Preparing the Baby Chef hat

So the baby is 5 months old... time to switch over to babyfood mode! On the first round of each fruit or vegetable, I did use store-bought food (Earth's Best brand mostly). Once they got an initial taste of all the basics, then I started to incorporate some homemade babyfood by yours truly.

              

I headed to Costco and got myself a Magic Bullet. Don't be fooled by all those other fancy contraptions with names that include the word "baby". It's basically a magic bullet with a higher price tag. In my opinon, any food processor would do. I also already had a small rice cooker that had a steamer basket part to it, so that's what I used to steam prior to pureeing.

I had picked up a cookbook on babyfood once, but with all the resources online, I never really did anything out of it. My favorite web source came from Momtastic's Wholesome Babyfood.  I loved clicking on the individual fruits and veggies to read up on how to best cook them and at the bottom of each page was a list of other food items that would blend well together. This was key to creating new blends of multiple foods and giving the baby some variety.

They say its cheaper to make your own babyfood. I never really kept track of the money spent/saved, but I did like the thought of knowing exactly what was going into my baby's belly. Not only that, homemade babyfood tastes like real food. Haven't you ever tasted that stuff that comes from the jar? I mean, how many pink bananas do you know of?

On another note, prior to the babyfood "pouches" such as the ones from Plum Organics, there was no way you were going to find zucchini or beets in a babyfood jar! Nor are you still going to be able to find avocado on the shelf. The only way to expose your kiddo on that one is to give it to them fresh! Yum!

I did weekly trips to buy organic food items, steam, puree, and store (some in fridge to eat and some in freezer for back-up meals). I reused the little jars from the store-bought food (which I still used when I had to feed the baby outside of the house when we are out). To make it all orderly, you can make chalkboard lids and easily keep the jars labeled! I totally didn't know of this idea until after Pinterest was born, but this would have been perfect back in my babyfood making days:

On a final note, I must be honest about one thing: I don't cook. It is not my thing. You know how you can just watch some people cook, and you can see the enjoyment and passion in in what they are doing? Yeah... that's not me. Cooking actually makes me angry almost. Like a chore. Baking I like. But general cooking, not so much. Although Pinterest has certainly sparked more enjoyment in it these days, don't go signing me up for Top Chef.