Need Advice on How to Make My Own Baby Food

First Meals by Annabel Karmel

isbn: 0-7894-4177-2

You can probably get it for less than $5 on half.com, or used on amazon.com.

The best recipes. Tells everything like freezing and reheating, too.

My husband loved to sample everything I made. I usually made a month supply at once, then didn't do anything for the rest of the month. My babysitter said it was the best food she's ever tasted, too.

Dear A.,
I have a great idea for you....something I LOVE!!
You need to look for a hand blender that has a mini chopper food processer attatchment. (Maybe Braun brand?)You place the blender on the top of the mini food processer, (There is a place for the end of the hand blender), and you just blend up anything you are having for dinner. Real food!! It is GREAT!! I love it!! Real food for the baby, and you never have to buy baby food again.
Hope you can find one!! (I am out of the country, so I don't know the latest small kitchen appliances.) I have one where I live, and it is the Moulinex brand.

For making and storing food cubes, I found it was a bit of a nuisance trying to keep the ice cube trays wrapped. And then I got some of the small individual containers, but these always seemed to end up all over my freezer.

Then I found that my local grocery store carries Oxo brand ice cube trays with sliding lids. Works like a charm! Stores and stacks neatly (just don't over-fill or the lid is hard to slide). They cost about $4 each - but it's worth it for the convenience.

A.,
Making baby food is really pretty easy. My kids' favorites were sweet potatoes, peas, bananas, applesauce, and prunes.
Here's how you make them...
Sweet potatoes/yams-

Wash potatoes, prick with a fork, wrap in foil. Bake 45 min or until squishy. Pull out of the oven and allow to cool until a managable temperature. Once cooled, smash with potato masher if they have teeth or blend in blender or food processor until smooth. If it seems too thick add water, milk, breastmilk, formula, chicken stock. (I also add a little butter because I think it's yummy that way) Then when proper consistency spoon into ice cube trays and freeze completely. When frozen completely transfer to Large Freezer Ziplock bags.

Peas-
Purchase a bag of high quality frozen peas. Follow instructions to steam. Once steamed let cool a bit. Pulse in Blender or Food Processor until smooth. (You will notice that the skins of the peas don't blend very well-but most kids don't even notice)(I add a little butter to these too)Freeze in Ice Cube trays, transfer to Large Ziplock bag.

Bananas-
This is pretty straightforward. Smash the bananas with a fork or potato masher. Spoon into Ice cube trays. Freeze and then transfer to bag. (Bananas turn brown but kids still love them-I never added lemon juice or vinegar to mine to prevent browning but you can) Beware-bananas stick to each other even when frozen.

Applesauce-
Is easy to make and not too expensive to buy so sometimes I'd make it and sometimes I'd buy it. (I like to get unsweetened organic applesauce if I'm buying it) To make...Peel and core apples. Chop into med-small pieces. Put in pot. Add a little water or juice and cover. Let cook on low until apples are tender 20-30 min. Every time you check on it smash the apples a little. When they are soft, let them cool a little and blend them in the blender or food processor. Again with the ice cube trays and Large Freezer Bags.

Prunes-
To make prune baby food you buy prunes and follow the instructions on the container to rehydrate them. I think you soak them in boiling water. When the prunes are nice and plump use your food processor or blender and pulse until smooth. Spoon into ice cube trays and freeze. Transfer into Large Bags. Beware-prunes are the most sticky of them all. However, my kids liked them the best of all because they were so sweet.

To use your frozen food cubes-
microwave 15-20 sec per cube and mix into cereal or they can eat them plain. Make sure the temperature is even before serving them, the microwave is notorious for hot spots.

If you're going out and still want to use them...
Place however many cubes you want to take into a small bowl with a lid. Pour cereal over the top and pack. When ready to use, add water or whatever liquid you use to rehydrate your baby cereal.

