Babies are precious and all the more so when they reinforce your own values by eating vigorously anything that comes out of your home garden. Baby Alastair is eight months old and eating us out of nectarines and vegetables. It is a good thing we have a big garden. But gardens come and go; our orchard has a few weeks left of production before it will slow to a trickle. That trickle will be some incredible apples, but they won't likely make it inside. They do not last that long.
While the garden bounty is here, we are taking advantage of it.
Looking toward feeding the whole family through the winter, Mom's food preservation videos catalog much of what has been happening in our kitchen over the last month. We have frozen peppers, eggplant, and fruit in slices, using Mom's freezing technique. Mom has made some "pepper plops" as well to freeze, a technique where she cooks the pepper first, grinds it up, and adds it to recipes throughout the winter. We have made zucchini bread with overgrown zucchini. (In fact, it was sourdough zucchini bread made from a recipe in the phytic acid white paper.) In a month or so we may make a bit of fruit leather and sun-dried tomatoes.
For the next few months, Alastair will probably still be eating the "mushed" variety of all of these foods. We have adapted our freezer techniques to his own little stash of food to avoid paying nearly a buck a jar for baby food. Our techniques are pretty basic, but I thought I would share them here in detail. The great benefit of homemade food plus the cost savings, makes this a great post for Kimi Harris' Pennywise Platter. Check out her post for more great ideas.
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Fruit-based baby food
(1) Wash your produce thoroughly. We harvest our own crops so I pay close attention to what gets made into baby food. I don't use fruit that has fallen off the tree or pecked by birds. I should say that I do eat those items myself -- I wash the fruit, cut off the bird pecks (or eat around the pecks if I'm working in the garden at the time). For baby food, I am much more careful. The high-sugar content of the fruit would be a great place for bacteria to grow.
(2) Cut bad spots, remove seeds and pits.
(3) Place in food processor. Blend until smooth.
(4) Pour into freezer container, about one inch thick. I use a clean pie plate.
(5) Freeze.
(6) Remove from freezer, run cold water on container bottom, tease fruit loose by running a knife along the edge of the container.
(7) Cut into pieces. Use a small sharp knife to break fruit mixture into meal-size pieces. (Pictured.)
(8) Place pieces into a plastic freezer bag or freezer container.
(9) Freeze. Thaw a piece at a time as needed.
Vegetable-based baby food
The only reason we use a different process here is because the vegetables have a lower sugar content and do not break up as easily once they are frozen. Here we freeze meal-sized portions individually.
(1) Wash your produce thoroughly.
(2) Cook produce as you normally would (if relevant), but without the seasonings. We boil peas and bake squash.
(3) Place edible portions in food processor. Blend until smooth.
(4) Line cookie sheet with waxed paper.
(5) Place vegetable mush on waxed paper in meal-sized plops.
(6) Freeze.
(7) Remove from freezer, let sit until plops come loose from paper. Put plops into a plastic freezer bag or freezer container.
(8) Freeze. Thaw a piece at a time as needed.
@ Amazon.
