Homemade baby food *updated 1/26

Homemade baby food is cheaper and healthier for your baby. I just started making it and never realized how easy it is. My mother bought me a baby bullet on sale for $20 and it has everything in it. This thing is amazing, I absolutely love it. I love the instruction booklet in it that shows how to make everything. From milling rice to showing baby's feeding schedule. It has it all from up to 2 years old.
Jarred baby food ranges from 98 cents to 60. 60 cents was the cheapest I found.
 I also froze it, the set comes with  freezing, easy pop batch try. (The white on in the picture). The little cups has dials on the top to date when they expire. It also has a chop and a milling blade, spatula, big and small mix cups and food information.
When I was using up my jarred baby food I kept the jars and ran them through the dishwasher and kept them and put my own food in them. When I would fill them I would put tape on them and label what they are and date them. I also froze them in the jars and they turned out fine.
Frozen lasts up to a month and refrigerated is 3 days.  

I started mixing bananas and tried it out. We tested it on my son and he absolutely loved it. He went nuts, he loved it so much better than jarred. He ate 2 things of it and 5 oz of milk. I like making my own cause I know whats in it.

Now for mixing. These ideas came from the booklet I got with the baby bullet. Some are my ideas.

 Here are some ideas you can mix:

Food for 4-6 months

• 1 full banana with 1/4 c water or less water if you want it more thicker. 
• 1 full apple peeled (you can steam it if you want) with 1/4 c water
• half an apple, peeled and half a banana with 1/4 c of water or less ( i also added some of the blended zucchini in place of the water and he loved that too. I did that cause he wouldn't eat the zucchini)
• Steamed Zucchini ( i just sliced it, steamed it and cubed it and shoved it in the processor and added a little water cause zucchini has water in it). 
• 1 to 1/2 c of frozen peas, defrosted and steamed. Mix with 1/4 c of water or less. 
• 1 avocado, mix with little bit of water.
• 1-4 carrots, peeled and steamed. Mix with 1/4 c water.

Food for 7-9 months

• 3-4 stalks of asparagus, steamed and mix with 1/4 c water or less
• Hand full of blueberries and a half a banana with 1/4 c yogurt.
• 2-3 Apricot peeled and boiled. Add some apples to it to make it more sweeter and some water.
• half of a peach, peeled and 1/4 c of water or less water.  
• Summer squash, peas, carrots and peas. Mince all ingredients, steam and blend with 1/4 c water. 
• 1 mango, peeled and de seeded. Mix with 1/4 c water. 
• Half of sweet potatoes, steamed and mix with 1/4 c water. 
• 2 potatoes peeled, cut and steamed, 2 carrots peeled, cut and steamed with 1/4 c water or more. 
• Oatmeal- get 1/2 c of uncooked oatmeal and place in small cup and use mill chopper. Mill it till it turnes into a powder. Add to pot and 1/4 c of water and cook till it boils. With this you can add to peaches, any veggie, apples, bananas, ect... I just added peaches a little bit of water and oatmeal. Enough oatmeal to cover the peaches.  I mixed it really well and it turned out good my son loved it. 

Food for 10 months-1 year

At this point I would just make a regular dinner and blend it up and put it in the jars. I would freeze some and refrigerate the rest. Of course I would label them and date them. For the frozen ones I put the date that I made it on it. Also at the 11 month point I didnt really have to blend most of the food. At a year Im starting to put it in a bowl and showing him what its for. Ill get a bowl and eat from it and show him that mommy does it too. 

• Spaghetti (his all time favorite food), blend with 1/4 c of water or more. It takes a lot to blend this and I didnt really mince it I left it kinda chunky so he can learn to chew. 
• Chicken spaghetti, blend with 1/4 c of water or more. This is the same as the regular spaghetti.
• Ham and corn soup
• Ham and potato soup
• Any kind of soup that is fit for this age group
• Manicotti (he loves it)
• Black beans, kidney beans.. any kind of bean. Cook and blend with 1/4 c of water or less. 
• Any beef, chicken or turkey will do
• Any kind of dinner you make will work great, just be careful what you give them. I made chili one day and I knew my son could not have that. Thats why its nice to have others blended for them so if you had like taco night you could give them spaghetti. 