A.,

For whatever it is worth, when my son was at the baby food stage, we were so poor that we could not afford baby food. What I did was to acquire a small chest freezer, obtain used (clean of course) baby food jars from my neighbors, and then obtain whatever fruits or vegetables were in season either in my garden or on special at the grocery store.

Some of the best were squash, green beans, peas, beets, and pumpkin for the vegetables, and apples, pears and peaches for fruits.

For squash and pumpkin, cut up and clean out the seeds and strings. Steam until tender. Scoop the flesh out of the rind and pulverize in the blender, along with some of the liquid used to steam it, until it is the texture that you want. You can do the same with beets.

For green beans and peas (can use fresh or frozen), steam until tender and grind in the blender, along with some steaming liquid if necessary, until it is the texture that you want.

You can do the same with fruits, but what I found worked really well was to take some of my home-bottled applesauce (already prepared) or home-bottled peaches, apricots, or pears, rinse off the syrup, and blend them to the right consistency. If you use fresh fruit, be sure to blanch (steam cook for 2 to 3 min.) it before freezing so that enzyme activity stops while the fruit is frozen. Otherwise, you will end up with colorless, flavorless, non-nutritious junk. (Been there done that - learn from my experience.)

After the fruit/vegetable is blended, pour the puree into your clean babyfood jars, cap, and freeze.

To use the baby food, remove from the freezer several hours before you plan to feed the baby (yes, you do have to do a little meal planning) and thaw in the refrigerator. You can also place the bottle of frozen food in a pan of hot water to thaw it more quickly. Do not use a microwave; purees can develop uneven hot spots that can burn your baby's mouth.

The advantages of making your own babyfood are many: You can control the ingredients that go into the food and ensure that your baby is getting good, wholesome, real food without additives and fillers. YOur baby can eat what you are eating. Making it is cheaper than buying it. And, as a fringe benefit, your baby will grow up loving vegetables rather than spitting them out and hating them. Especially peas. (Have you ever tasted baby food peas? They are seriously nasty. Any wonder little kids grow up hating veggies. You would, too, if you had that junk crammed down your throat every day.)

Just as evidence of that, on one occasion, my friend, who was tending my son, attempted to feed him some name-brand strained peas that her son had outgrown. My son was used to eating pureed fresh and frozen vegetables. The commercial peas must have been pretty nasty because he spit them out all over my friend, screamed bloody murder for the next hour, and glared at her for the rest of the afternoon. She never did that again.

Good luck and best wishes.

Linda

Hi A.!
I love and use Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron.

Making your own food is so much better, for your babies, and your wallet! Good job, Mama!

H. www.naturalchoices4baby.com

Wholesomebabyfood.com

It's the best website out there for homemade baby food.

Hi A.,
Here's a great kit with everything you need - the freezer trays, recipe book, and DVD/how-to.

http://www.modernmommygear.com/Fresh_Baby_So_Easy_Baby_Fo...

Making our own food was so fun. I hate cooking but found baby food making so easy. Our son loves it. We plan to continue using the baby food puree with the Deceptively Delicious cookbook when he's older.

Adding water to the veggies helps get the right consistancy. The fruit is usually watery enough - we even had to add rice cereal to thicken up some of the melons. We use the mini-processor too. It's just the right size, but you can also get a hand grinder by Kid Co (http://www.modernmommygear.com/KidCo_Baby_Food_Mill_Grind...) that is great to take with you to restaurants and such.

You are on the right track with fresh steamed foods and no preservatives and wasteful jars. Don't give up yet.

Hi A.!
I have an 8 month old son and I've made all of his food since we started solids about 2 months ago. I picked up "Super Baby Food" by Ruth Yaron, although some of the things she teaches I don't quite agree with it's an awesome reference guide. She teaches you about what ages to introduce different foods and portion sizes etc. The best part is it's written so that it's easy to look up what you need quickly. Or check out www.superbabyfood.com
Good luck!!

