Homemade Baby Food

WARNING: If baby food grosses you out, this contains pictures of baby food!

To start off, I must say this could not have been much easier. Here's what I did to make some homemade green beans for Jack:

1. Used "all natural" (read: no added salt, etc. the ingredients only said "green beans") frozen green beans in a microwave steam bag. I used the grocery store brand and it cost only $1.39. Cooked according to the directions (5 minutes on high) and let stand for a minute.

I also used a mini food processor (we don't have a full sized one). I would say that if Jack had not been getting to "2nd foods" (the more textured foods) this might not have done the job because it didn't get them very thin, but we do have a blender so maybe I'll try that next time to see how fine it gets the food.

2. I added cooked green beans until about 3/4 full and drained some of the water from the package in to help thin the food out. I only had the option of chop v. grind for levels of demolishing the food, so I went with grind. It took maybe 5-10 minutes and addition of a little more water (I used water from our Brita pitcher) before it seemed thin enough.


3. I scooped into these freezer trays, but you can use regular ice trays. I purchased these because they have really tight fitting lids.


4. I put the lid on and labeled with these really neat washable write-on labels I stumbled upon at the store (they wash off with water). By this point the food was pretty cool already, so I popped them into the freezer.Total time it took: maybe 20 minutes.
Cost: $1.39 + one time cost of food processor & food freezer trays if we didn't already have one
Servings it produced: Approximately 14 ounces.

Compare that to a 2-pack of Gerber 2nd foods that were on sale last week at my grocery store, total of 7 ounces, for $0.99. My price/ounce: just under $0.10 versus Gerber [on sale]: ~$0.14. I'm going to keep doing some price comparisons to see how much it might save over the course of a week... so to be continued on that topic.

Can't wait to do some more tomorrow evening! I will stick with veggies starting off because they are easy to cook in the microwave-steam bags, but will head to fruits next. I expect fruits to be easier because they have a higher water content to begin with so they'll probably puree better.