Homemade Baby Food

One sweet potato, two sweet potato, three sweet potato, four...

I made a ton of baby food before my mom left. This round was peaches, sweet potatoes, acorn squash, carrots, and zucchini. Super simple stuff! I baked the peaches and sweet potatoes and microwaved each of the rest with a couple of table spoons of water and it was much easier than last time. Though there are some things I will always bake. Like the butternut squash and sweet potatoes.
The Magic Bullet Bryan bought me for my birthday is a dream to grind all the food up and then I just pour it into ice cube trays until frozen and then pop out my baby foodsicles into Ziploc freezer bags. This time I didn't puree everything, I left some chunks since little man is getting more advanced with his chewing skills.
I've saved tons of money making my own food. Though I'll admit I got some baby food jars from my sister and I bought some of the fruit to see how Derek tolerated it before I attempted to make it on my own. Fruit is much more time consuming to prepare.
At the recommendation of our pediatrician I started Derek alternating fruits and veggies after he mastered rice cereal. At 4 months he was eating sweet potatoes, butternut squash, peas, apple sauce, peaches, and pears
I bought two three pound bags of sweet potatoes for $0.69 each and got two gallon freezer bags worth of baby food from them. That is less than the cost of four servings of jarred sweet potatoes!
Butternut Squash is a splurge. So far the cheapest I've found is a dollar a pound and those guys are heavy. Good news is that the squash makes a lot of baby food cubes. I bought 2 squash totaling 6 pounds paid $6.00 and got 15 servings of baby food. That is actually after I cooked half of one of those for the grown ups to eat. Yum! Though it is a more expensive purchase it works out to be less than prepackaged baby food.
I buy all natural applesauce in a big jar from the store. I usually pay about $1.40 for 3lbs. 2oz. which is cheaper than I can make it at home.
I watch for sales on frozen veggies and get the peas for free. Watch for veggie online coupons and print your limit and when they go on sale at your local store (we have Schnuck's and Kroger here and they often have sales when they do 10 items for $10 or $1 each) stock up. I mean, you can't be free.
I went in with a local group and bought frozen peaches from a farm that was delivered to us the beginning of October. I split the ten pound box with my mother in law and paid about $14.00.
Lastly are the pears which are a bit trickier. We have some local orchards that you can go and pay to pick but I missed out on the opportunity this year. So far this is the only baby food I buy prepackaged though he doesn't eat it much anymore since I can make other foods for less. So far the best deal I've gotten is $0.69 a serving.