{Instant Pot} Baby Food

Hello!  Jana here with a tutorial for how to easily make baby food in the Instant Pot!  My fourth child is 6 months old, so we are in the early stages of eating table food. Making your own baby food is beneficial for so many reasons!  First of all, it is the most inexpensive way to feed your baby. An entire bag of organic baby carrots (32 ounces) costs $3.48 in my area. From my research, non organic jarred carrots would cost about $1 for two 2.5 ounce containers. As you can see, you can get a higher quality food for much cheaper when you make it yourself!  Some of you might be thinking that the time it takes to make the food isn't worth the cost savings. I can assure you, that it only takes minutes to prepare the food.  Below, I am going to show you an example of making carrots using the Instant Pot. There are many other foods that could be prepared in a similar way, including the following:

Green Beans (using a steamer basket instead of a trivet)
Peas (using a steamer basket instead of the trivet)
Apples
Pears
Squash (peeled first)

From my experience, homemade baby food is much more flavorful, which makes it more fun for baby to learn to eat!  I like that you can add more or less water, depending on what stage of eating your baby is in. You can also begin to mash instead of blend once your baby gets older. I also like to start adding spices (cinnamon, garlic, etc) to foods once my baby gets older. (typically closer to 8 or 9 months) 

I will also discuss below how to store the baby food that you make.

To make the carrot baby food, I placed about 20 carrots on the trivet in the IP. I could have stacked them and done more, but I wasn't making a huge amount of baby food this time. Pour 1 cup of water or broth in the bottom of the IP. Close the lid, push Manual, and choose 4 minutes. You can do quick release or natural release once it is finished.

 

Add some of the water back in if needed (depending on how thick or thin you want the consistency for your baby), and puree. I used an immersion blender for this step, but you could also use a normal blender. I have found that if I make more baby food than what I will need for a few days (and can refrigerate), then freezing in some sort of ice cube tray works great!  I prefer silicone trays, because the food comes out much easier when frozen.  The trays I used above are a little bigger than the size I wanted, so I filled about halfway.

Once they are frozen, you can remove from the tray, and store in a Ziploc bag or other container in the freezer. Then, just remove the amount you are needing for the day, microwave, and you're ready to go!

{Instant Pot} "Baked" Sweet Potatoes

Becca here, with a quick "Instant Pot" pressure cooker recipe/tutorial.  I have been an avid Instant Pot user for seven years now, and am actually on my second Instant Pot, after an unfortunate incident with the lid being left too close to our gas stove, and melting.  When we had a major water leak at our home, requiring my family of myself, my husband, and our five kids, to live in a hotel for exactly sixty nights, my Instant Pot is the one kitchen thing I brought with me, and enabled us to eat somewhat normally some of the time, while living in a hotel!  I'm super excited that they have become really popular lately, and recipes are showing up all over, so I thought I would add some of my favorites to the mix now that it's something many more people have in their kitchens!

One thing that I commonly use mine for is to make perfect "baked" sweet potatoes.  To get great results, with non-mushy sweet potatoes, you'll want to get out the steam rack that came with your instant pot.  It looks like this, once placed into the bottom of the stainless steel pot insert (which I have two of, and often use each of them every day!).  You want to make sure that it is feet side down.  Pour in 1 cup of water.  The water will not be touching the bottom of the steam rack.

Insert sweet potatoes.  It is okay to stack them up, as long as the lid will fit on without touching them.  I can generally fit about five pounds of sweet potatoes in mine at one time.   I have a larger than typical family, so this is two meals worth for us.  We usually eat them 'baked' the first meal, and then I put the leftover ones into a square casserole dish with a bit of maple syrup, cinnamon, and sprinkled with pecans and coconut oil on top, for an oven-ready side dish for another meal.

You want to cook the potatoes for 30 minutes at high pressure.  You may do that by pushing either one of two buttons.  Either the Bean/Chili button I'm pointing to here, OR

the "Soup" button I'm pointing to here.  You could also manually set the pot to high pressure for 30 minutes, but I'm not sure when you would go to the extra trouble when either of these buttons work perfectly with preset settings!

The Instant Pot will pause for a moment, and then switch to the screen reading "On".  This means that it is heating up, and building up pressure.  This will take several minutes.

