How Two: Make Baby Food

I decided to take the Betty Homemaker route and make my own baby food for the boys: not because I’m all my babies are too good for the preservatives in those store bought foods, but because I’m cheap and can’t understand why I should pay $1.00 for a few mashed carrots in a jar.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely a sucker for all things unnecessary for babies and have boxes filled with overpriced trinkets and a cabinet full of crappy baby bottles to prove it, but by the time the boys were ready for solid foods I had gotten over my gullibility for baby products that promised to keep my kids alive, reduce smelly bodily functions, or increase the nutritional value of homemade baby food.

My point: Don’t buy a baby food steamer-chopper-squasher machine. They’re overpriced gimmicks that don’t make enough food for two babies anyway. 

Make your own baby food. It’s easy. And when you do it people are all like, oh my gosh you’re the best mom ever all because you mashed a few things together and stuck it on a spoon.

Here’s how to become the best mom ever:

Get a standard food processor.

A big one. If you’re lucky like me your mother in law will have a spare Cuisinart, still in the box, complete with the ‘how-to’ VHS from 1986 that she’ll let you have. These things are no joke. I dropped it on the floor once and it just laughed.

Buy containers.

On a scale of one to I hate you, these score pretty well.

If you fill these 3/4 of the way then when they’re frozen you can flip it over and pop out the block-o-puree.

These are great for bringing baby food on outings.

This one gets a big fat I hate you and, p.s, if you wouldn’t bounce right back I’d run you over with my car. Here’s why.

Cut up your food

Steam, broil, or boil it until it’s soft enough to be served at any nursing home across the country.

Puree it

Nothing to see here folks. My inability to stay focused in the presence of shiny things took me away from my camera long enough to forget to document this step. If you need a visual, picture a forty two pound Cuisinart from 1986 smashing the crap out of some soggy peppers.

Bag it

Cut the bag and pipe it into the freezer containers

And reason number 675 that I could never be a professional food photographer: The food in the bag and the food in the containers aren’t the same color which is as annoying as watching a poorly spliced reality TV show where the characters are wearing the wrong clothes for half the scene but the director didn’t care because it was the only way he could make it look like Snookie was making out with The Situation…again. Did they ever actually make out on that show? I don’t know.

But regardless thanks to my inability to focus we will be ending this segment using cantaloupe as our puree of choice.

Freeze and Bag

If you’re one of those organized people you’ll neatly label each bag with the food item it contains, the date it was made, and a note congratulating yourself on how much better you are then me. I just dump all that shiznat into one huge bag and when it’s time to feed the boys we play a little game called “I wonder if this orange block will pair well with yogurt”.

See, so freaking easy. So just do it.