What's Cookin': A Whole Lotta Mush

Anna started solids about six weeks ago and after a couple weeks of cereals (rice and oatmeal), we started adding purees. Upon hearing success stories from a few friends, I decided I'd give homemade organic baby food a try, keeping my "never say never" attitude and agreeing that if it got to be too stressful or time consuming, I'd go with the flow and buy those organic pouches that only require you to twist off a top. So far so good and I've made several purees that Anna loves. I'm still not sure if I'll attempt proteins ... something about making pureed meats kinda grosses me out ... we'll see.

Anywho, I received Cooking Light Baby's First Foods as a shower gift and have found it to be SUPER helpful. You may think, "how hard can it be to steam and puree food, do you really need a book?" For me, yes! I thrive on specific direction and having all of the "recipes" in one spot has been a huge timesaver for me. The book also provided a lot of general guidance, from which tools to use (including comparisons) to how to move through every stage of introducing solids, including sample timelines and meal plans to toddler meal ideas. No, you don't "have" to have it, but it sure has been a huge help for me and might be the perfect Christmas list idea for some of my "new Mom readers."

I had the recipes, I had the organic produce, I had the cooking tools, the next thing I needed were storage containers. I thought I'd just go the covered ice cube tray route, but after some online searching found these baby cubes on diapers.com and fell in love. Talk about convenient! Unlike an ice cube tray, you can freeze these cubes and pull out one, or twelve, as needed. So easy to grab one in the morning to pack with her bottles! I bought both the 1 ounce and 2 ounce cubes, but found the 2 ounce to be what I preferred and nothing says you have to fill it to the brim if you're starting out with smaller portions. I have five sets of the 2 ounce containers and am actually thinking of purchasing a few additional sets since we've expanded to three "meals" a day already.

I've made three batches of baby foods so far, each time setting aside a couple of hours on a Sunday and "cooking" enough for anywhere between two and three weeks worth of baby food. So far I've prepared squash (acorn), sweet potatoes, peas, apples (gala), pears, carrots, squash and apples, pears and plums (dehydrated prunes), and spinach and sweet potatoes. She's been a huge fan of everything except the carrots and stand-alone apples. I think the apples were a bit too tart and the carrots were too strong a flavor. That said, I have a few containers of each that I'll pull back out and try again in a few weeks and/or may mix with other purees.

It's as easy as chop, steam (or sometimes roast) ...

... puree and portion!

The result of a Sunday session making pears & plums, squash & apples,
spinach & sweet potatoes, squash, and sweet potatoes.

Don't just take my word for it ... here's proof that baby purees are yum, yum, gooood!