Homemade Baby Food: The Process

So, once you decide which recipes and how much of each to make, the fun begins! I wasn't exactly sure how long it would take to make everything, so I set aside a full day. I'm glad I did, because it took about 8 hours start to finish to prepare and freeze the food. I know--8 hours. Sounds insane. But keep in mind, those 8 hours consisted of feeding Levi his meals, eating my own breakfast and lunch, and a few short breaks here and there. It's difficult to do this with a baby in the house (especially because I tried to avoid running the food processor when Levi was napping), but its doable! Just set aside a day.

Here's what you'll need:
Ingredients for all the purees
A decent food processor
Ice cube trays
Quart size freezer bags

Now, you can do this one of two ways. You can either cook one recipe at a time or you can cook multiple recipes simultaneously. I stuck with one recipe at a time to avoid getting confused about which ingredients belonged with each recipe (since some of the same ingredients were used in different recipes). You'll just want to think ahead and cook the things that will take the longest first.

Yumm...veggies with lentils!

You'll obviously puree everything as it is made and then you'll begin filling ice cube trays with the purees. I really like to use these silicone cube ice trays. The cube shape makes them easily stackable in freezer bags, so they take up less space. We just happened to have a few of these already, so it worked out great. If you only have regular ice trays, I wouldn't sweat it.

Let me just tell you, I only had 4 ice trays total, so this whole freezing process took a long time. About 2 days straight of filling these little guys and refilling them. That was not fun. And I was slightly worried about leaving the purees in the fridge for that long (they ended up keeping just fine). Would I buy more for the next time I make baby food? Probably. I was just trying to avoid spending the extra money this time, since this is probably the last time I'll make baby food for Levi.

Once the cubes are thoroughly frozen, you'll just transfer them to appropriately marked freezer bags. See what I mean about the cubes taking up less space? They are a great shape to fit right in our freezer door.

Now, the night before, I'll take out Levi's food for both lunch and dinner for the following day. One cube (from any ice cube tray) is equivalent to 1 oz of food, so I simply take out however many he'll need for that day. Yea, it's a bit of extra work (and a few extra dishes), but just think of the money saved!

And that's it! Homemade baby food. Enjoy!