my first attempt at making baby food

Earlier this week I began the process of making baby food for Malakai. We chose sweet potato for his first veggie. On Monday night after Ben got home from work I popped over to the grocery store to pick up the potatoes and some freezer bags. The plan was to make everything and feed it to him that night, but my attempt to multi-task didn't work out so great. I got the potatoes baked that night. I used the instructions on wholesomebabyfood.com which say to slice the skin and scoop out the "meat" from the potato, but they were so well done that the skin just slid/peeled right off. I tossed the insides into a sealed container and my project was "too be continued" as Kai enjoyed rice cereal once more.

Tuesday after Henry got picked up and Kai ate his rice cereal I went to work. I didn't want to run the blender while he was sleeping so he stayed in his high chair and watched.

and here is my tiny workspace, that happened to be a gigantic mess as well.

I don't have a food processor or a special baby food maker. I don't even have a hand blender like the one I'm giving away here.

But the puree setting on my regular ol' blender works just fine. I actually got this blender last Christmas and this was my first time using it. Guess I haven't had much to blend in the last 12 months.

I just added water til I got a good consistency...just a bit thinner than this

Then I started to spoon it in to regular ice cube trays, but discovered pouring was faster and not really any messier.

I've been told by other moms that hard plastic ice cube trays are difficult to get the food out of once frozen, but I had no difficulties. I just covered them with plastic wrap (the kirkland stuff from Costco is the best all around in my opinion) and then turned them over and did a little twisting to pop them out onto the plastic. Then just scooped them into my little freezer bags and voila!

I saved a little for his dinner that night.

We had the cameras ready to capture whatever faces he made when trying it for the first time... and we stripped him down to avoid staining any clothing.

He acted like he's been eating this stuff forever. He loved it!

I also learned that using frozen vegetables contains the same nutrients as fresh ones and that it's a-okay to thaw, puree, and refreeze them.

So I was thinking of this for his next food since we already have them in the freezer...

But Dr. A did say that even though Broccoli is one of the best food for nutrients, it can also make babies gassy...and I think mine is gassy enough as it is!

 I was going to do bananas but figured that'd be too many sweet foods in a row and he might not take the green veggies as easily.

Maybe peas or green beans next?

What first veggies did you give your baby?