Organic Baby Food on a Budget. . . Part 2!

I wrote all about what you need to start making your own baby food. 

If you didn't see the post- click here- Organic Baby Food on a Budget. 

I would like to share with you now a few things I've learned along the way.

If you've read my earlier post, you know that with baby #2 I started making food very early. 

I used fresh fruits from the farmer's market, and froze them. It has been super easy. 

You might be thinking "Kelsey, I didn't start making food so freakishly early, and now these fruits and veggies aren't in season". 

Don't fret! It can be fixed! 

After starting solids with A, I discovered that she LOVES peaches. So I fed them to her, all of them, and we needed more. 

Not sure if anyone has looked for organic peaches in February but they are IMPOSSIBLE to find! 

So, as I stood at the checkout with $10 worth of pre-made peach pouches, it hits me. . . I could use frozen peaches!!! 

Duh!

So I grabbed a bag for $3 which made about 12oz of peaches! Genius. 

And it couldn't have been easier. 

Just like with fresh peaches, there is no cooking/ steaming required. So I let the bag sit on the counter for an hour or so to thaw and put them in my processor with about 1/3 cup of water (just to get things going) and voila! Peaches. 

I froze the extras in my favorite baby food tray- once frozen I plop them into a freezer bag and then defrost them as needed.

Another baby staple. . . prunes.
Once your baby starts solids they tend to start having some issues, some issues that only prunes can solve.
I couldn't find a recipe for homemade baby prunes- but again I was unwilling to shell out the money for the pre-packaged stuff so I did some investigating. The pre-packaged prunes are just prunes and water!
I made a recipe, and it works great- I'll share it with you now.
Baby Prunes
8 organic prunes
1/2 cup water
1) put the ingredients in your food processor and blend well, scraping the sides as needed.

That's it- easy huh? You may find that they are a little more liquidy (for lack of a better term) than the packaged ones. Don't worry, as soon as they cool in the fridge they tend to become more like jello.






Hope that helps a few people! Let me know if y'all have any questions!!

Love is patient, Mom isn't always

I am catholic. Not a born and raised, but I converted along with my family in high school. 

My husband, the girls and I went to mass this week and had the pleasure of sitting with my father. We were trying our hand in the ‘real’ church. 

Now if you aren’t catholic you might not know, catholic kids go to church. From a very early age Catholic kids sit, listen, stand and kneel and genuflect, and are QUIET. 

I have no idea how this comes to being. We have been sitting in the cry room since E was a baby because she loves to talk, and loudly. 

The second reading last Sunday was Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, or 1 Corinthians 13. 

You all know the one- it’s everywhere this time of year- read at every wedding, recited in every love card. 

Love is patient, love is kind.

It is not jealous, it is not pompous,

It is not inflated, it is not rude,

it does not seek its own interests,

it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,

it does not rejoice over wrongdoing

but rejoices with the truth.

It bears all things, believes all things,

hopes all things, endures all things.

I always have to stop myself from rolling my eyes when I hear this. 

Why? Because it’s so over-used. 

Some time during the homily my 2 year old E decided she had had enough sitting and listening and wanted to go play in the ‘water’, the HOLY water. 

You can bet that my response was no. Which lead to a massive meltdown. 

I was getting up to leave church so that she could continue her tantrum somewhere else when my father leaned in to me and whispered “love is patient, love is kind.”

At first I rolled my eyes, and whispered back “um thanks Dad”. 

But as her mini-meltdown grew in to full blown hysterics, I thought back to that verse that I never really pay attention to. 

From the small part of the homily that I was able to listen to I gathered that the verse was about God’s love and how we should strive to emulate this love in our own lives. 

Where better than to try and replicate this than with a two year old? 

Now I am not a ‘quote the bible’ person. I don’t have a verse for everything, I don’t have verses memorized. I really don’t talk about my faith much with people. I would rather SHOW you my faith. Show it through my actions, not scream it from the mountain top. 

