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Time to Make the Donuts, er, um, Babyfood

This weekend I decided to try my hand at making baby food, because well, those jars are ridiculously expensive!  They’ve gone up in price just since Gavin was eating out of them.  The little 2 to 2.5 oz jars of Stage 1 foods were averaging just under 50 cents each…not cool, especially consider Cooper has a good-sized appetite, as seen below:

Cooper’s First Cereal



So I looked up some articles online, got some basic info to start with, and went nuts in the Produce department of my local Harris Teeter’s:

  • 8 oz of fresh shelled peas–$2.99
  • 16 oz of fresh baby carrots–$1.50
  • 5 oz of fresh green beans (I am famously not a fan of green beans…but want to try to make them for Cooper anyways…without gagging)–$0.68
  • 2.2 lb of butternut squash (it was the smallest butternut squash they had…and it is huge!)–$3.25
  • 2 avacados–$4.58 (what?  I paid that much!  must’ve grabbed the “organic” ones by accident…I’m only interested in giving him pesticide-covered produce to boost his immune system adn protect him against insect infestations…don’t laugh…it could happen…see all those chins?…and his rolls on this thighs?…prime places to hide with plenty of food to keep them fed)
  • total produce bill–$13.00–this does not include the price of the 32-4oz rubbermaid take-along reusable/disposable containers ($11.96), or the strainer ($8.99) that I had to buy since the only strainer I had was a tea infuser…but talk about some smooth puree if I could’a used that!

I got busy steamin’ the peas…took forever.  Made a mental note to screw fresh peas and to go with frozen ones.  Then I dumped them into my little mini-cuisinart food processor and pureed them summa-guns…added a little of the water from the pot…and pureed some more.  Whee!  fun!  Makin’ baby food!  Not too hard!  Then I scooped out my pureed pea mess into a large strainer to strain out the peels…and I mashed and strained and strained and mashed for 30 minutes.  By the time I was done, I had just under 4 oz of pureed peas, about 2 heaping tablespoons worth of pea peels, and heard plenty of “don’t pea…heh heh…on the counter!” jokes from Justin.  So I might just BUY the peas until he’s at like Stage 2 when I can make him eat the peels.  Or maybe break down and buy this.  Is it worthwhile?  Will it get the pea peels off?  Will it shuttup my snarky punny husband?  I also read that the green beans may be difficult with the peels like the peas were…so not looking forward to that.  But I think the other items will go alright.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I did the little take-along containers instead of ice cube trays because

  1. my freezers are a huge mess and I don’t have the time or motivation to clear them up enough to make room for a few ice cube trays to lay nice
  2. my freezers are a huge mess and I don’t have the time or motivation to clear them up enough to make room for ziploc bags of food cubes once they’re frozen
  3. these little cups stack nicely and fit in small places, like my overcrowded, poorly organized freezers
  4. I wasn’t sure how I’d transport the food cubes to school for Cooper to eat during the week–I mean, I’d have to put a couple in a container anyways, and this way I can make sure I can fit more than one cube in a container…or getting my hands messy handling the food cubes and stuffing them in containers…or trying to not get hands dirty and pour the cubes into containers but more dumps out than needed onto counter and floor…bah!  This will be kind of like having the traditional jars of food, at least in my head.  Just grab and go.

If anyone out there has any good tips or tricks, be sure to let me know…meanwhile, guess I’ll be pea-ing on the counters.

About the Author

Colleen

This is a blog where I will share my adventures and mundane tasks as a work-out-of-home-mom. I now have 2 kids and my wonderful husband, so the juggling has gotten a little bit more tricky (man-on-man defense). We also have 2 dogs and 3 cats (we used to have 4) so as you can imagine, our household is pretty busy. Since I never feel like I'm being listened to, I figured I'll just start talking at the general Internet community and see what happens.

3 Comments

Maya

Good for you for trying this Colleen! Couple of tips…for sure get the frozen peas! Much easier! And for everything you can cut up and place them in a glass container with a lid or plastic wrap on top, add 2 tablespoons or so of water and microwave (usually 5-8 minutes) for veggies, fruits you don’t need to add the water. Let sit five minutes, stick in to puree. Makes it go much faster!

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Ash

Ahahaha: make baby food. you are damn funny! Ahahahaha.

Ok, I’ll admit it’s getting expensive, but I need the conveince of it. Maybe when Lex can start being able to eat bigger people food, I’ll start mashing up steaks for her.

( though, I must point out, between coupons, I’m averaging only 30 cents per jar)

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