Organic Homemade Baby Food

Being a Momma who likes to cook, I decided to try my hand at homemade baby food. It's not that a have a real problem with store bought stuff, but I like the idea of knowing exactly what's going into Gracie's food... especially the lack of preservatives. I also like that it saves me money. And I'll admit, I like feeling like a Momma from the good ol' days who didn't have a Walmart two miles away. So this weekend, I made fruit for Lil' Miss Gracie. Peaches, pears, apples, plums. Here's what I did.

My sister-in-law accompanied G and I to Trader Joe's on Friday night where we picked up affordable organic produce to get things started. Trader Joe's, if you haven't been there, is the way to go when it comes to organic. I bought everything you see here (all organic mind you) for $45. Peaches, pears, apples, plums, pumpkins, butternut squash, and acorn squash. Gracie can eat all of it now, except the pumpkin. But I'll save that for a few months from now. I might add that we stopped at Dollar General to pick up foil pans and ice cube trays, 3 for $2. I bought 12 of them to make the process faster.



Next you half the fruit and bake it open-side down in about an inch of water at 400. Bake until the skin puckers. Some fruits take less, some take more, but on average this take about an hour. I discovered after doing this process several times that you should half the fruit AND de-seed it, too. Makes the next part easier.




Once the skin has puckered, remove from the oven and let cool. I turned the fruit cut-side up to cool faster. As you can see, the seeds were still in my pears, but I learned with plums and apples to remove them before baking. Handling hot fruit is more difficult than room temperature. After the fruit is cool enough to handle, remove the skin and any seeds. Place the "meat" in a full size blender and puree until smooth. I used a bit of the leftover juices from the pan to thin the puree when needed.

Finally, pour pureed fruit into ice cube trays and cover with foil. Freeze overnight. I put the frozen cubes into freezer-safe baggies and then put one of each type of puree into a larger freezer bag. Frozen purees are good for 3-6 months, but I'm sure we'll go through faster than that!


Before I began this process, I was worried whether it would really save us money or not. Because while I do like the idea of knowing what's in her food, if it isn't going to save us any money, I'm not interested. Plenty of babies eat store-bought baby food and turn out just fine. But I was really happy when I calculated it out. Basically, store-bought baby food is about 25 cents per ounce. If I were to pay 25 cents for each ounce I made, the total would be $50.75 (that was 203 oz if you're counting). Since I only paid $45 for all the produce, I'm already ahead of the game... but remember, I haven't made the pumpkin and squash yet. I figure I'll be about 50-65% of the price of store-bought food by the time I'm done. And's it's healthier for my little girl. So I'm happy!

And speaking of my little girl, here's a picture of her 'helping' me. And yes, that is a roaster pan she's jumping on... gotta use your resources. Her little legs just aren't long enough yet, but she prefers to look at the world head-on right now!