I was having some of the same issues when my dd went on solids, I found a great book First Meals by Anabell Karmel
I use the later part of the book for my dd with some meals still as a Toddler. It is one of the things I love about the book it takes you from the beginning solids on up and how and when to introduce new textures etc. for the baby. I checked it out of the Library first and I loved it so I found it on Amazon.

You might find the book Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron a huge help. I own it and have used it for all three of our children. She gives detailed instructions on preparing, baking/steaming/boiling, blending, and then freezing your own baby foods. Fantastic resource! Good luck.

One of the websites I have subscribed to in the past has just come up with a menu for baby food. Go to savingdinner.com and see if this may interest you. I haven't done her baby food because my children are older but my family has enjoyed her other menus. Hope this is helpful. She usually provides shopping lists that you can print out and a great variety and I have found her food to be fairly nutritioius and healthy.

Using a food processor would be your best bet, a blender won't puree it as well.

A friend of mine used a food processor, rather than a blender. Not sure where she got it, but it was small and worked better than a blender - she loved it. Once my kids were old enough, I would usually just mash up the vegetables with a fork. When they had tried all the ingredient of a dish separately, I began serving them what I made for the rest of the family (I cooked from scratch, and didn't add much salt during the cooking).
One thing I do remember hearing is that carrots and one other vegetable (beets I think)have something that is not normally tolerated by children under 12 months but the comercial baby food companies know how to deal with it. Ask your pediatrician about this to be sure.

Check out the website www.wholesomebabyfood.com - I used it for my son and loved it! It's very thorough and as long as I followed the directions, I never made a bad meal!

http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/

This website has recipes and advice that you might find helpful. I used it when my daughter started solids and liked it.

I made all of my babies baby food really just cook the veggies till they are mushy then add a little water or formula and then put them in a food processor (works alot better than a blender) or a baby food maker (babys r us $20) then just puree and put into ce cube trays and freeze then when frozen put into a ziploc bag and it stays good for three months. then just take out a few of the cubes and defrost when they are needed.

I use and excellent book called Super Baby Food - it tells you hw to cook everything/store, has tons of recipes, and a great month by month guide to help you plan out what foods your baby should be having - It is invaluable!!! I used it for both my girls and it is my absolute bible on homemade food! Good luck.

I bought a hand processer from Kitchen Aid. YOu could put any food that you want in it (except meats) and it would blend it up and baby could eat it. I usually gave my son the exact same thing we eat. So I did not make anything special for him.

I used to steam sweet potatoes after I cut them into cubes. They were really easy to mash up after. Then I would put them in ice cubes trays and freeze them. I also bought a book at Barnes and Noble. I think it was called First Meals? Sorry I don't remember the author. She does have good recipies. I'm sure if you asked a clerk they could point you in the right direction. Good luck!

I take the easy way with my 9-month-old: I buy canned fruits with no sugar added, and canned vegetables with no salt added. I just open up a can, dump the whole thing in and blend it up until it's about "jarred-baby-food" consistency. I feed him a bowl of this, and put the rest in the fridge to use later. It is much less expensive than buying the small jars of baby food - you get four or five times the food for about the same price! It's also easier than cooking the vegetables yourself.

Williams-Sonoma has something called Beaba Babycook. I plan on getting one once my son is ready for baby food. It steams the food in less than 15 min and then purees it. Also it reheats or defrosts food that you have precooked. It comes with a few recipes too. They also sell a book called Cookingn for Baby. I havn't really looked at it though.

hi A.- its really easy....first you will need to steam your veggies, then puree them, with a food processor, or I have known people to use blenders....I added a little sea salt and organic vegetable broth...add that before you puree them. Then use ice cube trays, and put them in freezer, I used 1-2 cubes per serving per child, so good luck! wow, I can imagine you are a busy lady!!

I make all of my son's food and use the book Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron. It is awesome and contains lots of recipes and advice. Steaming and blending the veggies is the method I use most, then freezing them in ice cube trays. I have never purchased rice or any other kind of cereal...she provides an EASY recipe to make your own out of different grains and legumes...far superior nutritionally. The book is available on amazon.com. Good luck!

