Mash Your Own

Now that J is entering the world of solid foods, I am learning a whole new set of recipes.  I have gleamed knowledge from several friends and sources and was pleased to find out that making my own is very simple.  None of these methods are original, but I thought I'd pass along the good ideas.

J has been eating oatmeal and nanners for breakfast.  Oatmeal is as easy as it sounds.  Put the uncooked, plain oats in a food processor until they are a powder. Simply add hot water (or microwave), stir and let sit for a minute or so to cook and cool. In J's case add some smashed nanners, oatmeal is simply gag inducing without them...

While that is all good and well for breakfast, J needed to expand his pallet to vegetables.  We turned to the famed baby favorite, the sweet potato.  And it lived up to the hype.

Want to make your own? Cook a sweet potato as you normally would (400F, in foil for ~45 min). Cool, scoop out the flesh, blend in a food processor until smooth.  That's it.  Hardly a recipe- yet.  When J gets a bit older you better believe I'm going to mix some things in there, but for now we're taking one new food at a time.

Many snazzy containers have been invented to store your homemade baby food. OR you can spend .99 and scoop tablespoon portions into an ice tray, cover with plastic wrap, and freeze (I wish I had done this evenly and neatly, but, I didn't)...



Once the cubes of baby food are frozen, pop them out to store in the freezer...





until it's dinner time.  Zip that single serving cube in the microwave and orange nanners are served.



The sweet potato is by far one of the easiest baby foods to make.  Green beans, for example, you must push through a sieve to remove the seeds and outer casing.  I think we'll try avocados next. Those you freeze in slices and then mash (to reduce browning). More to follow once I have a little more room for creativity with J's dinners.

Happy mashing!