Now we're cooking

My lovely sister-in-law, Alison, got me the most excellent of gifts this Christmas. It was a steamer/blender to prepare baby food. I have been wanting to start making Jake's food ever since we started feeding him, and for some reason or another, it was always going to start "tomorrow". Well, "tomorrow" officially happened yesterday. After going grocery shopping, I picked up most of the foods that are classified as stage 1 foods. I unpacked my new Beaba baby food steamer/blender and got to cooking.

Now, let me say that the Beaba steamer/blender is quite the tool, but don't be discouraged if you don't have said machine. A steamer basket and a blender will work just fine. I steamed apples, pears, and zucchini. I purchased a bag of diced butternut squash that was ready to be steamed in the microwave and did the same with English peas (which are still in the freezer). The bananas and the avocado didn't need to be steamed, so those just got blended. A large sweet potato got cooked in the oven. After everything was cooked (except avocado and banana), I blended them to the consistency of baby food. You can add formula or breastmilk to get everything to the right level of mush :)

For $1.20 or thereabout, I bought 3 ice cube trays at Wal-mart yesterday. Alison got me a tray made by Beaba for freezing food also, and it freezes servings about the size of 2 ice cubes. I had more food than trays last night, so the remainder of the food got put into containers for the fridge. Once I popped out the frozen cubes this morning, I put the refrigerated food in them to freeze.

 

 This morning I popped the frozen cubes into plastic bags with labels and dates and put the unfrozen foods into the trays to freeze. I did pretty well, and Jake will have food for quite a while since we are only eating one meal a day of solids right now. The food can remain in the fridge for 3 days or the freezer for 3 months. Here's how it turned out:

3 pears - 10 cubes

4 medium apples - 11 cubes

2 bananas - 3 cubes

small bag of dice butternut squash - 10 cubes

1 avocado - 4 cubes

3 small zucchini - 10 cubes

1 large sweet potato - 22 cubes!!

I still have a bag of sweet peas to steam and blend, but I think that we did pretty well. I saved a ton, and it was super easy. I only took a few minutes to do this, and I know exactly what went into the food that I am giving Jake. And really, isn't he worth it?