The Super Babyfood Book! And http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/
Those 2 sources were my lifeline.

I made all of my son's baby food. VERY simple, very fun, and took very little time. I did a lot of squash (including pumpkin), sweet potatoes, avacadoes (which don't need to be cooked AND are a great, great very first food), bananas (again, no need to cook)....and I can't remember. But I'd do it again in a hearbeat!

Steam them, throw them in a blender of food processor to puree, freeze them in an ice cube tray, pop a cube out (for each child) and warm it up, you're good to go! If you'd rather, baking squash is fine, too. That's what I did.

Anyway, good luck and have fun!

One thing I did that was helpful is after making the babyfood, I froze it in ice cube trays and then stored all the little cubes in a freezer bag. Then I could take just one out at a time, and it was usually the right amount for my baby.

What a fun project. I used to steam food in 100% juice for flavor--but just enough liquid so when you grinde it later you don't have to pour the vitamins out with the liquid. Loved the "Happy Baby Food Grinder" which was a hand-held grinder. i could feed the baby right off the grinder. Sometimes I made bulk food, froze it in ice cube trays, then popped them into a freezer ziploc. I liked making food for 2-3 day increments, so I wasn't grinding food for every meal. Two books I like are "The Natural baby Food Cookbook" and "Whole Foods for Babies" by LLLI. Quantities... start with 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon, moving up to 1-2 Tablespoons. Nurse your babies first, so they have complete nutrition, then offer solids. Have fun!

I have been using the book Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron which is great and very specific about which foods to feed your baby when and how to make everything by hand.

I use to just mush up whatever i cooked for us, they loved it and learned to eat whatever we ate... they are pretty good eaters now... hope this helps.

Check out www.wholesomebabyfood.com they'll walk you through the whole thing!
Cheers!

I have a GREAT website for you... www.wholesomebabyfood.com
I have a 10 month old boy who has started to eat like crazy. I can't believe how fast, easy, and cost effective it has been for me to make his food. I will say I don't do the meats. I do still buy the babyfood jars for that. But I amall over the fruits and vegs.

I bought a mini food processer but have found my blender to be the best tool. I just finished making a veggie batch. I cooked a small squash and sweet potato just like you would normally do in the oveen. I steemed some broccoli, and carrots,probably about a cup to a cup in a half of each, there is no reall rule just whatever you have. I then put it allin the blender along with a half an avacado. Blended it all up, you will have to add a little water to get it going. Just add a small amount at a time untill you get the consistancy you want. When all blended pour into ice cube trays and pop in the freezer. Then when frozen pop out of trays and store in freezer zip lock bags. Get the one with the little slider zipper. Their easier to use regularly.
They can last for about a year but the web site reccomends 6 months because after six monthe you start to loose a bit of the nutrients in evaporation. But you will use it quickly enough. You won't believe how much your kids will love your food!!
Get creative, I've done:
Homemade applesauce3, peaches, blueberries,and mango.
Homemade applesauce, peaches, strawberries, blueberries, and banana
I even will mix a cube of veggies with a few cubes of fruit for feeding, they love it. Don't be scared just cook and blend.
Good luck

If you get a food processor you have less liquid when you blend it. A 3 cup one is a good size start by not adding water because you might be getting to much liquid alot of veggies have their own water, enough to make a pure'. A food processor also lets you make it chunckier as they get bigger. Hope this helps!

Full time working mother of 2 wonderful children a 2 yo boy and a 1 yo girl.

Hey A.
It´s so easy, either boil or steam or even bake whatever you want. I started with pumpkin, carrots, leeks and potatoes. I steamed them until soft then used and mini hand blender and beet them until pureed then you can freeze them in ice cubes or make what you need and serve. It really takes about 10 minutes. Same with fruit. apple, pear, banana OJ combo works really well. If they are constipated you can even add a few rasins to puree with the fruit. And the best is that the left over fruit makes a yummy shake for you (hee hee) When they start with chicken and meat you cook those and add them to the puree as well. soooo easy
Good luck
S.

