Homemade Baby Food!

Ayden is 5 months and we just started him on baby food. We tried the rice cereal for a month and he was not a big fan unless there was breast milk in it and I just couldn't get it down when to pump that 1 ounce everyday... so we decided since he was sitting up and rolling over we would try food. He has loved it and mom and dad have loved it as well! It is so fun watching him sit forward and open his mouth for more...he never did that for cereal...

When Ayden was born my friend Emily started making her own baby food from her daughter Madi. I was interested in this so for my birthday she bought me the baby food cookbook "Top Ten Baby Purees" By. Annabel Karmel, and 4 ice cube trays. I wanted to try to make my own baby food because I knew that if I was making it I would know what he was getting and also I remembered Emily warming up Madison's food and it smelt like real food! I have tried baby food from the store and it doesn't taste like much. I really want Adyen to eat healthy and hopefully it will help his parents eat more healthy too! I have heard from lots of moms that when kids are done with baby food then they only eat "kids food" so I think that at least if we start with this food maybe he will continue to enjoy it after we are done with the purees. Another plus about home made baby food is it has helped me to try to fix vegetables that I would normally not buy or cook. I never thought I liked sweet potato's and after I made them for Ayden I tried them and I did like them. The last benefit and the most import for us is it is much cheaper! I have made carrots, sweet potato's and peas and spent $4.00. Making all three of these veggies totaled up to 42 servings! If I would have spent $4 at the store I would have gotten about 8 servings. This also didn't take very long! Peas were the easiest taking 30 mins and to make both carrots and sweet potato's at the same time it took Emily and I 1 hour.

I really like cooking and it has become very fun to look at the store adds and figure out whats on sale and what I can make Ayden next. I think we are going to try Apples, Pears and Bananas next and then I can start some of the fun recipes in the book and put things together like Chicken, Sweet Potato and Apple.