I would suggest that you consider buying special trays designed for breast milk. They don’t have the nasty plastics that a lot of normal ice cube trays do. I like the Fresh Baby ones.

Every night, I would pack up my son’s “lunch box” for day care with bottles of breastmilk and small lock-n-locks with individual veg and fruit servings. I would take 2 or 3 cubes out and put them in a small lock and lock for each serving. I would label the lock and lock so his day care teacher knew what it was (just because she was curious and that way she could talk to him about what he was eating instead of just saying, “your green stuff)” Once he hit around 10 months, I started introducing chunkier foods that we ate like lasagna and would also send that in a lock and lock (cut/mashed up). She would send home all of the empty bottles and lock and locks each night and I would run them through the dishwasher so this did require a lot of bottles and lock and locks — one set in the dishwasher and one set being prepped for tomorrow. Oh and another set of 4 bottles at work because I pumped directly into bottles to avoid another step! We still use the lock and locks and it seems that no small ones are ever available, they always have food in them, so I guess we will have to buy some more if we do this again for another child!

On weekends or at dinnertime, I would sometimes do something on the spot that didn’t freeze well like blueberries and banana mixed together and just barely heat up the blueberries in a bit of water in a small saucepan and mash them up with bananas.

I got most of my ideas from a $10 cookbook that someone gave me, but I also found a free “recipes” on the internet. By recipe I mean tips like should you steam it first or just throw it in the blender. Blanch peaches and they peel quickly. These will freeze well, these won’t, etc.

A few times we went out of town and bought “baby food.” He usually didn’t like it and he is not a picky eater and always eats a lot! The only thing I made that he didn’t like was peas–consistently doesn’t like them. I bought some of the Gerber graduates once while visiting great grandparents around age 1 because their meal times are so funny and I knew he would not always wait for us to eat; he wouldn’t touch them.

Going out of town tip to save money instead of buying a lot of baby food- individual servings of unsweetened applesauce are usually cheaper than baby food. I also would buy bananas when we went out of town and mash them up with a fork!

http://frugalmomskitchen.blogspot.com/2009/06/save-on-baby-food.html

wholesomebabyfood.com is a great resource from when to offer certain foods, how to choose them and fix them, proper storage, and some great recipes.

Use silicon ice cube trays when freezing homemade baby food. The cubes pop right out, then store them in quart- or gallon-sized freezer bags (labeled with food name and date).

For traveling, we would put the cubes in ziploc bags and put them in a small cooler bag (like a bottle bag) with an ice pack and put them in the freezer whenever we arrived. Small bowls with lids are great for transporting when we’d be gone during a meal.

I made single fruits and veggies at first and then ground up our regular meals as they got older.

I did try the food mill but didn’t like it. Instead, I used a hand mixer and it worked great. You could make small or large batches easily. And you could kind of control the consistency, mix more for puree, less for older babies that needed chunks.

We used a lot of ice cube trays to freeze portions for traveling and convenience. It was so nice to know what my babies were eating.

And easier on the environment…no jars or containers to throw out or recycle. Good luck with your baby.
Angela http://thesuburbanjungle.blogspot.com

On the other note, I buy baby food but I am new to the couponing world. We are at a point where he barely eats baby food and I am just trying to finish it off. Next child I plan to make most of it and then just buy some for travel etc. It is easier to throw some baby food in the diaper bag. But I am now used to bringing cooked meals for my son since he has a possibly allergy. So either way. I have hated spending that much money on baby food. Its a good thing he is breastfeed or how knows how much I would have spent feeding him this last year.

Note to reader Sarah C. (commented above): if you’re planning on feeding your baby 2-3 JARS of baby food at each meal, that’s waaaaay too much. Most babies will only take a few tablespoons of jarred food at each meal because that’s all their little tummies hold! Don’t feed from the jar either–it puts bacteria in the jar so you can’t save the unused portion. If you scoop a little into a bowl, then if there’s extra after the meal, the container can be refrigerated to finish later.

I don’t buy baby food. I can my own (I just canned peaches and pears for the next baby, plus I canned applesauce and apricots earlier this year for my upcoming baby). Sometimes we will add a little baby cereal to it, but we never use an entire box per baby for the whole time they are eating soft food. For any other foods, we mash what we are eating at the table that the baby can eat, and sometimes use a hand-held grinder.