I Can Cook.....Baby Food.....Want Some?

I bought a Beaba Babycook. I got it back in January. It's been sitting in its box waiting for use. Well, since Grayson is starting in his baby food adventure now that he's hit 5 months, Monday was that day. We went to Sam's Club so I could pick up some apples and carrots. We actually went out to pick up quite a few things, but Sam's was on our list of stops. When we got home, I assembled my team. Please meet my assistant chefs.

Chef GraysonChef Claire
(By the way, please excuse her play doh mess in the background.)

Assistant chef number 3 was too busy playing in his room to be bothered with making baby food.

First I peeled and diced the apples. Not too hard, unless you're dealing with an almost 2 year old who insists on taking bites of all apples in a bag. There was lots of No's and squealing.
Then I steamed the apples. This took 10 minutes. See the light on the switch. It goes off when the steaming is done. I played with Grayson. He thinks mommy dancing is hilarious. I know, I'm such a comedian.
Once the apples were steamed I took them out of the pitcher and then I dumped them back in with a little bit of the steaming water to puree them.
Getting ready to puree.
Voila! Pureed Apples. I even tried a little taste. Super yummy, and I'm not even a baby!Apples all ready for the freezer.
I also made carrots. I didn't take pictures of the whole process because you've already seen it.
Voila..17 serving of apples and carrots ready for consumption.

So, after thinking about this, at Sam's Club, I spent $3.50 on a 3lb bag of carrots, and $4.68 on a 5lb bag of apples. I made 17 servings of food. If I had bought 17 stage one jars at my local Wal-Mart at 37 cents a jar, it would have cost me $6.29 plus tax. That's $1.61 more than I paid for one 5 lb bag of apples. I really think this Beaba Babycook is going to pay for itself quickly. I am EXTREMELY excited to try more food in it. I can't wait to try more foods! And, the Beaba was so easy to use. Steam, Puree, DONE! Cleanup was a breeze. I just washed everything and put it on the drying rack. I didn't need to wash any pans or anything like that. Awesome. When lunchtime comes around for Grayson, all I do is pop one of the cubes into a bowl, pop it in the microwave for about 30 seconds and he's ready to eat. When he gets older I'll defrost 2 cubes. The only thing I wish the Beaba Babycook had was a sound to let you know steaming is done. If you walk off and the light goes off you won't know. I stayed next to the Babycook and played with Grayson so I could keep an eye on things. I was also force fed apples by Claire. Grayson also thought this was hysterical. It was also about this time that assistant chef number 3 emerged from his room asking for an apple himself. I complied.

So, want to see how Grayson took the baby food?

This was Grayson's first time having any baby food that wasn't rice cereal. I just popped one of the cubes into the microwave for 30 seconds like I said before. I set it on the table to cool while I got Grayson into his high chair and put a bib on him.
Then, he had his first bite. As you can see, he wasn't loving it. He made that face for the first 7 o 8 bites. Then, his face eventually changed to an, "Hey, this stuff is OK!" face.

By the end of it all, he was smiling and happy. Surprisingly, he didn't make that much of a mess out of himself even though his hands spent most of their time in his mouth while I fed him.

We're starting out slow. He'll be eating one serving of carrots once a day for the next few days. We'll start apples next. I'm excited to start in on the baby food adventure, but it's making me a little sad too. Grayson is our last baby, and now he's getting into the big baby stuff. His poo (yeah, like that's what you wanna read about!) was orange instead of yellow like it has been because of his breast milk diet. That made me a little sad. I'm excited to see him grow though.

Oh, and, just so you know, I bought and paid for my Beaba Babycook on my own. I wasn't supplied with anything, nor was I paid to write this post. I just thought you'd like to know how awesome it is. You're welcome.