Making Baby Food

I opened my cupboard last night and realized I forgot to buy any baby fruit while I was out.  So rather than go out at 9 pm to get some I decided, why not make my own?  Have you seen the infomercial for the Baby Bullet, its like the Magic Bullet but specifically for baby food.  I saw it one morning while feeding Grant and I immediately wanted to order one, however, who has $80 to drop on one of those.  Plus I already have the Magic Bullet, that I love, and they both pretty much do the same thing.

Anyways,  we had apples on the counter and I had already done some research and read that you needed to steam the fruit to soften it.  By steaming it, the fruit supposedly retains all its nutrients.  I bought the Ziploc steam bags a while ago just for doing this.

I took 3 regular sized apples, mine where Golden Delicious,  peeled and cut them into chunks.  I placed them in the steamer bags and on the bags it tells you how long to microwave different vegetables.  Potatoes where listed and I figured apples are kind of the same consistency as potatoes so I nuked them for 5 minutes.

Next I took out my Magic Bullet blender, used the chopping blade, put half my apple chunks in with a bit of water, then pureed it for a minute or so.  When its mixed well check to make sure it is the right consistency, if it's too thick  add a bit more water and mix again.

I save my store bought baby food containers so I know how much to give for each serving, so I just put my homemade applesauce into those containers and I was finished.  3 apples made about 5 days worth of stage 1 food or roughly 3 days worth of stage 2. 

I bought some sweet potatoes to do the same but instead of steaming them I baked them wrapped in foil in the oven at 350 for about an hour, more or less depending on how large the potatoes are.  After they were baked I took the peeling off, put them in my Magic Bullet, added some water, and blended to the consistency I thought appropriate.  I had three smaller sized potatoes and here is how much they made:

That is about 8 or 9 days worth of stage 2 veggies or 16 days of stage 1, and I paid $2 for the sweet potatoes so that's about $0.25 a day for the stage 2.  I don't think you can get that kind of deal on baby food in the store even with a great sale or off brand.

I think alot of people think making baby food is going to be time consuming and difficult, because that's what I thought, but it's actually really simple and quick.