I've been making baby food for the twins for a while now, but I can't say it's something that comes to me naturally. It's been a learning curve but I'm gradually building an arsenal of tricks to keep the momentum going. Here's my list of tricks and tips which I'll be linking up to Amanda's top ten Tuesday
- Preparation - Use the freezer aisle of the grocery store. Just because it's homemade baby food doesn't mean it has to be made from scratch. This works especially well for peas. I recently bought a big bag of organic frozen veggies from Costco to make into puree.
- Preparation - Buy precut foods from the grocery store. The girls loved their mango baby food but I cringed at the idea of peeling and cutting mangos so I was super-excited to see precut mangoes at Wholefoods. I bought the package, tasted half of it and pureed the other half for baby food
- Preparation - Applesauce. Apples go with almost everything that a baby can eat but again peeling all those apples is a hassle. I got the idea from wholesomebabyfood to buy adult natural applesauce. Same contents as the baby jar
- Combining Proteins - First time I made pureed chicken, the ladies gagged a few times so I changed tactics. Now I boil the chicken with mixed vegetables and puree. This eases them into the taste and also means I don't need to combine cubes later on
- Food combinations - Speaking of combining, I get ideas for food combinations from the commercial baby foods. I check the list of ingredients and try to replicate
- Food combination - Replicate an adult meal. Another idea is to replicate combinations that most adults have as meals like beans and rice, chicken and veggies, oats and fruit etc. This is really going to help me as I introduce them to Nigerian foods in August
- Food combination - I've also read a few books and blogs for ideas on combination. Most Annabel Karmel books are good for this
- Texture - This is one area where reading could not help me. I needed to see for myself, so I buy a few packages of the commercial food to see exactly what "lumpy" food looks like
- Treats and bribes - They are nights when Spice is too tired to want to eat. (She's more of a big breakfast lady). On those nights I give her frozen pureed fruits or yoghurt in a mesh feeder. She loves it. She's never too tired to eat that and it means she still gets dinner so works for me.
- Cleaning the mesh feeder - First of all, no bananas ever again in that thing. Last night I soaked the meshes in vinegar and so far so good, seems to be helping
There you have it. Those are some of the tricks that stop me from falling off the wagon of making my own baby food.