These thoughts really made me think, what am I SHOWING my daughters of God’s love when I am responding to her tantrums. 

I know I am not prefect. I try and react calmly, try and keep it together, but after a while I, like everyone, have been known to crack under the persistence of my free-spirited stubborn two year old’s tantrums. 

I didn’t like the message I was sending to my daughter. I wasn’t proud of how I had been reacting lately. 

I began to think back to what my father whispered in church, “love is patient, love is kind”. 

Although I know that his words were spoken half in jest I found that repeating this simple verse in the heat of the moment helps me to calm down and respond in a way I am proud of. 

After our two and a half hour battle over ‘nap-strike’; “love is patient, love is kind”. 

After she colors all over her legs with my pen in the TWO seconds I was loading groceries in the cart at the store; “Love is patient, love is kind”

It helps. 

It really does. 

Try and parent with this verse this week- maybe it will help you too. 

Organic Baby Food on a Budget- Getting started

I am asked all the time from friends, first time moms, second time moms etc. 

“Do you feed your baby all organic baby food?” 

“Do you make your own baby food?” 

My answer, yes and yes. 

The follow-up is always “how do you find the time?” and “how do you afford it?”.

If done in the right way you CAN feed your baby all organic, home-made baby food. While on a budget and WITHOUT spending hours a day in the kitchen. 

Let me begin by saying that it wasn’t always this way. With my first daughter I was knee-deep in my last semester as a nursing student and I had NO time to even think about making our own baby food. 

All I knew at the time was 

1. the baby had to eat and 
2. we wanted to feed her organic.

So I bought the organic baby food, mostly the pouches. 

Then baby A came along, and I began to add up the expenses of adding another mouth to feed. Those pouches I fed E, they cost $1.25-2.50 EACH! 

How did I not notice this before? 

E would eat three or more of them a day, thats $105 - $210 a month!!! On baby food alone!! Hello?!?!?

Let’s be honest, looking back it still makes me want to puke. 

We had to cut back. 

So while baby A was still in utero (no joke) I began to stock pile and make my own baby food. I would buy extra carrots from the organic stand at the farmers market, take them home and make them in to food for my unborn child. 

Maybe I am crazy, maybe it was my own form of nesting, whatever, it worked. 

I don’t think that we spend more than $15 a month on A’s food. And she eats three square meals a day. 

Let me teach you about the things you will need to get started-

1. some form of steamer- (most of the recipes I use steam the food before pureeing) 
2. a food processor. (you can use a blender but I have found that a food processor works best) 
3. a small spatula 
4. a tray to freeze made food in (it can be as inexpensive as an ice cube tray) I use the beaba freezer trays.
5. some form of container to defrost the pre-made food in. I love wean-green containers. They are heavy-duty glass and I have recently discovered you can write on the glass with a dry-erase marker to label the food and it comes right off in the dishwasher. 

This is the minimalistic list, and it will get you started. 

Here are a few more items that I use and love (but you really don’t HAVE to have)

1. I love my Cuisinart baby food maker. It makes it super easy because it steams and purees right in the same container. Which makes clean up super easy, and allows me to make food without hanging around the kitchen. 
2. I loved the convenience of traveling with the pouches with Ella. I discovered the Little Green Pouch, these are made for storing your homemade baby food and traveling- which is great once the kiddos are older- you hand them a pouch and they feed themselves. The best part? They are reusable, and dishwasher safe! And they have been road-tested by my two year old and they really do stay closed!

I will post next week on how exactly I make my own baby food, and how you can too- with very little money and time. 

And we begin. . .

My name is Kelsey, I am a 20-something mother of two beautiful girls.  I meet my wonderful husband almost 10 years ago in high-school and we have been on one heck of a journey ever since.

Until the birth of my second daughter I was working as an RN in a local hospital.  I quit to be full-time with the girls. 

I have learned a few things since staying at home full-time. My hope is that in creating this blog I will be able to share our journey with you. 
Thank you for stopping by- and I hope to see you again!