How I made a ton of baby food for $18

So, the time has come for Ava Kate to gobble up some yummy purees.  For Christmas, Santa Claus brought her $20 worth of Gerber baby food... most of which she has demolished now.  It took her a while to get the hang of eating solid food, but now she is a pro.  Despite the convenience of Gerber baby food, I didn't want to break the bank... and I knew I could make it for less.

I mean, look at that face.  She's so happy and ready to eat!  So, I did my research and went to the grocery store with my list in hand.  I bought peas, green beans, peaches, sweet potatoes, pears, apples, carrots, and bananas... all of this for $18 at Aldi.  I love some Aldi.

While we baked the sweet potatoes and boiled the apples, pears, peas, and green beans, I pureed the peaches.  Yes, I used no sugar added canned peaches.  Yes, I know fresh peaches would be better... as would fresh green beans, and fresh everything else.... but oh well, it's what I went ahead and bought because it's what was in stock.  I don't care if you judge me.

I put all the pureed goodness into ice cube trays and froze them.

Once they were frozen, I put them in quart size freezer bags and stored some of them in Ava Kate's Christmas present our deep freezer, and some of them in our kitchen freezer.

She approves.  Look at this face:

I still need to do the bananas and carrots, but everything else is done.  Parker helped me and we did it in about 3 hours with a Sunday School social in the middle of it all.  Now that we've done it, we could do it in way less time... so, here's my advice:

Tips

• Preheat your oven to 400° while you begin to prep the food.
• Cut up the apples and pears.
• Boil the apples, pears, green beans, and peas.
• Once everything is going, wash your sweet potatoes and poke holes in them with a fork.  Put them in a pan with a little bit of water.
• Bake your sweet potatoes for 30 minutes.
• While all of that's happening, puree your peaches.  Pour them into ice cube trays & rinse the food processor/blender.
• Then, puree your peas and green beans (separately of course).  Pour them into ice cube trays & rinse the food processor/blender.
• Take your sweet potatoes out and dice them.  Then add a little water to the food processor and puree (use the water from the pan if you want... or breast milk).  Pour into ice cube trays & rinse the food processor/blender.
• Optional: Go to your Sunday School Social and let your apples and pears soak.
• Squeeze the apples with your hands and the peels will come right off.  You can puree them with the peels or without, totally up to you.  Some people suggests that the peels might be hard for baby to digest at first, but by 7 months, he/she should be good to go.  Put them in the ice cube trays, then rinse food processor/blender.
• Do the same to the pears.
• Freeze everything and clean up your mess.

The Breakdown:

With the most costly batch (peaches) costing 7 cent per ounce, I considered this a huge savings.  We did some price checking before diving into this endeavor, and the least expensive baby food we could find was at Walmart.  It was $1 per package... which came out to be about 15-20 cents per ounce.  Soooo..... making your own baby food for less than half the costs of buying it equals a success in my book!  And, it was super easy!

I figured this will probably last us a long time... at least long enough to get us to Ava Kate eating finger foods and a blend of whatever we're eating.  I'll let you know what happens.