best way to make baby food?

[Copps]

i'm just starting weaning and am looking at getting a mini food blender (asda have one for a tenner) to make purees etc.
Good idea? bad idea? what is the best way to do it?

I love my hand blender. If you're going the spoon-feeding (i.e. not pure BLW) route then a blender is a must. You can either blend up the food you've cooked for the rest of the family, or make baby friendly recipies. But if your baby likes purees then I'd get one.

(Plus if you grow out of purees soon, you can always use it to make soup )

I did BLW but I have a stick blender which I love, I use it for everything! It would be good for purees, I think.

I used a hand blender which was fab £5 from Asda I think.

To start I made specific foods for DS but then after a while it seemed like a lot of hassle so I started blending or mashing foods that we all ate.

We've been using a handblender... Started pureeing veg when DD was 5 months, then started her on finger foods at 6 months. She's now 7 months and she has a mix of finger foods and for dinner I quickly whizz up a mix of whatever we're having with the handblender. Glad I didn't bother with one of those baby food machine gizmos as I don't think we'll be needing to purée much longer.

Don't. Just give her some of yours...

I have a hand-held vegetable squisher that I use to make skin-free tomato puree and gazpacho soup etc. It's also great for making baby purees with vegetables with hardish skins like beans, peas and cauliflower. They're really popular in France - not sure where to source in UK though.

We used the mini food blender and it wasnt very good, instead of making smooth purees it just chopped everything up very small and went watery.

I would definately recommend a hand blender instead, it turns everything into a consistency like mash potato. I bought the asda value one for about £4 and its great. I use it for veg, meat, rice, and pasta. Now ds is 7 months i tend to puree half of what i make then cut the other half up into really small pieces and mix it all together.

I batch cook all his food for the month, it takes about 2 hours but in that time i make enough for his lunch and dinner for the month and freeze it into the individual pots. Its so much easier than doing it every day or so

Hi-Jack Alert sorry!!!!!! I'm interested too in this thread... I'm wanting to start weaning using baby rice, puréed food etc but I'd also like to quickly move onto finger food and feeding DD bits of what we are eating so I am reluctant to spend £80 on a baby food processor/steamer/defroster etc, however the convenience of using one of these is appealing. Can I just ask if I've got this correct... If I do it myself can I use my own steamer or just boil the fruit, veg etc, then use hand blender to purée the food, put into pots, freeze, then defrost when I want to use the food and heat on the hob??

Sorry for being long winded and I hope this makes sense (if anyone has any tips or other methods I'd be very grateful)

I had the tesco value 3 tier steamer for weaning my big two, and its still going strong for when dc3 is old enough. I believe it was around £10 and the tesco value handheld blender was ace too around £4 I did kill mine making soup but it had pureed for two dcs, made numerous smoothies and soups too. Stuck purees in ice cube trays popped out what I wanted into a bowl and microwaved as and when. Really easy.

I did purees alongside finger food, so porridge/weetabix at breakfast, finger food lunch (little sandwiches, veg/cheese sticks etc) followed by banana fingers etc. Then hot purees for evening meal. Worked well for us and I enjoyed doing it as much as the dcs did eating it! Both were spoon feeding themselves by 1yo-18mo things like shepards pie the same as I and dp ate.

Don't spend £80 on any of that gadget. Like people already said on this thread, you won't be doing one fruit/veg for long. Basically after 6mo, you can feed them anything other than honey and nuts. Get a hand blender and you can puree your meals for them, saving you lots of effort. If you want a very structured guide, have a look at Annabel Karmel baby and toddler book. You'll see also that you are supposed to move off that one veg/fruit phase quickly to fully flavoured food, but in this case, cooked especially for your baby. Even if you start weaning at 4mo, you'll use it for 2 months max!

