Homemade Baby Food

I've started making Michaela's baby food. When she first started eating solids, I wasn't worried. All the little jars read "Ingredients: Carrots" or "Ingredients: Peas". Then the jars in the next stage started listing ingredients that I had no clue what they were. I realized that Michaela probably shouldn't be eating food with chemicals or additives that were more than 5 syllables long.

I started doing my research and found this awesome website that lists all the foods and timetables for introducing them, along with combination and recipe ideas up through toddlerhood. It is actually much easier than I thought it would be. Basically I bake or steam the vegetable or fruit, puree it, freeze it in ice cube trays, bag it, and pull it out the evening before I use it so that it can defrost in the refrigerator overnight.

The biggest change came with going out though. It seemed like such a hassle to carry an ice pack with frozen food to a restaurant or friends house. For these nights I rely on bananas, pears, and avocados. None of these have to be cooked, and can easily be prepared by mashing them right before feeding.

Like I said, it is really not as hard or time consuming as it sounds. It took me about a week (just working during naps) to make enough food for a couple of months. Now I feel much better about what is going into my little monkey's tummy. :)