I see you already heard about this book. I loved it as well...Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron. You will want to start reading it from the beginning and the first thing to make is the 'Super Porridge'.

It's super easy! We just steam veggies until they are VERY soft, then blend them in the blender with a little breast milk (or formula, or the water from the steaming is good because it has many nutrients). That's it! I had to play with the amount of breast milk to add to get the right consistency, but it just took a few times to practice. If you don't add some liguid, it doesn't work very well. Blend it well so there are no lumps, but not too watery. I make several days worth at a time and then just store the rest in the fridge. You can freeze it in individual servings, too.

Hi there. I have 11 month old twins, and I have found that making my own food has been great for them. There is a helpful website called wholesomebabyfood.com, which I have used a lot. It has lots of recipes and also information on what food to introduce when. I have also used First Meals by Annabel Karmel. Also helpful with ideas when they're little and as they get older.

Good luck. My only other advice is to be patient. They won't like everything right away, but keep trying.

I used the "Magic Bullet" (you can find it at Bed Bath and Beyond). I liked it beause I could steam and mash in the same container. It worked really well for us. It also includes a cookbook with babyfood directions in it.

Hi A., what part of it have you not been successful with? making the food or getting the little ones to eat it? I did just that, steamed, pureed, and froze my baby food in 2 ounce portions. He loved things like avacados and fresh fruit of all sorts too. I go organic on whatever I can and if I can't get it fresh, I get it frozen. Other than that, when it came to mixing tastes and such I did get a book called Blender foods for babies. It had a lot of great recipes in it.

the book BLENDER BABY FOOD, I got it off Amazon, it ROCKS!

Here's the way I made my daughter's baby food, and she loved it:

1 small yam (or sweet potato)
1 apple (or peach/pear/couple of plums/etc.)
1 carrot
1 chicken breast (omit if vegetarian)
1/4 cup of lentils, split peas, barley, or other grain (dried)
chicken broth or apple juice

Chop all of the above into chunks about 1" cube. Place grain in casserole. Add yam, apple, carrot, and chicken. Pour about 1 cup of liquid over the ingredients. Cover. Bake in a 350 oven until very, very done (squishy), about 45 min. Check during baking to make sure it has not baked dry (add liquid if necessary.) Remove from oven and let cool. Place all ingredients in food processor or blender and purree to desired consistancy, adding additional liquid if necessary. If too runny, you can add corn starch, tapioca powder, or rice cereal to thicken. Spoon completed food into ice cube tray, freeze until solid, then crack food-cubes into freezer bag for storage.

I used all the best organic ingredients for my DD, and it was so much cheeper than the store bought stuff! The apple helps make it a little sweet, which she loved. You might try a small batch first, to make sure they like it. If you batch it and freeze it, it really is very, very easy.

Good luck and HTH!

Hi there, I have an 11 month old boy, and we live in Australia...when he was starting solids I would go to the local farmers markets and pick up cheap "bruised" apples, for example, take them home, peel them with a carrot peeler , chop them off the core, and then I cover them with water and boil on the stove for ages, until they nearly fall apart with a fork. then i pour out only a little of the water in the pot down the drain, and put the whole lot in the blender with the rest of the water (usually enough to just cover the fruit). say you had 5 apples, this fills about 8-10 babyfood jars for the freezer. we do the same with whole butternut pumpkin, and maybe cut the corn off 2 ears, boil same fashion, and blend, he loved pumpkin and sweet corn. you can even pass through a sieve if worried about the corn kernal skins. oliver loved yogurt, and also bananas boiled and blended, same fashion. when we got to lumpier food, around 8 months actually, he loved cottage cheese mixed with tuna. dont know if this is useful, but good luck! A.

Hi A.!

