Adventures in Making Baby Food

Before Charlotte was born I had thought I would try my hand at making baby food for her when the time came. My reasoning was not that Brendan and I are health food nuts or food purists...I simply did not want to spend the money it would cost to buy jarred baby food. Then we found out we were moving to Spain, and I was even more on-board with the idea. Thankfully we moved here before Charlotte needed baby food, so I had time to scope things out and prepare myself for the endeavor.

Actually before we even left the U.S., I picked up this baby food cookbook, Cooking for Baby, at Williams-Sonoma. I also looked into specialty cookware, ie. Beaba Babycook, because I thought that might make the process easier. The price tag is pretty high on those convenient machines ($150) and we didn't want to buy electronics before moving overseas, so we held off on purchasing one. Once we got to Spain, we saw that they were also pricey here, and I just wasn't sold on it being that much more convenient. I decided to go the basic way of cooking the food then blending/mashing/etc.

Being a first time mom and not really all that familiar with babies anyway, I really knew nothing about starting a baby on solids....so I read a lot! I also scouted out my options for baby food from the time we moved to Spain in February until our trip back to the U.S. at the end of March. I knew what I had seen in passing at the grocery store in the U.S., so I checked out what was offered in Spanish mercados (grocery stores) just so I knew what commercial baby food was offered.

Here is a sampling of what you will find for babies in Spain:

{Starter cereal is Cereal without gluten}

{Cereal with honey - note that it's for babies 6 months+}

{Ham & Veggies}

So I found out that in Spain they just jump right in with like 4 meals a day and all types of foods. I might not know much about introducing solids, but I knew enough from my [American] books that that wasn't the way we were going to go with Charlotte. So, that "solid"-ified my decision to make food for her rather than buying jarred food. :)

I've now been making fruit, veggie, and meat purees for her for about 3 months now. It's taken some work but really hasn't been that time consuming. She has been so kind as to eat just about everything we've given her - the exception is avocados, but we also don't do a very good job of picking ripe ones. One of her favorite foods has been butternut squash...I'm just sad that I can't find it anymore here; I'm hoping to find it again in the fall and do some more creative things with it.

I really can't imagine how much it would cost us to buy jarred baby food, but just looking at the prices, I think we're saving a ton! And it is nice to know that Charlotte is eating wholesome food with no preservatives...I know exactly what goes into her food.

Some things I will do differently next time around:

• Plan more - it is just in my natural to plan. (I'm about to start putting together a homekeeping organizer :)) But with Charlotte, I would get in a frenzy making a lot of purees, then get in a slump (often caused by her disinterest in eating). With our next baby, I'll be more consistent with making food on some sort of schedule so that I don't look in the freezer and think, "Whoa! I need to make some food for this kid!"
• Start saving larger glass containers sooner - so far I have just been freezing Charlotte's purees in ice cube trays which has worked out great for us. But I've just recently started holding onto and cleaning small-size glass food containers to use to freeze foods as her portion sizes increase. I wish I had more of these.