I wanted to make my little bambino some yummy baby food. She isn’t totally sold on solids yet so I didn’t make too much. Just enough to last us 3-4 weeks.

My squish eats about 2-4oz of solids twice a day.  She is slowly getting the hang of it. Sometimes she loves it and sometimes she ma-goo about it 🙂 If your baby is eating a hearty serving of 4oz of solids 3 times a day I would double or even triple this recipe 🙂 You’re still only paying a fraction of what you would in the stores (2 2oz servings of Gerber Sweet Potatoes is $1.19. I made 10 times that much for $1.09)

{I mean isn’t that the cutest darn face you ever saw?}

First things first

1. Pick what type of baby food you want to make! I made peas, sweet potatoes, apples, and avocado {make on demand because goes bad quickly}

2. Find the BEST deals. We go organic with produce. Our local farmers market {about 3 blocks down the road} is Sprouts.  The most inexpensive produce in San Diego and it is by FAR the best quality.

3. Get started 🙂

For all my recipes I used The Baby and Toddler Cookbook ..

Also keep in mind the amount of water you use when you blend depends on the consistency your baby needs for baby food.  Younger babies need it smoother (extra water) older babies, or babies with experience with solids ready to move up in the world, add less water for a chunkier texture.

Peas

1 bag of frozen peas. Mine was a 16oz bag for $1.29. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add peas. Boil until tender.  Use 1 1/2 cups of the water you boiled the peas with and place it into a blender. Then add your peas {keep some water in case you need more}.  Blend in a blender, food processor, or puree machine until done. Make sure you boil and blend thoroughly! If the pea skins are not pureed enough baby might not like it or be able to swallow them.  At least my baby felt that way! 

*Chase and I have a simple Ninja blender and it works perfectly!  You don’t need a $500 Vitamix to make this work! 

Sweet Potatoes 

I used 2 sweet potatoes I got at Sprouts for .59 each. Cut them in half and then I baked them for 1 hour at 450 degrees. Then I added 1 cup of water to the blender. When the potatoes were done I used a spoon to scoop out the meat from the potato and added it to the blender 🙂 DONE.

Apples

These apples were $1.89/pound at Sprouts so I paid less than $2. First I simply cleaned and cut up the apples. Added them to boiling water for 20 minutes 🙂 I put a dash of cinnamon in the blender along with 2 cups of the boiled water.  I added the apples and blended for a good 3 minutes. These took a little longer to blend! Also, I did not remove the skin. I read there is a TON of fiber in the skins and my daughter has poopy problems so she can use the extra fiber!

After I blended the food I just added them to ice cube trays {that I sanitized}.

Each cube = 2oz. So Isla can usually eat 1-2 of those ({which is 2-4 ounces} 🙂  so that’s 8-16 days worth of baby food.  These peas made 3 ICE CUBE trays = 24 or 48 days of baby food. Depending on if she eats 2oz or 4oz at dinner.

The 3 apples made 1 1/2 trays. We eat apples for breakfast and only 2oz (or one cube) so those apples will last us 24 days!

The sweet potatoes filled 1 tray of ice cubes so it will last 1-3 weeks 🙂

My daughter refuses to eat rice cereal or oatmeal. But we are going to keep on trying!!

Avocado

Mash up with 1 oz of breast milk or formula. Make sure it’s to the right consistency for your baby!

{we used the rest of this avocado for the big kid dinner 🙂 }

STORAGE:

When making solid food I use ice cube trays to freeze the baby food {sanitized}. Once I’ve made and then frozen the baby food I pop it out and keep it in labeled gallon sized zip lock bag 🙂 When I want to make Isla some food I chose the veggie, pop it in the microwave for 15-30 second, stir it up, and serve it 🙂 

Next up we will be making:

1. Summer Squash
2. Blueberries & spinach
3. Pears
4. Peaches
5. Beats

This took me about an hour to do and that’s only because I had to wait on the Sweet Potatoes to bake. I’ve heard some mom’s boil the sweet potatoes in water. Maybe I’ll try that next time because my bambino LOVES sweet potatoes!

My next step (8-9 months) is to add protein and more flavors like cumin, cinnamon, and some other tasty goodness

I hope you guys love making your own baby food as much as I do 🙂

Love,

J xo