Being a stay-at-home mom has allowed me to find creative ways to save money. One of them is by making my own baby food. It's really easy and so cheap!
When I began the quest to make baby food I first purchased Super Baby Food. It's a good book if you want to know which foods to introduce when, though it does have some information in it that conflicted with what our doc told us (especially about peanut butter and other nuts).
Then I wished I hadn't purchased the book in some ways because I found this website . The difference between the two is minimal. I get great ideas from the website on making the foods and good tips on how to get baby to eat a variety of finger foods and how to make some crafts (which really has nothing to do with food) from the book.
Anyway, I mentioned that making your own baby food saves money. If one of those two packs of baby food cost $1.25 at the local store or WM it can get pretty pricey to buy a weeks worth of food for a little one, especially if they are like my Tim who LOVES to eat. When we went apple picking, the apples were $1 a pound... it made two months worth of applesauce in a variety of types for little Tim. LOTS of money saved there. Pears cost $1.19 per pound, peaches about the same and I can get squash and pumpkin for 50 cents a pound at the local farm or farmer's market.
It does not take a lot of time either once you get a system going. Nap time is a great time to do the cooking. You can bake peaches and steam squash at the same time. You can gave your entire stove going with foods for baby. While baby is sleeping let them cool. When baby gets up the hard part will be pureeing everything in your blender and chopper in hopes that baby does not get scared and scream the entire time.
Storage is easy too. When I first made food for Ryan I used ice cube trays. I froze the food and then popped them out into freezer bags and labeled them. At the age when he needed stage one food I just used one cube at a feeding and would thaw it in the microwave for a few seconds. I'd use two cubes for stage two and so on. Then I found some small Glad containers that were about the stage two or three size that I used to freeze the food. The only issue with those is that I had to remember to take the food out the night before and put it in the fridge to thaw. The microwave melted them and opening them up to pop them out into a dish caused the lids to crack.
I've kept with the container method and do well at remembering to take three foods out the night before to thaw in the fridge.
I don't freeze all foods though. Bananas and avocados are best fresh. You mash and feed on the spot. I often use my mini-chopper for these foods. Bananas turn brown in the freezer and I've tried using lemon juice to help with this, but it hasn't worked for me just yet. I just eat the other half of a banana that Tim won't finish or I give it to Ryan.
I love the wholesome food website because it gives different ways to prepare foods and ideas on how to combine them to make different meals for baby. The only foods we tend to by still are prunes and cereal. We don't use that many prunes so two jars lasts a LONG time. Cereal is good because of the iron factor and it helps fill baby up too. I just sprinkle it in to whatever food I feel they need it in or if I think my puree is too thin. At $1.25 a box, it's not that expensive.
When Ryan was old enough for stage three foods I just started giving him some table food. If I made spaghetti, I would make a bowl for him with penne and meat sauce. I often put the meat sauce in my mini-chopper so there wouldn't be big chunks for him to have to chew. If I made a chicken and rice dish, Ryan got that too in small pieces. Rice and penne are great for the stage three foods. Canned veggies were great too because they were soft enough and it was practice with finger foods. I mainly used the canned green beans, but let him eat peas, corn and broccoli (which I found chopped broccoli was the best) of the frozen variety.
Gravy foods and casserole foods work great for stage three foods. You just have to make the pieces small enough. Pot roast is wonderful. You put some gavy in the container, some chopped up meat, small pieces of potatoes and carrots and you have a meal! You aren't buying them extras because they are eating what you are eating. It's great!
Making myown baby food has been harder since I have two kids, but Ryan lets me prep while awake and then I can puree while he's asleep (the noise does not bother him awake or asleep). Ryan likes to help put the foods into pans and pots, so we work together and it's a fun project. It's just hard on a day when he'd rather play than cook. I do my prep once a month or less even and we save tons of $$$.
No comments:
Post a Comment