My Surprising Passion: Homemade Baby Food

From when I was pregnant, I was on the hunt to not only do what was best for Ke’alohi, but to do what was the most efficient and economical for our family.  When it came to baby food, we knew that we wanted to give Ke’alohi organic and healthy food and thought that making our own baby food might be “doable.”  Some people laughed and thought we were crazy but it really is such a great way to feed your child and this way we knew exactly every ingredient that we gave Ke’alohi.  After perusing Babies ‘R’ Us and Target as we were planning on giving Ke’alohi solid food, I realized that there were also A LOT of fruits and vegetables that weren’t even made by some of the “big name” baby food makers that I wanted Ke’alohi to experience like beets, asparagus and cauliflower.  I do however, when we are out and about, use Plum Organics pouches because they are so much easier to keep in my diaper bag and they are made with some of the best organic fruits and vegetables.  When the time came to start to making baby food, I immediately headed over to Shawna’s blog at styleberryBLOG to answer all my question and to see what tools I needed.  I quickly found out that making baby food is very easy and really isn’t all that much “work.”

We started off simple and used another great website, Wholesome Baby Food, to see what foods were best to start off with so that Ke’alohi would get used to the texture of food and make the transition from bottle to solid foods easier.  As I started making more and more food, I started my own little system.  I really only make food once, maybe twice a month and I’m able to feed Ke’alohi so many different fruits and vegetables at home and at her daycare.  The thing that really surprised me is that we had almost all the tools to make our own baby food already in our kitchen!  The tools that we use are a blender or food processor, a large pot with a lid, a steam basket, a spatula, ziploc freezer bags and the Tovolo Perfect Cube Ice Trays.  The ice trays were the only thing that we had to buy in the whole process and were such a great investment because they make homemade baby food easy as pie.  The trays are each 15 1-ounce cubes that are great for portions and storing.

First, the ingredients, we buy all of our ingredients at Trader Joes, Costco and our local grocery store.  As for the cooking process, I steam or bake everything.  The only cookbook I have used is “The Best Homemade Baby Food on the Planet.”  The title of this book always cracks me up but I really do like it because it tells you the best foods for freezing and storing and breaks up all their baby food recipes by age group.  After I cook the fruits and vegetables, I let them cool and then I put them in the food blender to puree.  As Ke’alohi gets older, I add less and less formula or water to make the purees thicker and chunkier.  Once the puree is done blending, I pour it into the ice trays and use the spatula to make everything level.  Make sure to get any air bubbles out of the cubes by tapping the tray on the counter a couple times.  After all the cubes have been filled, I stick the trays into our freezer and they are usually fully frozen in a day or two for transfering into a ziploc freezer bag.  Before I put the cubes in the ziploc bag I write with sharpie what the food is and the date I made it for mine and the daycare’s reference and keep them stored in the freezer.  When you are ready to feed your baby, all you have to do is grab the cube or cubes you want to feed your baby and pop them in the microwave for a minute.

So far we have made sweet potatos, butternut squash, yellow squash, zucchini, carrots, beets, broccoli, cauliflower, red bell peppers, peas, green beans, apples, pears, peaches, banana, avocado, mango, nectarines, yogurt,oatmeal, quinoa, rice and couscous.  I never thought making my own baby food would be such a passion and so easy to do at home.