V is for Veggies!

I love making baby food.  I feel so domestic, even when I pull out the leftover Casey’s pizza to serve the other members of my family right after making a batch of sweet potato broccoli.  Hey, I can only do some much cooking in one day!  I “breastfeed” so I feel for me the next logical step is making my own baby food.  I put “breastfeed” in quotations because I pump exclusively and although I don’t nurse my daughter, I still “breastfeed” her.  But that’s a topic for another post.

I decided that I wanted to make my own baby food before I got pregnant with Brynlee.  I think I’m attracted to the fact that it’s so easy and I love knowing exactly what’s in it!  I got two baby food recipe books as gifts and couldn’t wait to use them.  My mom gave me a food processor that she had just sitting in her pantry.  A friend of mine gave me two grocery bags full of ice cube trays that she used for her daughter’s food.  So far in my baby food making journey, I’ve only had to buy two sweet potatoes and one bag of frozen broccoli.  Talk about a budget saver!

The books I have are Top 100 Baby Purees by Annabel Karmel and Healthy Meals for Babies & Toddlers by Valerie Barrett.  It seems weird to me sometimes that baby food needs recipes.  I mean, isn't the point to making your own that you don't have to add extras to the food?  Hmm.  I like the books though because they give suggestions that I might not have thought of or tried before, like pea, bean and zucchini puree or fillet of cod with spinach in a cheese sauce.  Yum!  They both have really great pictures,  and good cooking and storing guidelines and all recipes are grouped by age.  Top 100 has “food facts” and nutritional points that are nice.  Our sweet potato broccoli recipe came from this book.  Healthy Meals might be my favorite of the two.  For one, it has recipes for children older than 1 year and a few family recipes so we might use it longer.  I really like the suggested weaning plan they have.  It’s nice to have a guideline, whether you follow it or not.  I got an oatmeal recipe from this book and the squash and spinach recipe that we’ll be trying next.

So far, Brynlee's had oatmeal, sweet potato, sweet potato broccoli and broccoli.  I mixed the broccoli with the sweet potato the first time because I anticipated a mixed reaction to the broccoli, at BEST.  Nope.  Not my daughter.  She lapped it right up.  I got braver.  I made broccoli by itself and tried it last night.  Again, no reaction other than, “Give me more!”  Think Cookie Monster gobbling cookies.

 

Next: squash and spinach.  After that, maybe spinach by itself?  We’ll see!  I'm testing dangerous waters and my baby's breakin the stereotypes!  We'll see how long it lasts.

What stories do you have about starting solids?  What was your child's first food?  Did you make your own baby food?  What about recipes...what are your favorites?