A Labor of Love

When Gwen was a baby I made all of her baby food from scratch. I really have no idea what crazy thought compelled to do this, but I did it. Although it required effort, I found it relatively easy to make time for this. Life is simpler when you only care for one child (at least in my case). Of course I didn't realize it at the time.

Anyhoo, I found making babyfood pretty fun. It satisfied my domestic urges as well as my desire to give my sweet little one pure and healthy food. I'm also a sucker for a good deal and homemade baby food is definitely economical!


When Fiona came along, I felt obligated to do the same for her. And I wanted to do the same for her, but it seemed like time to spare was at a minimum. I worried that if I didn't do this for her, I would have to explain my reasons to her someday. I'm already going to have to explain to her why I don't have as many baby photos of her compared to Gwen. I'm also going to have to explain why I didn't hand make her birth annoucement. I'm trying to keep the explaining to a minimum.


Now that I've gotten into it, the babyfood making hasn't been all that bad, although I need to work on the variety a little. But I do have a confession...


I purchased four jars of commercial baby food. Oh the shame! I actually bought them so that I could use the empty jars for storing my homemade baby food to make it more portable for meals on the go.


I felt so guilty when I fed it to Fiona. In fact, my guilt was so severe that when I decided to leave some of the commercial food for a babysitter to feed Fiona, I moved the food from the jar to another container so that she would think it was homemade. There is definitely something wrong with me.


The saddest part of the story is that Rick recycled the baby food jar when I wasn't around. I poisoned Fiona for nothing. Oh well, I still have three more jars to poison her with.


Don't get me wrong. Her entire diet is far from homemade. Fruits and veggies- yes, but I do have my limitations. Fiona happily dines on cheerios, rice cereal (organic, of course), toast, and a wide variety of store-bought dairy products. I also give her commercially prepared apple sauce (not of the baby food variety, but the Trader Joe's variety), because seriously, making your own applesauce sounds like a pain. Also, Gwen loves the TJ's applesauce, so it's already in the fridge.

Also, there are plenty of things I feed Fiona that requires no prep at all. Ripe mangos, pears, avocados and bananas are all in the regular rotation.


In case anybody is interested in joining me in crazy town, here are some instructions for making your own baby food.


1. Get your produce of choice. In this case, I bought two sweet potatoes:





2. Peel them (if necessary). Obviously if you are using peas you don't need to peel them, but I'm sure that goes without saying.

3. Cut whatever it is you are using into bite-sized pieces:

4. Steam them until very soft. I use my counter top steamer, but you can also do it on the stove.

5. If your baby is still very young, transfer food to a blender, food processor, etc and puree it until smooth. Add some of the leftover water from steaming to get it to your desired consistency.

6. Transfer contents to ice-cube trays. In the picture below, my food isn't pureed because Fiona is old enough to handle it in cubes. Either way, put it on the ice cube trays and wait for it to cool .

7. Cover the trays and put them in the freezer. My trays come with a lid. If you don't have a lid, plastic wrap will work just fine.

8. Once your food is frozen solid, transfer it to freezer bags, label them, return them to the freezer, and you are done!

In the morning, I usually grab a few things from the freezer and transfer them to a bowl for Fiona to have later. If we are going on an outing, I don't take her food from the freezer until right before we leave. Usually by mealtime, it will be perfectly defrosted.

Clockwise starting from the top: Diced sweet potatoes, pureed peas, diced carrots, pureed asparagus.

Yum, yum!