Baby food

Making your own baby food can save hundreds. There are a couple of ways of doing it. Easy but not the cheapest: buy tinned fruit and puree it, then freeze in icecube trays for use later. Cheapest but a bit more labor intensive: Boil your own veg and puree and freeze as above. You can just simply cook extra when you're making family meals and puree it and freeze. When it's frozen in ice cube trays you can simply pop them out in to a zip lock bag and use one or two at a time. Perfect for little baby sized portions. - Plingie, Christchurch.
Mums can save time putting baby food through the food processor by grating it frozen instead! I am a maternal child health nurse and am always looking for ways to make it easier for mums to introduce solid food to their babies. An elderly lady I once spoke to told me that when she was introducing meat into her babies' diets she would freeze it then simply grate it in with the vegetables and so on when it was time for cooking. It's ready in a matter of minutes. - K.H.
I make free cafe meals for my two year old. I refuse to pay over $1.10 for the convenience of tinned food for him when we have to go out. Like most small children he won't eat vegetables but loves pasta, so each weekend I make a big pot of thick minestrone soup for the whole family. I add tomato paste to make it red and small elbow pasta so he thinks he's eating pasta! Then I freeze single serve portions in re-useable air tight containers. I take them with us still frozen and have yet to come across a cafe who wouldn't reheat one for us at meal time. - S.S.
Frozen banana chunks are a great teether for babies, and for next to nothing. Our daughter is teething but buying rusks can be quite expensive. Instead we buy discounted bananas, cut them into small pieces, skewer them on to plastic icy pole holders (bought from a second hand store), then freeze. The end result is a tasty teether which my three-year-old can help me make and enjoy as a special ice cream treat. - L.M.

Return to Home page