I made all of my own baby food as well. You can either steam, saute (great for apples and pears) or bake (good for sweet potatoes) all of the food you are making. Just cook the food until it is fork tender. You don't want to overcook it as you will cook out some of the nutrients. I actually used a food processor because I think that it is much easier than a blender. Add the food and then add filtered water until your food reaches the right consistency.

I actually made the food in bulk and then froze it in ice cube trays. That way you have smaller serving sizes to reheat when you need to feed. I just popped them in the microwave to warm them up.

I also have a food grinder attachment for my stand mixer and as they got older I used that to grind up whatever we were having for dinner. For example if we had pot roast I would grind the meet, the veggies and add a little gravy. Not very appetizing for me but the kiddos loved it.

If you still want more info there is a great cookbook called Feed Me, I'm Yours. It's been around forever but has some really great stuff in it. Hope that helps.

I bought a book. Annabel Karmel's First foods. It was a great general introduction and got me going. I then found other books/magazines and friends along the way. There is a method of very pureed to lumpy and which foods are generally suggested first and ones to wait on. I found it really reassuring. Hope it gets better.

Hello! I really like the Happy Baby frozen baby food, They use a good combo of things to make veggies and grains more interesting. I think if you used their ingrediants it would give you some good ideas for making your own. My little ones fav. has a mix of quinoa, black beans and bananas. It really tastes good :) His second fav. has red lentils, potatoes, carrots, olive oil, cinnamon and coriander. Some of their green recipes 1.) pears, spinach and mango 2.) green beans, peas, barley and brown rice. They also add DHA algal oil to all of their food. Hope that gives you some creative thoughts to go with.

Good Luck!

Go for it- you will save a ton of money and it does not take that much time!!!

Hi there! I too am a mother of twins-they are 2 and busy as ever before! I tried so hard to make the 'make my own baby food' work, and I found that the time it took wasn't worth the hassle. Have you ever gone to Big Lots in Idaho Falls? They sometimes have baby food, and it's really cheap! The other thing that I did, was buy a food chopper for like 5 bucks and just feed the girls whatever their dad and I were eating for dinner that night. That worked really well. As for veggies-just buy the baby food.

I've never made my own baby food, but I do have a 3 yr old son and 4 yr old daughter. My son refuses to eat veggies without a fight, and my daughter is not a huge fruit eater. I've started steaming veggies and then pureeing them in a food processor. I then put about a 1/4 C. of veggies into a freezer bag and freeze. Then I just sneak it into their everyday foods and they never even know... (ideas from Deceptively Delicious cookbook). I would think the same would apply to baby food. Get a food processor ($30 at Target) and then use an ice cube tray to freeze portions. Hope this helps you!

A.,

You have gotten a lot of advice, books & websites, and I'm sure they are all great. Maybe I'm just a lazy mama, but I think "baby food" has gotten way too complicated because moms think they need to "keep up" with commercial baby food. You don't really need any special recipes. There is no medical reason why babies have to eat bland boring food.

It is a good idea in the beginning to introduce foods one at a time for allergy issues, but once you know what foods are safe for your boy, there should be no problem introducing wholesome table food. With my children, we bought a hand-crank babyfood mill and just milled up whatever we were having for dinner that night - spices, salt and all! Obviously if we were having something grossly inappropriate for a baby, like spicy enchiladas, we got them something plainer, and I don't use a whole lot of salt when I cook for the rest of my family either. The foods you feed your children are the flavors they will get used to. If you want them to eat table food with you guys as they grow, give them table food now.

As far as getting the puree consistency of jarred baby food, I don't think you need to worry about it. At eight months, they should have no problem picking up and eating small chunks of soft-cooked food. Watch your sons to see how they handle the texture. If they can eat cheerios, they can eat chunks of soft food, and of course it's way easier at meals if they can feed themselves rather than you and hubby having to spoon feed them both. You will get thick, but not chunky food with the handmill. If you really want to thin it down, use breastmilk or formula rather than water or juice, to keep up the nutrients.

