Homemade Baby Food

Homemade baby food is very easy to make and a great way to preserve food that you may not use before it goes to waste. In this case we were headed away on holidays, a friend had been staying with us and had stocked our fridge with amazing organic produce. I could not face seeing in the compost bin  - so an hour of peeling, steaming and blending and Mr. O has a great stock of homemade food to come home to. For tips and recipes there is a great website called Wholesome Baby Food http://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com/ .

I guess the big question is why go to all the trouble to make homemade food? Although I am sure there are a tons of answers...this is what motivates me:
- It's easy
- Cost efficient (you can definitely save a few dollars)
- Quality control (you know exactly what is in there)
- It helps to decrease waste (of both food (that may go bad) and the packaging that store bought food comes in)

General guidelines for storing frozen baby food can be found here: http://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com/FreezePage.htm

Mrs. P and I got to work washing, chopping and peeling - we steamed carrots, broccoli, apples and boiled plums.

Next out came the containers for a wash and rinse. When Poppy was born I did invest in some great baby food containers that were on sale at toysrus http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=12066912 - but an ice cube tray works just as well.

I have a super old school blender, but it does the trick. Once everything was steamed, I ran each batch through the blender (it helps to save some of the water used for steaming and add a small amount at a time to to the mixture to get a smooth consistency while blending). 

Finally I mixed a couple of the purees together to spice things up for Mr. O. his favourite seems to be Apple-Carrot, but I also did Broccoli-carrot combo and left the plums on their own

 Everything was labeled up and put in the freezer for when we get back from our vacation.

Tips on thawing and heating can be found here: http://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com/heatandthawhomemadebabyfood.htm#.UfiCn22kM7Y

I ended up with quite a bit of food that almost went into the compost bin!

Max's Bday party...calls for a DINOSAUR hoodie.

Miss P's bestie was turning 2 and what better gift for a little boy then a hoodie that turns you into a DINOSAUR! Of course the idea came from pinterest...

Materials needed

• Hoodie (I purchased this one from walmart for $8) 
• 3 pieces of felt (which I found 3 for .99 at the local dollar store)

Here is the finished product (looking very handsome on Mr. Max I must say!):

Party day!! Happy Birthday Max! 

Start off by cutting the felt into diamonds, a few sizes (smaller for the top and larger down the back), then pinning them along the middle of the sweater

 

Sew one straight line down the middle of all of the pinned diamonds

Next fold each triangle in half and sew around the edge

And here it is....

Now Miss P is dying for one...maybe purple and pink? 

Here is the link to the original tutorial I found on pinterest http://diyingtobedomestic.wordpress.com/2011/09/23/dinosaur-hoodie/