Homemade Baby Food

I have a little 5-month old baby.  I have started feeding him a few solid foods and he is in love.  Rice cereal is what I have always started feeding my babies first.  I have always wondered whether or not there is brown rice cereal- since I know how very little nutrients are in white rice.  So I looked up a recipe- it is SO simple to make- an so much healthier.  I have always made most of my baby foods, if you have never done it, you should.  It is very easy, healthy, and cheap. 

For homemade brown rice cereal, grind up the rice into rice flour- I have a BlendTec blender that does it perfectly, but you can also use a food processor or wheat grinder.   Once it is ground into a flour, boil  1 1/2  c. of water on the stove.  Add 1/4 c. rice flour into the water.  It thickens really quickly, so mix it well to get all of the lumps out.  You may want to add more water- it gets really thick.  Let it simmer/cook for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently. 

So far, I have made carrots, peaches, green beans, and summer squash for my baby, but I plan on doing a few more.  I love giving my baby fresher foods that taste more like the real thing.   

To make the vegetables:  steam them until they are tender.  Then blend them in the blender with a little water and puree until smooth, with no lumps.  You can do this with pretty much any vegetable.  After blended, pour into clean ice cube trays and freeze until solid.  Remove the cubes from the trays and store in ziploc bags in your freezer.  Then, when you need to feed your baby, pop out one or two cubes as you need them  and warm them up.    It is super simple! 

For the fruit, I bought some unsweetened canned fruit and did the same thing.  You can easily find peaches, pears, applesauce, etc.  Just blend them in the blender and freeze them. 

There is a great website that I love.  It gives the recommended foods for the different stages of feeding your baby.  It also has tons of recipes and ideas of what to feed your baby, and what foods are best to start out with.  It's called Wholesome Baby Food.