So, things are about to get exciting around here. This week, BabyHacks is starting on solid foods. And by “solid foods” I mean flavored sludge. I am both excited and repelled at the same time. I’m excited because I can’t wait to watch her experience the flavors that the world has to offer. I’m repelled because I think it’s going to be messy and time consuming, and it’s going to result in much stinkier diapers.
Since I’m a big fan of Mama Hacks to make life easier, I’m already planning ahead for how to make this whole process work the best. I want to make as much of baby food as possible, because I want to know what’s going into my baby. Also because I’m insane.
What I’ve discovered is that I don’t have to make fresh vegetable purees every single day. Instead, I’m steaming a bunch of produce at once, sending it through the food processor, and then freezing the resulting mush in ice cube trays. Each section in the tray holds about an ounce of puree.
Once the baby food is frozen, I can transport it into reusable containers marked “green beans,” “carrots,” or whatever. At dinner time, I’ll grab a couple of cubes out of the container and heat them up in the baby food warmer. If all goes according to plan, this will take a lot of the work out of making daily meals, and I’ll only need to rely on prepackaged baby food when we’re traveling.
(Mama Hack: n. A tip or technique that reduces the chaos in a mama’s life and makes it easier to manage or more convenient. Because no one looks back and says, “I wish it would have been more complicated.”)
