{homemade baby food}

Andersen is 7 months old today! Holy cow this little man is growing up way too fast! Here's a progress report. He sits up by himself and can stay sitting up until he decides to face plant. Last time we weighed him (a couple weeks ago) he was 18.5 lbs. He is on the verge of crawling; he scoots around pretty well. He loves real food! He eats apples, bananas (his favorite), avocados, cauliflower and sweet potatoes. 

     

The money savvy side of me must write about homemade baby food! If you have the time homemade is the way to go. Not only do you know what exactly is in your baby's food but it is also so much cheaper. I was at Wal-Mart the other day and I saw that you could buy 8 oz. of baby food for $0.81. That seems pretty cheap right? But compare that to the 160 oz. of avocados, sweet potatoes, cauliflower and bananas for $5.50. That's $0.10/oz versus $0.03/oz. You save over 50% if you make your own food! It only took me one nap time to make all that food so it's not that time consuming.

Here's my method for making delicious baby food. I have a Baby Bullet, which I use when I am making small quantities. But when I am making a bunch I use my Ninja Blender. Any food processor will work. After I have made the food I pour the purees into ice cube trays. Once they have frozen I pop them out and store them in freezer ziplocks with the date made on them. I stole this idea from Pinterest and I love it. If I want to combine foods for a meal I just grab one of each cube and let them thaw out together. Anders' favorite combo is apples and bananas. Below I wrote out some recipes I use.

Sweet Potatoes
3-4 sweet potatoes
rice cereal
water

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Wrap the potatoes in foil and stick them in the oven for about 40-45 minutes. (After they are in the oven I make the rest of the baby food.) When they are tender to the touch they are done. Let them cool. Once you can touch them, unwrap them and pull the peel off at one end and squeeze out the potato. It should squeeze right out into the blender. Once the potatoes are in the blender I put in about a cup of rice cereal and blend it. If your baby is between 4-6 months you will want to thin out the puree; just add water until it reaches the consistency you want. The older your baby gets the thicker your puree can be.

Avocados
3-4 avocados
rice cereal
lemon juice
water

Cut each avocado in half and remove the pit. Scrape out the good stuff into the blender. Add 1/2 cup of rice cereal and blend. Squirt some lemon juice into the mixture to keep the puree turning a gross brown. Add water to reach desired consistency.

Cauliflower
1 head of cauliflower
rice cereal
water

Cut the cauliflower up and steam it (I use the steamer bags....so easy). Put in blender and add 1 cup rice cereal and blend. Add water to reach desired consistency.

Bananas
5-6 bananas
oatmeal
water

Peel, put in blender, add 1 cup oatmeal (I use the boxed baby oatmeal; you can grind down regular oatmeal if you want) and blend. Squirt some lemon juice into the mixture to keep the puree turning a gross brown. Add water to reach desired consistency.

**I just buy all natural, no sugar added applesauce for Anders. It is cheap and so much easier than making it from scratch.

Anyway back to talking about Andersen! Lately, his new favorite toy is the diaper box. It keeps him so entertained I love it! So today we played with the box, took two naps (hallelujah!), snuggled, and took a lot of pictures!

Face Plant!

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