s adding up. Fast! 

I strive to make 2/3 of his meals at home.  I also don’t make his food in bulk and freeze it.  I cannot be bothered to get that massive assembly line going. Since I have the time, jobless Blogger and all, everyday I will steam his vegetable at lunch time, mix it with a frozen/fresh organic fruit like blueberries/mangoes/strawberries, add a little purified water and blend it.  The frozen fruit cools off the steamed veggies in the mixing process so its ready as soon as I turn the blender off. This usually yields about 10 ounces of food, so I can use it for both lunch and dinner.  (What? He doesn’t seem to care.) At dinnertime if he wants more food than I've prepared, I will open a jar/pouch of organic food. This process works for my family.  I know it is not ideal for 99% of everyone else.

I am not even going to climb up on a bitch box about making homemade food. The quality and processes for jarred food today are great.  In fact, some will argue major baby food factories are way more sterile than your home kitchen.  It is all about whatever works for your family.  I’ll be the first to say when I go back to a full time job, I am probably not going to make Oliver’s meal everyday, nor am I going to want to turn my kitchen into a baby food factory on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.  

I have also come to the realization that “baby food” is only something that lasts from 4 to 9 months, 5 months. That is not even worth any real dramas, other than cost of course.  By 9 months I can start giving him the same dinner I eat. 

Ok, I digress… Baby food is expensive…

Our pediatrician recommends “Organic” food if at all possible.  So far that has been possible. However, I look at organic vs. non-organic food like I look at breast vs. formula. It’s what’s best for you and your family. I was raised on formula and non-organic baby food. I am a healthy person.  I rarely get sick, I play nice with others and all in all I am pretty cool, all sans boobies and organic goods. So if you can afford it, and it makes your feel all good and fuzzy buy organic.  If not, buy whatever and end up with a cool cat like me! Again, it’s what’s best for your family.  

I have talked to moms, surfed the web, and checked ads and circulars and here are my recommendations for saving money on food. Regardless of the route you take.

1.Buy in bulk! If your store has a sale, buy as much as you can afford.

  

2.Check your local discount and baby specific stores online websites for weekly deals. For me, Babies R’ Us has had buy 20 pouches of Organics for $15 lately. That is a great deal!

3.One avocado mashed can yield 10 ounces.  On a good day I can get one for $1.  That’s 50 cents a meal. Yes please! The same goes for a small head of broccoli, sweet potato, bag of carrots.  If you have the time, each one of those will make two meals.  Just add a little water and if you have a hand held mixer, use that. Boom lunch and dinner for $1! 

4.Search for Online Coupons at places like coupons.com

5.Save your damn pennies because you are gonna need them!

Giving baby rice cereal & Sleeping through the night

The time has come.  Oliver is a eating machine that needs more than nursing, so...  At 3 months and one day I gave my son a tablespoon of rice cereal in his breast milk bottle.  I know that most doctors say wait until 4 months to allow the digetive tract to develop. BUT Oliver is a fast growing eating machine, I really think he needs more than I am giving him through nursing! 

I asked around and most everyone I spoke to said, either they gave their baby rice cereal well before 4 months or that they wish they did.  My mothers’ generation was getting rice cereal and bananas by 2-3 months.  I have a friend who was told to give her daughter cereal in her bottle at one month! I know I should have consulted my doctor first, but I didn’t.

I had been toying with the idea of giving him cereal for the past two weeks.  He seems like he is constantly in a growth spurt and never full.  He has been eating upto 5 ½ ounces in his pumped bottles since 2 months old, and he still screams for food every three hours. I know he is growing and developing both physically and mentally right on track of not a little ahead. He is getting what he needs, it just seems like he is not getting enough of what he wants! 

I was warned that the first time I give him the rice cereal to do it early to mid-day, and NO MORE than a tablespoon to start. This way if he has any adverse reaction I can conact the doctor. Plus, cereal can cause bad gas and I certainly didn't to be up all night with a gassy ass.

I started with a warm 5 ½ ounce bottle added the cereal stirred it gently until it all dissolved. I fed him the bottle at 11am and he drank it down with no issue. He was visibly happy and full when he was finished. He smiled and cooed for about an hour afterward. He went to sleep easily for his nap, (according to dad) and was not hungry again until 3pm.  That’s still only 4 hours but he was also not ravenous at all the rest of the day.

I will not feed him the cereal again for the late bottle because I want to give him a full 24 hours to digest the cereal. The idea of satiating the machine brings tears to my eyes and relief to my over worked milk factories! Plus, I NEED SOME SLEEP! I know that rice cereal does not guarantee that he will sleep through the night, but here is hoping!

UPDATE Tomorrow!