Today (or should I say, tonight), I shall discuss my adventures in baby food making.
Yes! It's that time! Austyn is growing faster than I'd like (Please, Father Time...take a break...or at least a nap?)
In any case, the American Academy of Pediatrics suggests waiting until 6 months before introducing a baby to solids. However, a lot of parents choose to start their child on solids at about the 4 month mark. After discussing it with Austyn's doctor, we got the ok to start her on vegetable purees. Now, if I really wanted to get crunchy with it, I'd wait until six months and try the whole baby led weaning process. But I'm impatient. And I'm tired of my child staring me down during meal times. It's creepy.
No seriously. It's really creepy to be stared down like that while you're eating. And then I feel bad. Like I'm torturing her. Its hard to tell if the drool is from her teething or from her wanting what I'm eating.
So, in order to get myself ready for this next step in WannaBeCrunchyMommyhood, I hit up Barnes and Nobles. They have a bunch of books on feeding baby and how to do it. All the books said to wait until 6 months before starting them on purees. (Baby led weaning says to start giving them chunks of whatever you're eating at 6 months and if they eat, they eat. If they don't, they don't.) After perusing through the numerous book, I decided on this book:
The author really pushes for the use of organic foods for baby foods and even includes a list of the top 20 most heavily loaded fruits and vegetables when it comes to pesticides and insecticides. She also goes over the various ways to cook the foods and which method is better and why.
After Austyn's doctor's appointment, I hit up the grocery store. I wasn't going to spring for the organic vegetables, seeing as it does cost quite a bit extra. But then I started thinking about that sweet little monkey face and said to hell with it. Only the best for my baby, right?
So I purchased two sweet potatoes, two large yellow squash, three small zucchini, and a bag of "baby" carrots. I also picked up four ice cube trays and a steamer basket. As soon as I got home, put the groceries away and got Austyn settled, I washed everything I got from the grocery store.
I first started with the sweet potatoes. I baked them in the oven at 350 (as per the book). The book said to bake them for 30 minutes...I ended up having to bake them for about an hour. FYI - put some foil on your baking pan when you do this. Apparently, when sweet potatoes get all hot and baked, they like to secrete their sugary goodness on the pan. For those who knew this, don't laugh. For the ones who didn't, FOIL!
After the sweet potatoes were done, I cut them in half, scraped out the good stuff and smooshed away with a fork. After a few minutes, I said, "screw it," and busted out the hand mixer. The hand mixer did a wonderful job with whipping the potatoes into a nice creamy, smooth texture. Which is what the book says you want. However, it is definitely thicker than what you would feed your baby, but we'll address that later.
After the sweet potatoes, I sliced up the squash, steamed it, and tried the hand mixer. No go. The hand mixer did nothing for the seeds, much less the skin - which I left on because all the good nutrients are always in the skin of the vegetable! So out came the food processor. (Thanks Lessie!) The food processor made the squash smooth and took care of those pesky seeds and skin!
Next were the carrots! The carrots took a little longer to steam. The book calls to boil the carrots, but I figured I was already set up to steam so everything was going to get steamed! Steamed the carrots, blend the carrots. Note to self...don't try to blend the entire bag of carrots at once. Carrots aren't as smushy as squash, so smaller batches at a time or else you might blow the food processor's motor. Also, carrots don't hold as much water as squash does, so feel free to add some cooled boiled water to the carrots as you blend. It makes the mixture much smoother than without the water.
Finally, the zucchini were tackled. Zucchini was easy, like the squash. I really like the color of the zucchini the best. It turned out to be the prettiest shade of green, flecked with darker green bits from the skin. Steam and blend.
To store all this food I just made for Austyn, I spooned the mixture into ice cube trays. Each cube is about 1 ounce. After spooning the blended veggies into the ice cube trays, I covered them with some PressNSeal stuff and stuck em in the freezer overnight.
 |
| Clockwise: Sweet potatoes, squash, zucchini (frozen) and carrots |
Today, I popped them out of the ice cube trays and put them in freezer bags, labeled them and put them back in the freezer!
When it was time to feed Austyn some sweet potatoes, I took a cube out, put it in a small bowl and let it defrost. I mixed it with about an ounce and a half of breast milk that I had previously pumped to thin out the sweet potatoes. She really loves her sweet potatoes. I'm thinking of trying her on zucchini next week!
 |
| Fresh sweet potatoes on Monday! |
