Baby Food

This is a post about all things pureed. And cooking the living daylights out of steak for Anders...a feat that almost had S and I, as Medium Rare steak lovers, almost in tears.

We, and by that I mean I, decided early on that we really wanted to make all of Anders' baby food. S and I eat a mostly organic diet, and we wanted to do the same with A. When we started looking a organic baby food options in our area we were not impressed with the selection or the price. For example, I can buy 1 container of Earth's Best peas for $0.89 (on average) which is a 2 oz container; or I can buy 1 bag of organic frozen peas at Whole Foods for $1.69 and make 18-20 ounces of food. For my "frugal' lifestyle it was a no-brainer.

When we started to look into what we would need for baby food making we looked into the Beaba Babycook and ultimately decided against it-the main reason being that it makes very small volumes of food. We had recently gotten a Kitchenaid Food Processor for our wedding (which feels like it was ages ago....not just 1.5 years back) and we have a ton of these steamer baskets already.

Here's what we do:
1) prep veggies/fruit
2) steam them until very soft
3) process until desired smoothness is attained
4) pour into ice cube trays
5) freeze
6) store in labeled ziploc freezer bags

With chicken we simply poach it and them puree. Steak, we cook until well done. And, Anders favorite of them all, tofu is simply pureed.

Here's one of his favorite recipes:
Chicken with Apples and Carrots:
1) Peel and chop 10 medium carrots and 4 Apples
2) Steam carrots for 5 minutes then add apples (or steam seperately) and steam until very soft
3) While steaming, cut 2 chicken breasts into 1 inch chunks.
4) Place chicken into 8 cups boiling water and poach until cooked through.
5) Drain carrots and apples and reserve liquid.
6) Add poached chicken, carrots and apples to your food processor.
7) Process using a pulse setting until desired texture is achieved. Add reserved water from carrots and apples as needed for thinning.
8) Pour into ice cube trays and pop into freezer when cooled.
9) Once frozen, pop cubes into labeled ziploc bag, defrost cubes as needed.

My favorite food processor in action

Ready to freeze.

Anders loves this "recipe" and S and I really like it too-we try everything we make for Anders.

Enjoy, more recipes to come....