Making baby food with apples is the same as making applesauce. When we make applesauce, my husband usually spices it up a bit; but, for Claire, I keep it simple. I used three apples and you’d be surprised how much that yields. I got about 6 or 7 servings (Claire usually eats about three cubes per serving – she’s a big girl but more on that later…) from these Gala apples. You can use whatever kind of apples you like although I usually don’t use red delicious or granny smith (there’s just something about the taste when the apples are cooked; but, again it’s all about preference).

Here’s easy-peasy apples:

1. Peel apples and remove core.

2. Cut the apples into quarters.

3. Place the apples in a medium saucepan and cover with water. The amount will vary depending upon how many apples you use. I used about a 1/4 cup, which just covered the apples about half way. Don’t cover them, you don’t want them boiled.

4. Cook over medium heat, covered, until tender, meaning they’re mushy when pressed with a wooden spoon or a spatula. They’ll change color a bit, which also lets you know they’re done. No need to over-cook them.

5. Put the cooked apples into whatever machine you’ll use to puree, saving the water from the saucepan. Add as much water as needed to make the desired consistency of your applesauce, um, I mean, baby food.

I usually freeze my batches for later but feel free to enjoy straight away.

Claire’s pediatrician mentioned Super Baby Food and I thought I’d give it a try. It is written by mom who had a premature baby with health problems. She decided that diet was a way to help her baby and swears that her food helped her child become healthy (I don’t recall her mentioning what health problems the child had…). The book is obviously written by an untrained cookbook author; it is sloppy; it often reads like your mother is telling you what do to; and it’s biggest fault (for me) is that it’s a little over the top. There are charts for making sure that your baby gets all of the necessary nutrients. Those are probably good; but, I am not into charts (anymore – a long and not very interesting story). For me, food is not just about nutrients. (Our obsession with nutritionist eating is a whole other post altogether.) That is part of it; but, if you eat well-balanced meals then you should be assured that you are getting all of the nutrients that you need. At one point in the book when describing her recipe for Super Baby Porridge, she even admits that it doesn’t taste good at all and she can’t believe that her toddler still likes to eat it. I want Claire to love good food not eat because she has to. Eating should be an enjoyable experience not a means to an end. You have to eat everyday many times a day for your entire life. You might as well enjoy it.

That being said, this book is helpful in so many ways. First, it breaks down what your baby can eat at each month starting at 6 months up to toddler years. Each month Yaron lists new foods that babies can try as their digestive system matures. This was very helpful and exactly what I was looking for in a baby food book. Second, there is an appendix that outlines how to choose, store, cook, and potentially freeze all of your baby food. It is broken down alphabetically by food. If you want to know how to cook, puree, then freeze, say, pears, cauliflower, or even okra, it’s there.

This book is great for basics and some how-to’s but there is a lot of filler that I found unnecessary for my style. I wish she published an abridged version that just noted the ‘essentials’ of her Super Baby food.

I recently purchased Top 100 Baby Purees by Annabel Karmel. I was just browsing Amazon when I saw this book and decided to try it out. Again, I am no chef, so I need a little help in getting creative in the kitchen. Karmel’s cookbook does just that. I will say that this is a real cookbook, with fancy photographs and beautifully designed layouts. I am often taken in by such packaging but I really enjoy the recipes, too. As I read them, I thought to myself, “That sounds really good!” I knew that these were exactly the kind of recipes I was looking for. Karmel lays out interesting recipes that are not only nutritious but also delicious (the recipe for ‘potatoes, leeks, carrots, and peas’ is adapted from her book).

The downside to this book is that it does assume that the average person knows a lot about what foods to feed your child and when. This may be a cultural difference since this book was originally published in the UK or maybe I’m just overly cautious in feeding certain foods too early (like fish and acidic foods, like tomatoes). At any rate, if nutritional facts are more important to you, this book doesn’t cover them. Also, this book makes no claim to be super-convenient. This book is about taste. I’ll admit some of the recipes do seem a bit time consuming (there are still a lot I have to try yet) – there is a recipe for braised beef that takes about 2 hours. But I would love braised beef and if I can make it for dinner when Claire is 7 and she loves it, then I know it was worth it!

Despite the cons to both of these books, I highly recommend them to anyone who would want to try to make their own baby food. I have limited skills in the kitchen and these books make homemade baby food even easier.

I started out with some leeks, which I find to be a beautiful veg: the way the green fades into white.


So, everything gets a good chop and then into the pot it goes with a little chicken stock.After about 10 minutes you add some peas (I used frozen – and, yes, you can refreeze them).


Simmer for another 5-6 minutes and it’s ready for the food pro.


It’s hard to tell from this picture, but this puree was delicious – like a potato velvet soup. I ate the remainder for lunch!

I’ve been doing the food cube method of making food for Claire for some time. Generally, I take a fruit or veg, cook it, then blitz it in the food pro. Into the freezer it goes by way of these really cute ice cube trays that make Claire’s meals into perfect frozen squares. Already in the freezer we had:

• sweet potatoes, parsnips, carrots
• cauliflower
• sweet potatoes
• broccoli
• carrots
• apples
• pears
• peaches

This week I was determined to make meat cubes. On Wednesday night, we had chicken for dinner, so I got down to it.

I started with boneless, skinless, chicken breasts cut into chunks. I sauteed them in just a bit of butter for about 3-4 minutes. Then, I added: 1 sweet potato (peeled and chopped), 1 carrot (peeled and sliced), about 3/4 cup of leeks (chopped), and about 1 1/4 cup of homemade chicken stock. After bringing it to a boil, I let it simmer for about 30 minutes. I am disappointed I didn’t get pictures (or that the Internet doesn’t have ‘odorama’) because it looked good enough to eat! Into the food pro it went to be converted into delicious frozen chicken cubes.

Last night they had their big debut. Claire was being a bit fussy at each meal for whatever baby reason she had but I was still expecting her to be thrilled about her new tasty dinner. Alas, she was not into eating dinner at all – chicken or not – so it didn’t go quite as planned. She liked it but fussed through half of it, which was all she ate. (Somedays she eats as much as me and then there are days where she barely eats. Thankfully her size doesn’t allow me to worry about her self-regulation.)