Super Baby Food: Live the Book

Frozen Baby Food Cubes. Yellow squash (center) flanked by bartlett pears.

It turns out making your own baby food is really easy. A blender, a few ice cube trays, fresh ingredients like fruits, veggies and organic meats – that’s all it takes to avoid those little glass jars entirely. 

We got our inspiration for homemade baby food from the book Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron. My sister-in-law first introduced me to it and the book is nothing less than the bible of baby food making. Ruth is amazing, her advice complete and well-researched, and the book answers any question I’ve ever had about feeding my babies. 

The process is more simple than you might think. Blend your ingredients into a puree, pour the puree into ice cube trays, and store them in the freezer. When your baby is hungry, just take one out of the freezer, pop it in the microwave for 30 seconds, and serve.

It Just Makes Sense
Making your own baby food costs less than buying the stuff in jars. And since I’m always cooking family meals anyway, making baby food takes just a few extra minutes. It’s healthier because you know exactly what ingredients were used. And most importantly, it tastes better. We have tasted jarred baby food, and it’s not very good. Babies are smarter than most people think, and they know when food tastes good! If you’ve ever seen the look of sheer disgust on a baby’s face when trying something gross – say, jars of baby food peas – you know what I mean. 

You can also be adventurous with your baby food making, coming up with your own combos like the Weekndr family favorite: chicken, brown rice and sweet potatoes puree. Or you can take a portion of the dinner you just cooked (we recently did this with whole wheat penne with meat sauce and parmesan), put it in the blender and whip it up until it’s an oatmeal-like consistency. Maddie gobbled it up. 

Here are some baby-tested favorites:

Sweet Potato Chicken Puree
Steam one organic, free-range chicken breast. Pop a few sweet potatoes into the microwave (6 to 8 minutes). Combine the steamed chicken in the blender with the yummy sweet potatoes (which you can pop right out of their skins after microwaving – so easy), add a little water and puree.  

Fresh Fruit Baby Smoothie
Bananas, avocados and pears are even easier to turn into baby food since no cooking is required.  Just mash or blend your fresh fruit of choice, pour into ice cube trays and defrost individual food cubes as needed.  You can add blueberries, rice cereal, or ground flax seed to most of the fruits for extra flavor and nutrition.