Another poster mentioned carrots & beets. The concern there is nitrates in baby food. By eight months, it is not an issue. Their gut develops to fight that by about six months. However, be warned that commerical baby foods do NOT take care of the nitrate issue. They advertise that they SCREEN for nitrates, but nitrates are naturally occuring in some foods and commercial manufacturers cannot REMOVE them even when they screen for them. It's a nice bit of deceptive advertising there! Here is the article:
http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/nitratearticle.htm

Best of luck with your kiddos,
S.

I make a lot of applesauce because we have an orchard and apples are availabe each year. I also take veggies like peas and carrots and mash them with a fork trying to get out all the skins and other things might be hard for a baby to digest. There are a lot of soft foods to use. If you want small portions the best way to do that is to get an ice cube tray and freeze your foods. When they are solid you can put them in a plastic bag until you are ready to use them. You can do this with lots of foods. We found that feeding the baby the same types of food we already eat saves a lot of money and they will soon get used to it if they are not in the beginning. P.

Hi!

I made my own baby food, and it is essentially as you say. I did a variety of things from peas to green beans, yams, carrots, ect. I even did fruits such as bananas, which were a hit, and you dont have to steam bananas. First, I would steam the veggies then I would put them in a blender and add a little water. The water helps them blend better. Then I used ice cube trays and filled each cube with the baby food and froze it. Then I would the cubes in a large baggie and store them in the freezer. When I needed one, I just took one out of the baggie and zaped it for a few seconds. This was great and cheap and much better for baby. The only time I had to add anything besides water was to the bananas. I was told to add a little bit of lemon juice to keep it from turning brown. Good luck, and if you have any questions (or if you would like help if you are in my area...) then let me know.

Heather

I made all of my kids' baby food and used the book "Super Baby Food"...it is a large purple paperback and you can find it on Amazon or at Barnes and Noble. It is fabulous! It gives you recipes and tells you when to introduce what fruits and veggies. I hope it helps!

Get a Happy Baby grinder! I got mine from my local health food store - you can probably get them online too. They are great handy hand grinders and you can put pretty much anything in them. My baby liked sweet potatoes, carrots, peas, edamame, mashed potatoes, bananas, apples, pears, mangoes, squash, beans, lentils, etc. when she was 8 months or so, and then moved up to soups and spaghetti with tofu and other more grown-up foods that I put through the grinder. Good luck!

Good foods to start with are peas, carrots, squash, sweet potato, etc. You can buy a cheap $5 steam insert at Bed Bath and Beyond and just put it in one of your pots. You can steam 1/2 a bag of carrots (peeled & chopped) for about 5 minutes then put it in a blender. If you aren't going to use it right away, you can pour the pureed food into ice cube trays and store them in the freezer for future use. That way you're not spending all of your time cooking and cleaning up. You can also buy ice cube trays with lids so your food isn't exposed in the freezer.

Another idea is to buy a food mill. They are sold at Babies R Us and Right Start. I think they come with instructions.

I made baby food for my first two and now have a 3 mos old that I wil do the same for. The best book out there is Super Baby Food. It has great recipes and tells you all of the tools you need to be successful. I even started making my own yogurt. It is super easy to do. Good Luck.

something like a magic bullet works really well. i tried a generic brand and it didn't work nearly as well. just remember when your making baby food that for carrots and i think sweet potatoes you'll need to buy organic veggies because otherwise they are treated with nitrates that aren't very good for infants if they get too much. a friend also suggested to me to preserve baby food use ice cube trays and freeze some for later.

No offense, but that is really all you need to do. Cook vegetables as you would normally cook them for yourself --- except --- don't add seasoning. Blend them in a blender. You might need to add water to get the right consistency. Then put the mixture in ice cube trays to freeze. Once frozen, put them in labeled baggies. Whenever you need to use them, defrost them in microwave or on stove top. Serve once the temp has cooled down enough to serve. I recommend making a bunch in one day --- so it's not so labor intensive. If you need more help --- there are baby food cook books out there you can buy.