Baby Frozen Food Management

Assalammualaikum wbt,

Ever since my baby has started weaning, I have basically equipped myself with so many tools and feeding paraphernalia. One of the reason is because they're so cute and I just can't resist myself, and another one is because my sister keeps losing it grrr (because I'm making stocks for her baby too).

For blender, up to this day, I have had 3 blenders: 1) Tommee Tippee blender, 2) Baby Bullet and 3) Philips hand blender (which I sneaked from Mom's tehehe). I frequently uploaded my baby's menus on Facebook and Instagram, and I'm happy (and shocked) when I got a remarks that they're inspired by my effort! Fuh..What an honour. Yeah..breastfeeding is not working out for me, so I gotta find ways to feed my baby best. That is why I'm trying to keep the ingredients fresh and possibly organics.

There are many benefits of homemade baby food, first of course because it is made from love *rolls eyes* ahaha, not really but yeah *cheesy alerts*. Of course you can get them from supermarket, even myself are tempted to buy when I see the menus, sedap okey! But the ingredients of most commercial baby foods have been heated to a very high temperature and then cooled, in order to sterilise them. This gives them a very long shelf life (usually 2 years) but destroys a lot of the flavour and some of the nutrients in the process. Most important, they don't come cheap! But don't get me wrong, I don't judge if you're buying them. It's not easy to prepare baby foods homemade, but once you get the fundamentals of it (and the right tools of course) you'll be surprised at how convenient it is. At first I thought it was tiring as I'm preparing larger quantities and freezing them to small portions every fortnight for at least 2 different menus and sometimes 3! This because my nephew has full teeth and prefers more texture on his food as he can chew whereby my baby, I still need to blend his food smooth. Oddly, it is tiring, but it's kind of theraphy for me. Nothing beats the feeling when you see the food stocks are all portioned, stored and labeled in colorful storages. What's more when the baby finishes them and wanting more (I don't brag but yeah..haha). That's the feeling of real cook. 

Before this I used my Tommee Tippee blender and man, it was difficult to use! The blender keeps on getting stuck and there's only a small amount of food can be blended at one time. It will easily getting warm too, sign that it is over used. It is so frustrating and wasting my time as I'm making a large batch.  Then I switch to Baby Bullet and it such a bliss. It helped a lot despite from its cheap price (RM100). However, last fee nights, when I finished using it, the rubber that holds the blade breaks. Little did I know, the rubber part ended up in one of my baby's portion when I feed him.... (-_-) I am only human, there will always be a mishap along the process and this is one of it. So that's the end of it. 

I did browsed for hand blender but mannnn they were expensive!! So, I took my Mother's instead haha. She hardly used it, it was left dusted, what a waste. I remember she bought it last time for the same purpose too; making baby food for my first nephew back then. So I guess it's pretty much inherited to me, after all, it is for a good cause; feeding her grandchildren..

There are various ways of cooking baby food, but most of the time I found myself steaming them especially for fruit purée. It's pretty straightforward, you steam it, skin it, deseed and blend them. I can do this during weekdays as it doesn't require any cooking. Put them in a steamer, leave it while taking a bath and blend them afterwards. Over the weekend when I have time, I would usually prefer stewing method. With hand blender, it is much easier, I just blend them inside the pot. No need to transfer to other bowl and leave me with more dishes to wash. 

For storage, I have so many kinds of food storage and sizes, name it, the silicon trays, ice cube trays, individual storage, square, round, transparent, big, small, cheap and expensive. I have an obsession over this. Can't stop myself from buying..hahaha. But the one I frequently use is my Beaba Silicone Multiportions. It is convenient for me as it has 7 portions per tray fit for one week stock. So, I had 4 of them at different colors to accomodate 28 days (2 weeks stock). To save space, which I just adapt this method this week, I freezed the food using flexible silicones ice-cube tray, then later transfer them to sealed plastic bag. I got my ice-cube tray from Fabulous Mom, it costed only about RM10-12 each. This is the cheapest way to store food stock.

These are some of my collections of baby storage..

While these are the picture after I portioned and labeled them, before they going to freezer. 

Some suggested me to open a business selling baby food, but nahhh...even I can't keep up with my current job let alone to have another one. Apparently, these days, there are people selling frozen baby food made from fresh ingredients (without preservatives of course!). I found out about them in Instagram. They are @bebetummy and @babyeatsbyjustlixa to name a few. I love following their IG as it gives me ideas for baby's menus. They are very helpful too. Although you're not buying from them, they will answer questions related to baby food! If you one of the Moms whose having difficulty or too busy to make food, just buy from them. They are homemade guysss! 

For the recipe, most of the times (well...all the time!) I will always refer to Annabel Karmel either on the Apple Apps or the book. So far, I satisfied with all the recipes, they were all delicious! I wanted to make baby popsicles since Hanif Aiden is one now, but it is so difficult to find the mould from baby's shop. Some of the sellers on IG are always out of stock for this popsicle maker hmmph. 

Anyway, whatever ways that we chose to feed our baby, most important rule is "happy tummy, happy baby, happy Mommy"!