DIY: Baby Food...

Maya has turned six months! {about two weeks ago but seeing as how she is almost constantly in my arms, I never got to give her a proper post...} Anyway, I kind-of wanted to do a little post on making your own baby food and Maya so kindly suggested that I share her belated "Happy 6 Months" post with a topic that she is so very fond of: homemade baby food!

{I must mention before going any further that I am most certainly not the type to put headbands on mostly bald babies. However, Layla adorned Maya with this one-because she decorates everyone and everything in her path-and I must admit it was too cute to take off.

Ah-hem...I mean I got right around to removing it after breakfast.}

Okay, so anyway, I started making baby food rather than purchasing the canned variety when Layla was a wee babe. I think I mostly did it for cost saving purposes, but I liked the idea of knowing precisely what was going into the food that I was feeding her. At the time, I would simply cook the fruit or vegetables on the stove and then puree it in the blender. I have to say that if your thinking of making your own baby food and you currently own a blender or food processor, making your own is rather easy. You have total control over the ingredients and the options are endless as to what varieties to serve.

With Maya, I was absolutely certain that I'd be making all her entrees right in my own kitchen. We were very fortunate to be gifted with a Baeba Baby Cook. This little device has made making Maya's meals all too easy and I highly recommend it to anyone who is wanting to try, thinking about, or currently making baby food at home.

The contents of baby's meal are cooked in the device, water is drained off and then added back in as needed when pureeing {right in the device} and voila! Clean-up is rather simple because all food activity is limited to the the device. There's a video on the website which pretty much sums up how to use the Baby Cook and allow me to reassure you that it really is as easy as it looks.

Now, as I mentioned, making baby food without the use of the Baby Cook is quite easy as well. However, there is more clean-up involved and I usually had a hard time getting my blender to cooperate in getting the puree to the exact consistency that I was looking for. Also, I usually tended to make way more at a time {because of all the clean-up} and therefore had to pour the extra into ice cube trays, freeze, re-package into plastic baggies, yada, yada, yada. The Baby Cook allows me to cook in smaller portions and not have to deal with all the freezing and so forth.

Right now, we're pretty much just making a variety of vegetables but once Maya gets a little bigger, I'll be excited to try some of the recipes in this cookbook. While certainly not necessary to making any kind of baby food, it's a really great guide and provides lots of great, and unique ideas for more complex baby foods.

So, there it is! My little plug for making your own baby food and my new best friend: the Baby Cook. I'd like to mention that {while it would be super nice} neither Baeba nor Williams-Sonoma is giving me one red cent to write this. I'm just one mama trying to help out another!

AND...Happy 6 Months, Maya! You are so stinkin' cute it's un-real!