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Combine ingredients and stir only until smooth. Pour into a greased loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for about 1 hour or until firmly set. Cool, remove from pan, and cut into sticks.
Spread sticks out on a cookie sheet and bake at 150 degrees F for 1 hour or longer until the sticks are hard and crunchy. Store in a tightly covered container.
Source: Feed Me I'm Yours, by Vicki Lansky
By Irishwitch from Aurora, CO
I never believed in baby food that was made somewhere and not fresh, so I made my own. Then, I made them for the Grand-kids. I think I am done!
In a covered pot, and using no salt or spices, combine water, chicken breast, and rice. Simmer 20 minutes and add carrots and green beans. Simmer 10 minutes longer.
Source: The Mother's Almanac - Marguerite Kelly and Elia Parsons (Doubleday)
By Irishwitch from Aurora, CO
For babies 8 months or older.
Combine oats and 1/2 cup formula. Bring to a boil, and simmer 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Meanwhile, mash banana and 1/4 cup formula. Combine banana and oatmeal mixtures.
By Irishwitch from Aurora, CO
This serves one baby for days.
In a blender or food processor process the gelatin and milk for 30 seconds. Add the cream cheese and lemon juice (if using) and process for 10 seconds. Add the fruits and/or vegetables and blend until thoroughly pureed. Don't over process or this will become foamy. Pour into an 8 inch square or loaf pan and chill until firm. Cut into squares and serve.
By Irishwitch from Aurora, CO
Since my son started eating solid food, I have saved lots of money by making my own "baby" and "toddler" foods for him, armed with my blender, a few ice cube trays, self sealing freezer wrap, and some reusable freezer containers.
Cut each fruit into quarters, then put into a bowl and cover to microwave for about 4 minutes. Chop fruit with an electric blender or chopper.
Here are the questions asked by community members. Read on to see the answers provided by the ThriftyFun community.
What is the best baby food? How can I make it myself?
The best baby food is that you make yourself. I have a blender that has a small 1 cup jar in addition to the regular sized one. If you don't have one like that you can use a regular blender. Just put a tiny bit of the food from your table and some broth, juice, or water (tiny bit!) and blend until smooth. All three of my boys almost totally ate food from the table this way except when we had pizza or something else they couldn't have.
I feed all my kids off the table.. I had a small grinder on the table. They ate everything we did. They are grown now and they still love all foods. And they are all still healthy. I think it is the good start in life they had. I am raising my great grand daughter now, and I am doing the same with her. She loves every thing. The other grandparents has her sister and she is real picky.
The best foods for baby are the simple ones, especially those already prepared by nature. Simply cut an avocado and wa-lah instant baby food, chop a tomato, a peach, smoosh some pears, banana, blend some apples, squash etc. this doesn't have to be complicated, God made food easy for us to enjoy in the simple form.
If you're talking about beginning foods, you can puree fresh foods in a good blender. You will need to add just enough liquid to allow them to blend easily.
You can precook meats and hard vegetables first, but most fruits can be pureed raw. It's best not to add spices or sugar to baby's food.
I agree with all the other posts but I would add that after having 4 children in under 3 years I learned to make a bag of split peas in the crock pot and freeze in small containers. I also froze large amounts of cooked/mashed squash, potatoes, asparagas, beans etc in small containers. This way they could eat what we were having for dinner (small blener) but when were were gone the sitter could easily feed them by grabbing something from the freezer. Best of luck!
I have been making my son's baby food and I noticed that the baby food on the market uses ascorbic acid and citric acid with the jars that contain fruit. I know ascorbic acid is vitamin c and that reduces the browning that can occur with fruits.
Julia
I would not worry about adding anything - the only reason they add it to the commercial foods is for cosmetics. If anything, you can use a little orange or lemon juice.
Are you jarring or freezing your foods? I made mostly veggies and fruits for my son, and froze them with no additives at all.
hope this helps.
Regina
Not only is making your own food less expensive, it's safer (if you use organics, even more so). They only add the ascorbic acid to keep the food the right color. You don't even have to add that, do you think the baby cares that the nanas are a little brown?
Also, once they are on oatmeal, take instant Quaker oatmeal and whiz in the blender or food processor, instant oatmeal that has a little texture too it and WAY cheaper.
Have at it and good for you, for feeding your baby wisely and frugaly.
If you want to avoid the brown color, you can simply add a little lemon juice to your fruit mix. Not enough to make it taste tart, just a bit will do (I haven't done this with bananas, so I'm not sure how that would work, but it's great with other fruits like apples and pears). When your baby is old enough to eat slices of fruit, you can precut fruit like apples and sprinkle them with lemon juice too so they don't turn brown.
i just love it when i know a mama is making her own baby food; i did, too, and my baby just turned 18. in vicki lansky's Wonderful book, feed me, i'm yours, she says to freeze everything and add nothing, and that babies prefer the natural sweetness of fruit with no additives. the plop method was to drop fruit or vegetables into single serving plops, freeze hard and then store in a ziploc in the freezer. the cube method was to freeze baby food in ice trays, pop them out and then store in a ziploc in the freezer. it took no time for the plops to reach room temperature, the cubes took a little longer. my daughter's favorite thing was butternut squash.
