High Chair Chef: Baby Food Made Easy

I’m not going to lie, I had some guilt about not trying harder to work out our breastfeeding situation. Not because of the bonding and such, but because of the financial end of things. Formula ain’t cheap! And guess what, neither is baby food, which is why I decided to make my own. I’ve heard great things from non-hippie mommas about how easy it is and how much they are saving. Turns out 1 pouch of food is about $1 if you catch it on sale. Multiply that by, let’s say 4, which is a days worth of food – so $4 a day, multiply by 30 days in a month …. yikes.

I had a few books on how to make baby food and did my fair share of Googling and I had a really hard time finding something that really dummied it down for me. Through some trial and error, I think I’ve found my baby food makin’ groove.

You really don’t need anything too fancy to get started. When we decided to make our own food, we researched some of the name brand, baby food specific kitchen gadgets and they seemed like regular products with the word ‘baby’ added and a higher price tag. Thankfully, we got a really nice Cuisinart food processor/blender for our wedding and it was just collecting dust.

When it comes to steaming, my Sister in Law uses the kind that goes into a pot, I opted to pick up an electric steamer for $20 at Walmart. To each his own!

First, decide what’s on the menu. Tonight is carrots (even though we had a terrible experience a few weeks back after eating carrots)! I used a 1lb bag of frozen carrots that were on sale for 99 cents. They steam for about 20 minutes.

Next is the fun part – pureeing! Some foods are hard to get super smooth so I just add some water and it helps smooth it out a little bit. Otherwise, I try to give it to Mike to see if he likes the texture and if not, I thin it out with formula before he eats it.

Once it’s done pureeing, spoon or pour it into ice cube trays (these are from the Dollar Tree), cover with foil and freeze overnight.

The next day, I pop out the cubes (this is strawberries and blueberries I made the night before) and put them in a Ziploc baggie with the food and the date it was made. Apparently the food can stay frozen for 3 months in the freezer, then thawed in the fridge (without formula added) for 3 days.

Every night, I pull out a variety of frozen food and put it in a plastic storage container to thaw in the fridge. My Mother in Law sent us a variety of types to try. I like the small OXO containers, but they tend to be pricey so we stick with the GladWare sauce containers.

There you have it! Of course some foods, like apples and prunes, are a pain in the neck to make so we buy that food already made. But it is possible to save quite a bit of money and make healthy food for your kiddos.