Homemade Baby Food

Before Bennett was even born, I decided that I wanted to make his own baby food. There are many different reasons I chose to make his own baby food. It's cheaper, I know all the ingredients that he is eating, and finally, I truly enjoy making it. I get so much  enjoyment making his food. That might sound weird to you, but it's FUN to me. Every Mom needs an escape, or their time, my time/escape is making his food. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy going to Target, or escaping all reality by reading all the gossip and drama that can be found on Facebook. Ha! But this is something else I like to do.

You don't even need one of those fancy baby food maker things. But, I was that Mom who HAD to have a specific baby food maker. Honestly, I could have done without it and been just fine, but I like having it, and don't regret buying it. I bought the Beaba Babycook food maker off of ebay. It's an all in one product. It steams the food as as well blends it.

Last weekend, I went to Trader Joes to pick up some things to make Bennett's baby food. I bought a butternut squash for $1.99 and a bag of organic pears for $2.69. The butternut squash made 20 one ounce portions which equals out to .09 cents a serving! You can't beat that price. Today though, I'm going to show you how I made the pears.

Here is what I started with. First, I cored and peeled all seven pears.

Next, I diced the pears and placed them in the steam basket. 

Once I was finished with chopping the pears, I poured some water into the cooker. 

I then placed the steam basket inside the blending container. 

I then put the lid on the container and set the button to steam. When it's steaming, an orange light will turn on. Once it has finished steaming, the orange light will turn off. For pears, it takes about 10 minutes to steam and soften. 

 

When it was finished steaming, I removed the steaming basket and poured out the cooking liquid that was left in the bottom of the container. I saved the cooking liquids because I can use them to help give the pears the consistency and texture that I want. 

I then poured the pears back into the blender and began to blend away. 

I stopped after a few second of blending to see what type of texture and consistency I had. 

I didn't like the consistency, so I added just a little of the cooking liquid and blended some more. After a few more seconds, I had the texture and consistency that I wanted. 

Finally, I separated the pears into one ounce portions and placed them in the freezer. 

Once they were frozen, I removed the frozen cubes and placed them into a zip-lock bag with the name and date on the bag. 

So for $2.69, I was able to make 14 one ounce portions of organic pears. Which equals to .19 cents per portion. Not bad!