Adventures in baby-food Making: Turnips, Egg Yolks, Mangoes, Lima Beans

Should last us a while!

We are now in the “what has Sawyer not tried” phase so we are having fun brainstorming fruits and veggies that aren’t so typical. My mom is great at this, she knows way more about foods than I do so I have leaned on her for help (love you mom!). Sunday we decided to have a food making party while the boys watched football. After two hours, we had made 97 oz. of baby food, a huge success! I have actually been thinking about offering my services to other moms who want home-made food but don’t have time or equipment. So if you need baby food, let’s talk.

So patient as we cooked! You can see the excitement in his eyes!

With out further delay, here is a heaping dose of baby food instructions? This is the longest list I’ve compiled thus far.

We made: Turnips, Peaches (frozen), egg yolks, bananas and lima beans (frozen).

Bananas & Peaches are super simple, you just throw them in a blender with a little water and they’re done. The other foods have more steps, so instructions are below.

A couple weekends back, we also made mangoes that were a little tricky to make so I included direction on them as well.

Adventures in baby-food Making: Bananas

So I know a lot of moms can't find extra time to make their own baby food, I definitely wouldn't be able to do it without my mom's help (GO MOM!). BUT if you still want to try it then I have the easiest fruit there is...BANANAS. It's 3 easy steps and it makes yummy nanners.

If you buy your bananas a few days in advance they will taste better than the green un-ripened ones. Also, don't be worried when the finished product looks brown. This is normal!

See only 3 steps.

Steps

1. Peal Bananas

2. cut up, add about 1/4 cup water (per every 2 bananas) and put in processor, Baby Bullet or blender and Puree

3. Put in storage containers, freeze or refrigerator depending on when you plan to use them. (Here are some rules of thumb – 3 days in refrigerator or 30 days in freezer)

can get a little runny so you might not need as much water

5 bananas made 16.5 ounces of food, that is almost 2.5 days of food for Sawyer.

The Math

Sawyer is up to about 7 ounces now of fruits & veggies a day. He has gone from the supporter sitter to sitter level in Gerber's foods. This is a 2 ounce increase, so the savings have decreased a little. Bananas are about 49 cents a pound, one of the cheapest fruits I can think of so it is worth trying for sure. They yield some great savings and it is so easy it's something you could do really quickly if you are out of food. It's a good food to mix too with other fruits or even in rice cereal.

HOME-MADE

5 – bananas made 16.5 oz. of baby food = 61 cents

Total cost per ounce = 4 cents

STORE BOUGHT

Gerber 1st Foods SmartNourish Organic baby food (bananas) comes in 2 – 3.5 containers for $1.49 each, so 16.5 ounces = $3.47

Total cost per ounce = 21 cents

TOTAL SAVINGS PER OUNCE = 17 cents

1 day of Gerber’s Bananas (2 containers or 7 ounces per day) =$1.49

1 day of Home-made Bananas (5 ounces per day) =  $.28

Total Savings per day = $1.21

Total Savings per week (7 days) = $8.47

Total Savings per month (30 day month) = $36.30

Total Savings per year (365 days) = $441.65