Homemade Baby Food

Think you don't have the time to make your own baby food?  Worried you need a specific recipe or that you are going to do it wrong?  Read on to see how easy it really is to mash up food for your baby to eat.

Photo attribution here

I find it amusing that there are entire websites and books dedicated to baby food recipes.  I mean, seriously, why can't you just mash up the foods you and your family are already eating and feed them to your baby?    When I eat an apple, I get out my handy food mill and grind some apple up for the baby.  When I steam broccoli I grab my food mill again and mash some up for the baby to eat.  And you know what?  She eats it.  And she loves it.  And it's easy.  And it's cheap.

I am no expert on baby-ness, but I do know two things.  First, making your own baby food is cheap.  Way cheaper than buying prepackaged baby mush at the store.  Make a small investment in a food mill and you are set for toddlers to come.  Second, making your own baby food is healthy.  (Provided, of course, that you aren't grinding up chocolate chip cookies and peanut butter cups and feeding that deliciousness to the baby for dinner.)  It's fresh and you know exactly what you put into it

With my first child I dutifully bought small containers of over-priced baby food, fed him his peas and beans, waited three days before introducing a new food, and was a total stress case the entire time.  Things changed with my second.

I bought this handy dandy baby food mill and I use it several times a day.  It's easy to use (assemble three parts, insert food, and turn) and easy to clean (although it is best to clean it right after using it so the food doesn't have time to get hard and crusty).  When I'm not using it for baby food my three-year-old is using it to pretend like he's driving a truck.  Everyone loves it!  This is the one I have, and it's cheaper on Amazon than it was where I bought it.

That's my whole plug for making your own baby food.  I make it as I go, but if you need to make a larger batch and store it in the freezer for later use there are some really nifty baby food freezer containers for sale on Amazon, too.

Happy food mashing!

(Note: The links in this post are my affiliate links.  I will never recommend anything to my readers that I wouldn't buy myself.)