And about steaming/boiling one fruit/veg puree, you can look at the same Annabel Karmel book. She actually have instruction how to do it! From cooking, to puree and storing. But basically yes, you use a steamer like

www.amazon.co.uk/Kitchen-Stainless-Collapsible-Steaming-Basket/dp/B0001IWW4I/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1349859250&sr=8-6

Or boil it for root veg. Or you can microwave it for things like apples and pears. (They are very fast cooking). Then you puree it with a hand blender. Then freeze them in individual portions with a silicon mini muffin mould, or a specific baby one like

www.annabelkarmel.com/products/make-it-easy-food-cube-tray

This is available in supermarkets, btw. Pop them out once frozen into freezer bag. You can buy inidividual pots to defreeze in fridge or take out

www.tommeetippee.co.uk/product/4_food_pots_lids_4_months_/

Also available in any good supermarket.

I mostly warm up in the microwave, then stir to make sure there are no hot spot, then cool down slightly before giving to baby.

HTH

Thank you so much for your advice!!! Im definitely going to look at the Annabel Karmel books (thanks) and save myself £80 on a gadget that'll only probably get used for 1-2 months!!! I'm feeling a bit more confident now and DD is definitely ready for the next stage
Thanks again

When my dc were weaning i also had a mini blender but a hand blender is just as good
Just mash up the family dinner or cook up some vegetables and blend to a puree for a little baby and more lumpier as they get used to chewing

Gooeyhead this is her most popular one, and the only one you need if you prefer some hand holding.

www.amazon.co.uk/Annabel-Karmels-Complete-Toddler-Planner/dp/0091924855

I swore by my AK books, still dip into them now and again even though the dcs are nearly 4 and 5. Her websites excellent too and free :)

if your freezing the purees id recommend these type of pots, they are so much cheaper than the ones you get in supermarkets

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/35-x-ROUND-FOOD-GRADE-PLASTIC-CONTAINERS-BABY-POTS-100ml-4oz-BPA-FREE-S30-/221008588863?_trksid=p5197.m1992&_trkparms=aid%3D111000%26algo%3DREC.CURRENT%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D14%26meid%3D2650105108547286074%26pid%3D100015%26prg%3D1006%26rk%3D1%26sd%3D221008588863%26

what is peoples' advice about lumps? this is his first week of 'solids' and we have just done babyrice so far.. planning to start veg this weekend and will start smooth, but dont want to create a baby that is fussy with lumps! blw just scares me!

I never made first purees totally smooth, I ensured a bit of texture, and gradually let it get thicker each batch I made, babys are very good at gagging if they think somethings too big to swallow, or tastes yuck, its scary but they're fine!

I second StateofConfusion. Purees are good for soupy style things but if the food is nice and tender you can really just mash it up right from the word go. If it's a bit saucy (rather than dry) it helps the lumps go down a bit that's for sure. I've always found meat a bit difficult to do though apart from the inevitable mince. My DS is only really chomping though meat-lumps in stew at 19mo. Bizarrely, he only started gagging once I started feeding him on those supermarket bought purees. I think they were just too smooth and too thick.

I make a lot of purees, generally they come out a bit thicker than jars/pouches anyway. But I feed her separate lumpy food - things like bread, cheese, those Organix crisps, bits of chicken (small pieces from a roast chicken seem to go down well), and fruit we have always given as pieces. She still prefers 'meals' to be lump free but will happily chew on a carrot stick or banana.

Copps you'll never get them as smooth as commercial made ones unless you pass your homemade through a fine strainer/sieve/mulsin. That's how you make fruit coulis smooth in desserts. Like

cooking-ez.com/base/recipe-fruit-coulis-fruit-puree.html

What I mean is your homemade will always be a bit lumpier than baby rice/commercial smooth.

I just used kitchen scissors to cut meat etc into crumbs, and a fork! Ds loved his mash with increasing lumps.

Of course now I have dd who refuses to have a spoon in her mouth if she isn't in control, so doing mainly finger food...

notcitrus I have one of those. But she's now figured out some food is faster if we feed her. She'll hand the bowl and the spoon to us if she wants help. Things like yoghurt, rice, cousous. Obviously that's not like spoon feeding purees, since the rice and couscous sometimes have very very lumpy stuff like meat, carrots etc in them.

thanks all! i think i may have a go without buying a blender at all and see how he takes it :)

I'd still buy a hand blender if I were you, just a cheap one - its great for making soups and sauces anyway, and one of the easiest and healthiest things to make for the baby is to whizz up a load of veg and turn it into a pasta sauce. Certainly not a waste for £5!