Don't add anything! The best, healthiest, foods are the ones that are natural with out all the chemicals and preservatives. Just like fresh fruits and veggies without added butter, salts, etc., is the healthiest for you to eat, the same is true with your baby. I agree with the post about freezing the prepared fruits and veggies in the ice cube trays or whatever so your food stays fresh. Good for you for making your own baby food. I wish I would have.
Blend up some fresh peaches to make a delicious baby food that can be stored briefly in the fridge or frozen. This page contains a peach puree baby food recipe.
With the right ingredients and kitchen equipment, making your own baby food can be very easy. This is a page about making your own baby food.
ThriftyFun is one of the longest running frugal living communities on the Internet. These are archives of older discussions.
Tips and recipes for making your own baby food. Post your ideas.
Don't buy expensive baby foods filled with preservatives. I always fed my babies the same food I ate for dinner. If we ate lasagna for dinner I would cut a piece and put it in a food chopper with a small amount of water and puree the food. Once the food is pureed you can spoon it into ice cube trays and freeze it. Once it's frozen pop the cubes out and store them in labeled freezer bags. You can make frozen baby food cubes out of any type of food. Try it, your baby will be glad you did since there is nothing like home cooking. (01/17/2005)
By Dawn from MA
I pulled out two of my containers of baby food to check your assertion that they are "filled with preservatives."
Beech Nut Stage 1 Sweet Potatoes lists "Sweet potatoes and water necessary for preparation."
Gerber 1st Foods Peaches lists "Peaches and ascorbic acid (vitamin C)."
Ascorbic acid could possibly be construed as a preservative, as it does protect the color of the peaches, but it does it as side effect of providing vitamin C to the food.
The "preservative" in my baby's food is heat processing, or cooking. I'd imagine most home made baby food is "preserved" in the same way, and then either eaten or "preserved" again by freezing.
I think commercial baby food is expensive compared to homemade, but in no way is modern baby food "filled with preservatives." (01/17/2005)
By Katie
I never purchased baby food for my two daughters. I made all of it myself. I either purchased organic vegetables such as carrots, squash, or sweet potatoes or used frozen vegetables such as peas. I steamed the cut up veggies either in a double boiler with a special slotted bowl for steaming or steamed them in the microwave. After the veggies were nice and soft, I'd use whatever water was left from steaming to puree them in the blender or food processor, which put any nutrients that got steamed away, right back into the food. Then I'd freeze the veggies in ice cube trays. If it was too thick when I was ready to microwave and serve it to my baby, I'd thin it with breast milk, but you could use water or formula as well. For fruits, I either pureed bananas in the blender or purchased fresh fruit and similarly steamed it until soft and repeated the process.
It wasn't much work if you did several types of food in one day and since babies are introduced to foods a little at a time, one days batch of food would last a long time. It was also much less expensive than purchasing processed, watered down baby food and I was confident that my babies were getting the most healthful food I could provide since I made it myself. (01/17/2005)
By ght
I always used canned vegetables without the salt and drained the water out and put it in the blender and then poured it in ice cube tray and froze them. Then I would put in a freezer bag and get one or two out at a time and microwave and feed the child! (03/18/2005)
Try reading the labels for the 2nd's and 3rd's. That's where the undesirables are added, in my opinion. All the desserts have sugar and added rice or tapioca starch. Beech-nut brand does not have added sugar but I could not find them in my area. I made my own desserts from fruits. I just always felt better knowing exactly what was in my son's food. Also, 1st's are usually about 29 cents for 2.5 oz jar and for example, bananas are usually about 39 cents a pound. You are paying a lot for convenience. I also really enjoyed making the baby food and I found it pretty easy. (03/30/2005)
By cntryspc
When my sons were small, I used a small baby food grinder ( a food processor would be easier now) and they would eat whatever we ate at each meal. If it was too dry, I added formula, it was much healthier that way and cheaper! (05/31/2005)
By A. from Mo.
I am just starting to make my own baby food and I am enjoying it. I joined a yahoogroup and get great advice from other moms. I read that avocados are an excellent "first" food for babies (which I have not seen in a jarred variety) but my son made a face at the texture. I mixed it with bananas and he ate twice as much as he normally eats! I think that there is much more variety in homemade baby food than jarred food and it tastes better, too.As for the post about there being no preservatives in jarred food, jarred baby food has to have some type of preservative in order for it to be shelf stable, homemade food must be frozen in order to keep it fresh. (06/29/2006)
By Alicia
