I don’t want a kid that only eats chicken strips and cheese pizza. The kind you can’t take to restaurants nicer than McDonald’s. I like food, a variety of it, and I want my kid to do the same. Plus it’s healthier. If you’re like me, you might want to make your own homemade baby food. But where to begin?
Because of this, I decided to embark on an adventure my mom thought was ludicrous (since Gerber had already been invented): making my own baby food.
Here was my thinking:
My babysitter said she once did an ice-breaker at her youth group where they fed a blind-folded person baby food and made them guess what it was. Apparently the exercise made almost everyone puke. No wonder kids are picky eaters! (Or so goes my hypothesis.)
Plus, why is it that jarred chicken can stay on a shelf without refrigeration? Do I want to know?
I also wanted a baby who slept through the night, and I’m on my 10th month without sleep, so I see parents sometimes want things they can’t have.
Nonetheless, ever an optimist, I decided to go for it. In theory, it sounded really easy. Just make food, then blend it. How hard could it be?
No one told me I’d have a garbage disposal for a baby. He starting eating me out of house and home at six months. What’s going to happen when he’s a teenager? At any rate, I guess you could say my hypothesis that good-tasting, healthy food will make baby enjoy eating is coming true.
The hard part was figuring out how to get started.
Where to Begin
I started by finding out what types of food and nutrients a baby needs (see Baby Food, Part 2 article). But you can’t cook (or puree) without the right gear, so I figured utensils were crucial.
I considered getting a baby food maker (like the Baby Bullet, NUK, or Baeba). Many of them will both cook and puree, all with the touch of a button. That was tempting, but the problem was that they limit the cooking options to steaming.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t like everything steamed. Too soggy. Lots of food tastes much better roasted or grilled or broiled or baked. Since a big part of my motivation was to make things taste good, I decided to save my money and use the kitchen utensils I already owned. That way I had flexibility. And I got to save money (which isn’t something I get to write very often).
With a regular stove and oven, I could prepare the food any way I wanted. Next I had to make it smooth. I had a food processor, a blender, and an emulsion blender. This is all you need, but these machines work better with some foods over others. For instance, you’ll only get a mess if you put an emulsion blender into a bowl of broccoli. The emulsion works best with something brothy. On the other hand, the food processor makes broccoli into a delicious green paste.
You should know that none of these gadgets make food nearly as liquidy and smooth as you can buy in a jar or a pouch. That doesn’t bother me at all, so long as there are no choke-inducing chunks. I’m hoping this helps W avoid texture aversions, but who knows? For now: so far, so good. Like I said, the kid is an eating machine.
Gear You Want
-A small food processor. The big ones make blending small portions difficult. (I use a Cuisinart.)
-An emulsion blender is priceless. You don’t have to add any extra liquid to puree like you do in a regular blender. (I use a Cuisinart Smart Stick.)
-A blender gets food the smoothest. However, you probably know from making smoothies how annoyingly difficult it is to get the big chunks from the top to drop to the bottom and actually blend. It also takes a lot of liquid and might make food runnier than you wanted. (I use a Black and Decker.)
-Green Sprout makes 2 oz. glass cubes that sit on their own stackable trays to make freezing individual portions easy.
-BPA-free “Tupperware” is also useful for freezing. For much of what I make W, a 2-oz. serving is an appetizer. I needed bigger sizes.
Once you know your baby likes something, do a big cook and freeze the extras. Making baby food is less of a pain when you only have to do it once every week or two. It’s just as easy to let something defrost as it is to pop a jar! (As long as you can somehow forget about cooking it in the first place.)
Q: Do you make your own baby food? Any tips?