More to come!!!!

4th of July Wreath

I know this is way late but you could make it and use it next year. I got all my stuff at the dollar store except the wire wreath.

What you'll need:

• Wire wreath
• Red, white, and blue garland
• Sign or something to put on it
• hot glue gun

What to do:

Start by wrapping the garland around the wire wreath. Once you got one section done glue pieces of the garland to the wreath. This took some time. I would take a piece and put glue on the wreath and place on wreath. Take the other string of garland and wrap the other half. Glue. Take another string and wrap it the second time. Glue places that are loose and fluff up. Add sign or anything else you want. Fluff up again.

Tada a 4th of July wreath. 

Chicken pot pie filling

I just made this and it is so amazing!!! I love it. I made a bunch and froze it for a freezer meal. There were a lot of things I changed with this recipe. Again I got this from pinterest and changed it up my way. I put them in pot pie cups by putting biscuits in a cupcake tin like the ones I did on the chicken pot pie cups post. This filling is so much better but it takes longer to cook than the other one. So I didn't have the full 3 cups of stock so I put a can in and 2 chicken bullion cubes in. I just poured milk in till it was less thick, I didn't exactly measure it. Also I boiled the chicken and put the carrots and S&P in with the chicken. Its so much easier to cut when you boil it and you get more flavor. I put some of the broth from the chicken boiling:)

What you'll need:

• Handful of carrots
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1 c frozen vegetable mix
• 1 c flour
• 1 c butter (2 sticks)
• 1 1/4 c milk ( or just pour it in)
• 6 small Chicken tenderloins cooked and cut up
• Half of onion chopped
• 1/3 c or less of broth from boiling chicken

What to do:
 In a pot put chicken and carrots in and boil till carrots are tender and chicken is cooked. While chicken is cooking put biscuits in muffin tin. Remove chicken and carrots and cut up, set aside. In a large skillet, sauté onion in butter until tender. Stir in flour, salt, thyme, and pepper until blended.  Gradually stir in broth and milk.  Bring to a boil.  Cook and stir for a couple minutes or until thickened.  Add the chicken, peas, corn,  and carrots.  Remove from heat.

Place spoonfuls in biscuits till full. 

Cook at 375 degrees till biscuits are a light brown. 

Odd things you can BBQ

You probably already know these but there are some people that don't. So here are some things that you didn't know you could grill.

Potatoes:
I just poked a bunch of holes in the potato. Placed it on tin foil and put oil on it and wrapped it up. Poked more holes in it and just set it on the BBQ. It cooked way faster than oven and it came out really good than microwaving it. Also you could stick cheese and other things in the tin foil with it.

Potato wedges:
My husband showed this to me. He cut the potatoes in wedges. Smothered them in oil and seasoning (garlic salt, seasoned salt, S&P, little chili powder). Placed them right on the grill and cooked. When done he set tin foil on the grill and placed the wedges on it and smothered them in cheese and let the cheese melt in the grill. They were so good and crispy.

Corn:
My sis showed me this. You don't shuck them you leave it all on and put oil on them and put them on the grill and grill till cooked. They actually turned out really good:).

Asparagus:
Oil and season them. Put on grill and cook. MMMMMMM!!!

Grilled cheese:
Its a grilled grilled cheese haha. Make a grilled cheese like normal but put it on the grill. Or some tin foil if it works best.

Onions and peppers:
Grilled onions and peppers are amazing on any sandwich. Just slice them up and put them in a safe bowl and place on grill and cook. I used a tin bowl to put them in. I like to put garlic butter on them too to cook with. I did this a lot when I worked at Maverik when I would do BBQ. I would put it on hamburgers for the customers. It was a hit.

Pizza:
My sis in law did this and it was the best ever. She made the dough and stretched it out and put it right on the grill. Than once it was almost done she would put her cheese, sauce and toppings on it. Sooo delicious.

Quesadilla:
Place tortilla on grill add cheese, chicken, and green sauce and another tortilla and cook:) Also you can season the chicken and cook on the grill to put it on the quesadilla.


If I think of anymore ill post:) or if anyone has any ideas let me know. Ill post and credit you.