More Baby Food: DIY Home made Carrots

I've been going nuts lately with making baby food.  The blogosphere is probably sick of seeing all my links to pureed foods. Too bad! Part of the reason I want to document how I've been making baby food is for me to reference later, and if others can learn something from it, that's cool too.

I had made carrots into baby food previously once, but did not take any photos and didn't really think about the process. We were out of veggies to feed Baby C, and carrots happened to be in the fridge.



Monday night I made carrots, with the intention of blogging about it.  I had bought a 5 pound bag of carrots at Sam's Club, where I buy most of my food for Baby C in bulk.  They are the same brand as the smaller grocery stores carry, but the carrots inside are humungo! Which is great for me - since it's more useable carrot for almost same amount of peeling (ya know what I mean?). I hate peeling those little skinny carrots, I feel like half of it gets wasted.

Enough of my rambling, here's the process of how to cook carrots for baby food:

My chopping station

1.When doing large batches of any food, it's helpful to set up stations. If you're peeling over the sink, have a bowl ready for the peeled food.  The station where you cut, have your cutting board, knife, and garbage bowl (for trimmed ends) set to go.  Have chopping station close to the pot, or bring pot over to chopping station to dump in chopped up food.  If you have to walk a few steps over to the sink/cutting board/pot after each carrot, you're gunna waste a whole lot of time. It's all about being lean machines here!




2. Peel carrots.

3. Remove ends, and chop carrots. I did a very quick chop to mine. They were all sorts of sizes.  I knew I'd be cooking them to death - I planned on letting them boil while I was cooking, eating, and cleaning up supper. So I knew the large chunks would certainly get done. If you're on a time crunch, chop smaller.

Remove Ends

Chop Carrots

4.  Boil or steam carrots until tender all the way through. When cooking for the rest of my family, I choose to steam my veggies. However, since I was going to cook these for a long while, and needed plenty of water to blend them later, I boiled them. After the chopped carrots were put into the pot, I filled it almost to the top of the carrots. They cooked on a delicate simmer for over an hour.

5.  When cooked, ladle into blender. Cover. Do your typical pulse, pulse, liquid check, pulse, pulse, then liquify. I found I had to add a total of around 2 cups more water. That's the most I've ever had to add! But it resulted in a super smooth puree - which is necessary for Baby C since he tends to gag (then puke) on any chunks in his food. Beechnut Textures are a disaster at my house, LOL!

6. Store in containers of choice: ice cube trays, jars, tubs, etc.  Use refrigerated food within 2 days, and frozen within 2 months.

I used our carrot puree to make about 30 cubes in our Mumi & Bubi trays (seriously, I should get paid for how much I promote those things, I love them). Then used the rest to make combos of sweet potato & carrot, and some chicken meal combos.

I'm also writing a post on how to puree cooked chicken breast! I have to admit, I was terrified that it wasn't going to turn out. We are on such a tight budget that the thought of wasting a whole chicken breast almost stopped me from trying! But it turned out perfect, and was so much easier than I thought I would be.  See, it's not so hard after all :)






I can often be found linking up at these fabulous parties-
Monday: Make It Pretty Monday, Skip to my Lou, DIY Showoff Project Parade,  More the Merrier Monday, C.R.A.F.T., Just Something I Whipped Up, The Gunny Sack,  Debt Free Mommy,Cutesy Mondays, Craft-O-Maniac Mondays, Make It Mondays, Mixer Monday at Whimsically Homemade, 
Tuesday:Get your craft on Tuesdays, Project Queen, Sugar Bee Crafts, New Nostalgia, Lady Bug Blessings, Too Cute Tuesday, The Schwins Tuesday Party,Tasty Tuesday,
Wednesday:The Thrifty Home, Linking up with Lil Luna, Tea Rose Home, Adorned from Above, Rae Gun Ramblings - What We Wore, Read, and Made Link Party,  Ginger Snap Crafts - Wow Me Wednesday,   Someday Crafts - Whatever Goes Wednesday,   My Girlish Whims - Your Whims Wednesday,  Work it Wednesday,
Thursday: Transformation Thursday at The Shabby Creek Cottage, Catch a Glimpse Thursday, Creative Juice Thursday, Thursday's Temptation @ Two Yellow Birds Decor,Crafty Soiree at Yesterday on Tuesday, Delightfully Inspiring Thursday,Wait Til Your Father Gets Home,
Friday: Shabby Nest,Whipperberry, Its a Hodge Podge Life, 30 Handmade Days, I'm Lovin It Link Party at Tidy Mom, Tickled Pink Fridays at 504 Main, For the Kids Friday at Sun Scholars,
Saturday: Free for All at Young and Crafty, Show and Tell Saturdays, Strut Your Stuff, Get Schooled Saturday,
Sunday:Think Pink Sundays at Flamingo Toes, Sunday Scoop at I Heart Nap Time,