Home Made Baby Food

My daughter is also almost 9 months and I have made all of her food so I've started wondering about this too. You can always buy frozen mixed veggies and just pop those in the microwave as needed. www.wholesomebabyfood.com also has some wonderful suggestions for finger foods. For breakfast something like small peices of toast and bananas are always quick and easy. I'm also planning on making dinners that can be deconstructed pretty easily for finger food and setting aside a portion of that for the next day's lunch. Hope this helps a little!

My son is 17 months and he still loves it when I make this pasta dish. Its basically a veggie packed mac-n-cheese. I make usually a 8x8 pan of this and freeze it in small jars.

Basically I combine all the ingredients below and bake in a pan for 30 minutes or until bubbly (and sometimes I add breadcrumbs or cheese on top).
-Cooked small pasta (he loves either the small shells or stars)
-Cooked and pureed (or just mashed) butternut squash or sweet potatoes.
-Shredded zucchini (I keep it raw)
-Shredded cheese
-Bechamel sauce (you start by melting butter in a pan, stir in some flour until thickened, then add as much milk as you want)

For foods I started him out with (and are basically no prep time) are basically anything you can cube into small pieces:
avacado
bananas
cheese
mango
pears (if they are soft)
tofu
grapes
berries
toast or bread
egg bites (either scrambled or hard boiled)
pasta (penne, swirl or shells)

I hope this helps!

I too make most of my own baby food. My son's favorite food is broccoli bites, something I created when he was about 10 months old (he is 2 now and still loves them). I make a large batch and freeze them, and then when I pack his lunch, I take out 3-4 and let them thaw in the freezer overnight. He eats them cold/room temperature or warm.

I posted the recipe on my blog:

http://sewveryblessed.blogspot.com/2009/02/broccoli-bites...

I hope you like them.

We had a slap chop that we used to chop up what ever we ate really small. Our youngest never ate baby food, and as soon as she heard that chopper, she cam running (or crawling) It was really easy.

M.

Get a chopper and a chopping bowl and chop whatever you make yourself for dinner/lunch really small and mix it with yogurt or mayonnaise and some of your regularly mashed veggies to moisten it (makes it easier for him to chew and swallow). Start with it being REALLY moist (it is messy, but it works) and as he gets older slowly lessen the amount of yogurt/mayo you add. During teething episodes, you may need to go back to your regular baby food, so don't get rid of it all!

Hope this helps.

K.

Same way...just cook, let it cool, and freeze. Get a food puree machine (not expensive at all) to chop up bigger pieces of food.Noodles and butter with a little cheese was always a winner for mine. Or spaghetti sauce with orzo (small noodles). Breakfast - cinnamon toast was a winner, as well as mini pancakes and nutrigrain bars too. Kids will eat what you do for dinner most the time, you just need to make sure the pieces are small enough for them to eat

Cook veggies the way you would before you pureed them but then dont puree them. This works out great in my house as I made all our baby food also. Store them in the freezer as before and just heat up in the microwave and you are good to go.

We have an 18 month old with multiple food allergies (dairy, wheat, egg, chicken, peanut, citrus, and probably others), so he's on a very limited diet and we have always made all his food. What we do is cut up things like carrots and steam them until they're very soft, or cut low-sodium deli meat into chunks, and then freeze them in Baby Cubes storage containers (they're awesome! we got them at Bed Bath and Beyond). They're also great for things like blueberries, cooked peas, mashed potatoes, chunks of cooked meatloaf, etc. We used the same containers for puree when he was still eating puree. In the evening, we pull out containers for the next day's meals and thaw them in the fridge.

Hope this helps!

I second what Julia said, that's what we did and it's great! Just keep a bunch of cut up things in the fridge all week...steam some chicken breasts early in the week, cut them up and but them in tupperware and feed as needed. You could probably do a bunch at a time and freeze some and thaw it each week if you're really organized. You can do it with ground turkey or beef too, just separate it into bigger chunks while cooking it. Hot dogs, lunch meat, cheese, etc. all works great the same way. Really though, the easiest is to just feed him whatever you're eating. If he's into finger foods, pretty much whatever you eat every night is what's perfect for him, just cut it up really small!