I had been reading up on what foods are good to start with so I kind of had an idea on what I wanted to make for Jase. He has done well with rice but hated avocados. (see this post) Veggies have been known to be the best to start with so that's the direction I took. These baby cook books were a great tool to guide me in the right direction. They are broken up into food by age. Of course the first foods are simple, single ingredients. I choose to do Sweet Potato, Yams and Banana. Since Jase didn't like the avocado I thought a sweeter veggie would be nice and Banana was a good first fruit option. All three were in the "clear" for his age!
The Baby Cooker we got is the Beaba. When I was pregnant I did a lot of research on different options/sizes/food processor vs baby cooker/ect. The Beaba seemed to be a good fit for our family. What sold me on it was that it is an all-in-one. It steams/cooks the food and blends/purees it as well. Now, you can also get just a normal processor, but this one was a little less expensive since it was a "baby" item and not a "kitchen" item. I also found on the reviews that when the larger one was purchased it was used after baby for adult food preparation too! I am so far pleased with this purchase!
*Of course you don't need a fancy baby cooker to make baby food. The recipe books my lovely friend sent have recipes to follow that use the oven/stove and blenders. I choose a baby cooker mainly because of the appliances we did/didn't have... and this seemed to be a faster process*
So here is the breakdown of what I did start to finish:
Sweet Potato & Yams: these were of course were cooked separately and machine cleaned in between since we don't know if there will be an allergic reaction yet. Since they follow the same steps I'm combining them on here
1. Cut each into small cubes & add water per amount specified on your processor to steam
2. Place cubes in steamer part of processor
3. Steam - this took about 15-20 minutes for each
4. Dump steamed food into blender container and blend until consistency is what you want. *Note: I kept mine a little less smooth (meaning I didn't add additional water or breast milk/formula. I will do this once I defrost to serve)*
5. Put pureed food into containers to freeze (can store in freezer up to 3 months)
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| Sweet Potato |
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| Yams |
6. Freeze 24 hours and transfer into freezer bags and put back in freezer
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| Once I know what Jase likes I will be making more "bulk" to fill bags |
7. Done
Banana:
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| Banana |
1. cut banana in slices
2. put in blender part of processor
3. blend
4. follow steps 5-7 from above
This whole process took about an hour from start to finish for all three foods. I bought two types of containers for food to be stored in. The first are cubes that hold up to 2 oz of food and the second are ice cube trays with lids. Here's my reasoning for the different ones. The cubes have multi uses: Baby food, snacks when older, salad dressing or sauce containers for Scott to take to work for lunch, really whatever you want them to be. The ice cube trays are great for freezing and then transfer to bags for bulk. These too can be used for other things like freezing coffee cubes, homemade seasoning (ie: flavored butter) and so on!
We are still working on getting a routine in for solids in. So far I've been offering at night with his "dinner" feeding before his bath. Sometimes he's super excited and other nights he wants nothing to do with it. Basically we're following his lead: always offer, but never force! I hoping with some more food options we can start to figure out what he likes to eat!
Stay Tuned...
