I figure I should write a little something about this while I'm still doing it...
With both my boys I've made homemade baby food. For a few reasons...it's much, much, much cheaper than buying it in a jar/tub, and most importantly, it tastes SO much better! The shock didn't hit me until I did a home comparison. When you buy a jar of green beans, for example, you will notice the dull, slightly brownish green color, and all I have to say about that is "YUCK!" Besides that the color is less than appealing, you will pay roughly fifty cents for a 4 oz jar. This makes little to no sense to me since you can buy a bag of frozen green beans for less than a dollar, you can spend 10 minutes cooking them yourself, moments pureeing them, and a few more minutes putting them into the proper storage container. And let me add, that when you do that, the color of that baby food is a bright, beautiful green! SO much more appetizing!
My mom gave me the idea to do it with my first son, it was something she had done with us kids. At the time I thought, "I'll give it a shot, if it's too time consuming we can just buy it". However with every new vegetable or fruit I made for my son, I was amazed at how good it looked and smelled, and most importantly, how much he loved it! To this day my sons favorite foods include broccoli, any green vegetable really, carrots, ect. This a boy who will have a tantrum in the grocery store when he sees that I'm buying apples and I won't let him have one in the store. A boy who will eat peas and carrots over crackers in an instant! I truly believe this is because he was exposed to so many foods, ones that children stereotypically don't like, in an appealing manner at such a young age.
My other issue with store bought baby food is the lack of selection. You are pretty limited to apple, pear, banana, carrot, green beans, sweet potatoes, and some combinations of these. Introducing solids is really setting your childs pallet. How can you expect a kid to love spinach if all he's had the last few months is bananas and sweet potatoes??
With my second son, I'm much less paranoid about allergies, and much more adventurous in what I give him. I've also learned that he is more likely to like a food if I have a good reaction to it. I also don't give up easy, just because he spits it out does NOT mean he doesn't like it.
For the baby food I make, I either steam (that way you lose less of the nutrients than if you boil), or simmer them in a small amount of water. The time it takes until it is tender depends on the fruit or veggie, and on the size it is cut. Once it's tender I throw it directly into my food processor and puree until smooth, adding some of the cooking liquid if necessary. After that I spoon the puree into ice cube trays and pop in the freezer until frozen. Once frozen I put the cubes into a ziplock and keep frozen. At meal time I take out a few cubes, put them in a microwave safe bowl and nuke until thawed and warm.
The pictures are of sweet potatoes, carrots, corn, peas, broccoli, blueberries, banana/kiwi and strawberries all in frozen cubes. On the spoons there's broccoli and a apple/raspberry/banana mixture.
