Baby Food Love

 Hey Mamas. I've had quite a few request recently to share my knowledge on making baby food. This made me so happy, so it has taken me a little while to sit down and actually focus on what I wanted to talk about. So, here it goes! 

 Your Pediatrician and Lactation Consultants will recommend your child be exclusively breast fed (or formula) until 6 months old. Your Mama, Grandmama, and anyone else who knows best will tell you to "give that baby some rice cereal...it'll help him sleep through the night." They may be right. I don't know. I breast fed K until he was 6 months old, and I am still nursing him at 11 1/2 months old. Looking back, I can't figure out why I didn't at least try giving him rice cereal. I was too focused on him having breast milk and not having enough sleep. And, it's not like your Pediatrician will yell at you. They are giving out, just that...recommendations. I have since became way more relaxed in my parenting style, realizing that "by the book" does not mean it's for every family. There are no two babies the same. 

 When I had Keegan, I knew that I wanted to make his baby food. I mean, after all, I did go to Culinary School, I needed to do something with my degree...right?! Well, that was my thinking along with knowing how much better home made food would be for my child, and lets not forget about how much money I have saved our family. But, lets be clear, you do not need a culinary degree to make your own baby food. You do not even need one of those overpriced, cute little all in one baby food makers. You need a stove, a medium size pot, a steaming basket (I bought mine at Target for $7) and a food processor, blender, or food mill. Your pick, whatever you have, I know you got at least one of these as a wedding gift! But for some reason, if you don't have one of these, you can easily use a potato masher, it'll just take a little extra elbow grease. Making your own food will only take about 2 hours a month. Seriously. Just set aside one day to do it, and freeze everything. Then,  you're done for a whole month!!  I used silicone molds with 2 oz cubes, them popped them into zip lock bags, but whatever works for you. Don't spend a ton of money, it's not needed. You can buy something from Amazon for like $10.


 As most of you know, baby food has different stages, and depending what stage your baby is in, depends on what type of food he can eat. I'll do my best to explain the stages here, according to what they would be with store bought food. Remember, there are many foods your child cannot have until they are much older, so be sure to be aware of those. Off the top of my head, here are a few: honey, peanut butter, egg whites, strawberries, citrus, and whole milk. Also, I only use fresh (or depending on the season) frozen organic fruits and vegetables.

Keegan is having his very first solid's here, sweet potatoes!

Stage 1 would be first solids. Your child should start this around 6 months old, and can hold their head up with no problems. Some parents start a little sooner, it's up to you. This would simply be soupy, pureed fruits and vegetables. No meat yet! You could even add rice cereal or oatmeal to your baby's diet at this point too. The best first foods would be sweet potatoes, carrots, and even avocado. These are mildly flavored with a little sweetness and puree beautifully, making them easy for baby to get used to. For the first 3 weeks of solids, introduce new foods very slowly, every 5 days or so to insure there are no allergies. If allergies are common in your family, be even more careful. Eventually over the next month or so, you can add in bananas, pears, asparagus, green beans, rutabaga, turnips, squash and zucchini. I will recommend that after the first initial introduction, only give your baby vegetables for a couple of weeks. If not, they tend not to eat them because, of course, they would rather have the sweet fruit. And then only give fruit after baby has eaten his veggies. The following recipe is interchangeable with any vegetable or hard fruit.

Puree of Carrot
2 pounds of carrot, peeled and diced
Steam carrots in steaming basket over simmering water until soft.
Puree until smooth, (it should be a little runnier than pancake batter) even adding a little water if necessary.
This will make 2 pounds of food. Store in 2oz BPA free, freezer safe containers. Can be frozen up to 3 months.


Stage 2 is when it finally starts to get a little fun. Your baby should be at least 7 1/2 to 8 months old, and can sit up with no problems. You can finally start to add in a little flavor to your baby's diet. Still, no salt or pepper, but you can use most herbs now! You will still be pureeing the food, but you'll leave it a little thicker now. This will help your baby start learning to mash his food with those sweet little gums and even that first tooth!


Roasted Squash with Thyme
2 pounds of squash, diced, skin on.
1-2 sprigs thyme, pulled from stem.
A tiny, tiny touch of olive oil, just to moisten squash.
Toss all these together and roast at 350 until soft. Puree until it's kinda smooth, but still has some texture to it. Refrigerate or freeze.


Stage 3 is also fun! Your baby should be 9-10 months old and be crawling without their little tummy touching the floor for these foods. If you want, you can introduce meat now. We did (or I should say Doug did) by accident. He gave him jarred food that I had bought that had meat in it, so we just kept going with it! I will warn you, once you give them meat, their poopy diapers will smell terrible. You will think something is wrong, there's not, but it sure smells that way. You'll be so grateful that you kept that diaper genie you got at your shower, I swear! Food at this point can also be chunky. Just a few pulses in the food processor will do it. Almost all food is fair game now (except for the no no's listed above) so it makes dining easier with your baby. Keegan was practically eating off our plates at this point too.


Risotto with Fresh Vegetables
1 cup Aborio rice
1-2 cups chicken stock (or water), heated in the microwave
1/4 cup diced onion
1 tsp garlic
1 cup diced veggies (My faves are whatever I have in the fridge!)
Saute your veggies until tender. Remove. Add in the onions and saute until tender. Add in the rice and toast for about 3 minutes. Add in garlic and saute for about 2 minutes. Start ladling in your stock and stir every 2 minutes or so. Once that addition has cooked out, add another ladle of stock in, doing this until your rice is al dente (or just cooked through). Add your cooked veggies back in. At this point, you can remove a serving for your baby to have and then finish the risotto to your liking! Adding in salt and pepper to taste and even a little butter if you want. And of course, Parmesan! This way your baby is getting all the flavor, but no salt and pepper still. But, I will admit, by now, Keegan had it all :)


Stage 4  is 10-11 months old. Your child is probably telling you in his own way that he no longer wants "baby food" and is now ready for whatever it is that you are having. So go for it! Keegan gets really "mad" when we give him baby food while we are eating. So I just cut everything up really small and pile it on his plate. He loves feeding himself. And this makes eating as a family much easier too!


 I hope that this post has helped a little bit. Remember to check out baby food books from the library and play around with food. There are some really good ones. I never actually had one, but I loved looking at websites and baby blogs. Just play around! My favorite was weelicious.com. Give your child beets, spinach, rutabagas. I did! It's the only time you can ever "force feed" your child whatever you want! And just so you know, homemade food made up about 85% of Keegan's diet. I would buy baby food for when we were traveling, eating out, and if Doug was feeding him. I only buy Earth's Best Baby Food, HappyTot's, Ella's Organic, and Plum. These are all organic. Good Luck!