When Life Gives You Apples... Make Applesauce

My project this week was making baby food. Considering that baby food is simply a fruit/veggie cooked and then pureed, I thought it'd be easy enough to make.

My only hang-up was the idea of pureeing food daily... since Gavin can not yet eat table food, he is working through stage 1, 2 and 3 of baby food. So, I decided to spend a chunk of time (2-3 hours) making all of his stage 1 food and then freezing it in ice cube trays. Each morning this week I have popped out a serving of food, let it defrost in the fridge, and then I've served it up! It has worked wonderfully. And, best of all, I have plenty of food cooked and ready to go!

Stage 1 foods that I prepared:
Veggies: Sweet Potatoes, Carrots, Squash, Peas, and Green Beans
Fruits: Prunes, Apples, Bananas, Pears, and PeachesTo read thru the recipes I used to make this baby food, go here on Momtastics's website.

In general...
Peel skin from fruit/vegetable

Chop food into smaller chunks

Remove seeds/core

Cook food with a quick boil on the stove top

Use a fork to check for done-ness

Drain excess water

Puree food in a mini-prep (or blender or with a potato masher)

Add water, if needed, to make a thin/runny consistency

Pour food into ice cube trays and freeze

Pop out food and store in a labeled freezer bag

After making all of the food I weighed it and compared the cost of groceries and the volume of pureed food it yielded to the price and volume of store-bought baby food. And... I easily saved 50+% by making the food myself! All of the produce was a cost savings except pears and peaches.
My groceries cost $14.10 and yielded $26.11 worth of baby food (when assigning a cost per gram of food; see * at the end of post). However, since food is sold per jar (and not per gram) it would cost at least $37 to purchase this amount of baby food.

All in all, I produced 157 cubes of baby food. (Your baby food puree may yield more or less than mine depending on how much water is added. I tended towards adding less water with the thought I can add more later.)

Since 1 cube has been enough for 2 meals during his stage 1 consumption, I have 300 meals ready for $14! When Gavin advances from stage 1 to stage 2 foods I will still have food leftover from this cooking session. My plan is to mix defrosted purees together. (For example, Gerber sells an apple pear blueberry stage 2 jar of food. To mimic it, I would mix a cube of apple, cube of pear, make pureed blueberry, and mix them all together.) All that to say, this batch of food will last me beyond stage 1 eating.

Additional statistics:
2 sweet potatoes yielded 815 grams of food costing $1.80 but worth $5.68 of jarred food
1 small bag of carrots yielded 476 grams and cost $0.88 but worth $3.32
16 ounces of frozen peas yielded 353 grams and cost $1.28 but worth $2.46
3 squash yielded 300 grams and cost $1.62 but worth $2.09
A few handfuls of fresh green beans yielded 352 grams and cost $1.27 but worth $2.45
2 apples yielded 273 grams and cost $1.39 but worth $1.90
2 pears yielded 368 grams and cost $2.64 but worth $2.56
2 peaches yielded 264 grams and cost $4.20 but worth $1.84
5 ounces of dried prunes yielded 200 grams and cost $0.98 but worth $1.39
4 bananas yielded 347 grams and cost $0.72 but worth $2.42

*For comparison I used the conversion factor of 5 ounces (142 grams) of baby food costing $0.99 per jar. Obviously, you can not buy a partial jar of baby food, even though above calculations are valued at a cost per gram. So, in reality, you would save more than the amounts noted above since they are based on price per grams and not price per jar.

And, as always Munchkin was a big help!