In May 2011, I posted about making homemade baby food. I did it consistently with Charlie, and I've started it up again with Emmett. My main resource was, and is, Cooking Light First Foods (CLFF). I love it!
As I've started making food for Emmett, I decided to post some things I've learned. I still have not tried making all the foods in CLFF, but I have made quite a few. While most have been very easy, here are three I've had some difficulties with:
Green Peas
CLFF says to steam fresh or thawed peas for 6 min. or until very tender then process until smooth. I had a hard time getting mine smooth--and Charlie did not like the consistency.
I'd suggest steaming them longer, 8-10 min.
Plums
CLFF says to peel the plums. I dislike using potato peelers, so I looked online and discovered that plums can be easily peeled if they are blanched for 30 seconds. So I gave it a try, and 3 out of 14 of my plums had their peels easily rub off--it was fantastic. The others . . . not so much; I ended up using my potato peeler anyway. I think the 3 that worked were the most ripe. However, even though they peeled easy, halving and pitting them was a giant mess after they were blanched.
In the future, I will get the most ripe/over-ripe plums I can find, and halve and pit them prior to blanching. Then proceed with steaming and processing.
Dried Prunes
CLFF says to strain the mixture through a sieve after boiling and processing the dried prunes. This was time consuming! And frustrating!
I discovered that adding more of the cooking liquid to the mixture before straining made it a lot easier--go for thinner rather than thicker. But I also question how important it is to discard the solids. Would it be bad for the baby if I left them in? I don't know.
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