Just Call Me Baby Food Maker

I made my first batch of baby food today, carrots.  One of our neighbors brought over a whole grocery bag full of fresh carrots and since Scott and I won't eat them I decided to try my first round of baby food.

My neighbor, Sarah, mentioned in below posts, makes her own food and has raved about how easy it is, not to mention how much cheaper it is.  She gave me the inspiration to try it myself and voila!  It really is so, so easy.

I have a food processor and was going to use it, but I don't exactly know how it works yet, so I just used my smoothie maker for this round.  It did a great job.  Here are the steps I took to make the carrots into pureed baby food:

1.  Peel carrots and cut in half to make 2 short pieces instead of one long stick.  

I peeled about 10 carrot sticks.

2.  Steam in veggie steamer for about 25-30 minutes (or until desired mushiness).

3.  Place steamed carrots pieces into blender or food processor.  Add about 1/4 cup of water for      each blend.  Continue to blend and add water until desired consistency. 

I used about 1 1/4 cup of water total.

4.  Place puree into ice cube trays.  With the trays I used, 4 cubes equals one Gerber Stage 1              container of food.  I tapped the trays on the counter so the puree laid flat and will make flat        food cubes.

5.  Place trays in freezer and then store food cubes in freezer bag until use.

Then, with all the extra carrots sticks I had, I steamed them and cut them into bite size pieces so that when Carter starts eating finger foods I can pull these out and cut them into quarters. This will give him something easy to grab, yet small enough to eat in one bite.

I must admit, I'm pretty proud of myself.  It sounds silly, but making these carrots (with a great teacher over my shoulder!) gives me the confidence I needed to make all kinds of other foods for Carter.  I can do my own fruits (pears, peaches, strawberries, bananas, blueberries, etc) and veggies (corn, squash, carrots, green beans, etc.) and eventually meats.  

I'm so excited I now have the confidence to save us a TON of money!!!

To all you mommies out there, if you have any questions just email me and I'll help!