When the Instant Pot has reached the correct temperature and pressure settings, it will start counting down the remaining time "at pressure".  I think this is confusing to people sometimes, because a 30 minute setting actually takes quite a bit longer, allowing for the Instant Pot to heat up and reach pressure, and then naturally release pressure, unless you're in a hurry, and to a quick pressure release.  These are often abbreviated in Instant Pot Recipes/Groups as NRP (natural release pressure) and QPR (quick pressure release).  Natural pressure release simply means that you don't do anything at the end of the cooking time, and let the Instant Pot automatically switch to the "warm" setting, and open the pot to eat when you're ready.  Quick pressure release means that you move the valve on the top of the pot, to "open" to let the big burst of heat and pressure out, so that you can then safely remove the lid and eat, before the pot has naturally and slowly let the steam and pressure out itself.

At the end of the cooking time, the Instant Pot automatically switches to a "warm" setting, where the screen looks like this, and it counts up the warming minutes, or hours, if applicable, and slowly starts lowering the pressure.  Because it is an airtight and sealed environment, I have found that even something like rice can stay on the warm function for several hours without any loss of quality at all.

What are your Instant Pot questions or recipe requests?  Or favorite tips?  Let us know in the comments here, or on our Facebook Page!!

Baby Cereal: Oatmeal

My 3rd child is 6 months old, and beginning to enjoy trying solid foods!  One of the things I really like to do is making my baby's food!  There are so many benefits to making baby food yourself. It is a huge money saver, you know exactly what ingredients they're eating, you can add seasonings and spices to get them used to more flavor, and so much more!  If you have made homemade baby food and have any tips, feel free to leave them in the comments!  After a few months of making my baby's food, I start feeding them what we're eating (for the most part).  I think this helps develop a healthy taste for a variety of foods!  I got the recipe for making this oatmeal on Wholesome Baby Food, a wonderful resource for preparing food for your baby!

 

 

1/2 cup ground oats (regular or steel cut if possible), ground in blender or food processor

1 1/2 cup water

 

1. Bring the liquid to a boil in a saucepan.  Add the oatmeal powder, stirring constantly.

 

2. Simmer for 10 minutes, whisking often.

 

 

This is how my oats looked after I ran them through my food chopper. You can make them a finer powder if you would like.

 I added cinnamon to my oatmeal, but you could also add fruit purees.

I froze the extras in ice cube trays. After they are frozen solid, I pop them out of the trays, and freeze them in a labeled freezer bag. Each cube is approximately 1 ounce, so you can know how much food you are feeding your baby!

Strawberry Applesauce

Jana here with a healthy, delicious snack!  We love applesauce at our house for a snack, and only buy the unsweetend kind.  We have made our own in the past, and enjoy that just as much, or more!  I ran across a recipe for Strawberry Applesauce on Pinterest, and made some recently!  It was very quick to make, and very tasty!  I used 2 Granny Smith apples, and 1 Gala, so ours was pretty tart.  If you prefer a sweeter taste, I would suggest using all Galas, or another sweet apple.  I am curious to try this recipe, but replace the strawberries with different types of fruit. (peaches were one of the main ones I was wanting to try!)  If you make sure it's not too tart, this would make a great food for baby also!

Strawberry Applesauce

3 apples, cored and sliced
1/2 cup strawberries
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon lemon juice

1. Combine all ingredients in a medium sized saucepan over medium heat. 

2. Let simmer for 20 minutes, or until apples are boiling down and soft.

3. Place the mixture in a blender or food processor, and blend well.

Enjoy!

Homemade Baby Wipes

Becca here with a 'recipe' that I've been making for over 6 and a half years now!  My oldest has trouble with fragrances & dry skin, so I first started making these homemade baby wipes out of desperation when she kept getting really bad rashes.  I honestly don't even remember where I first got the idea or saw the recipe, I've lived a lot of life since then, ha!  They're super quick, and definitely less expensive than buying even the generic wipes or using a coupon on the name-brand wipes.  I do still use those for traveling, but actually greatly prefer the way the homemade wipes work; I think they're both softer, and have better wiping power both!  I recently switched to cloth diapers, so I've been using the same 'recipe' on cloth wipes part of the time also.

You will need an airtight container for the wipes.  For the first child and half of the second one's diaper years, I used a canister from a very inexpensive set from Walmart.  It finally wore out after heavy daily use, and I switched to the Lock & Lock container pictured here and used it for the second half of the second child and am currently using it now.  It is the 2.7 quart container from this set.  I believe you can purchase it separately at Walmart for about $6.  But, any airtight container will work, be creative.

Homemade Baby Wipes (Disposable)

Paper Towels (they don't have to be the most expensive brand, but you don't want the cheapest, scratchiest kind either.  Remember, you'll be wiping your baby's bottom with these...my default is regular Bounty)

Gentle Soap (I always use and greatly prefer Dr. Bronner's Almond Organic Liquid Castile Soup but any really mild baby soap would be okay, and less 'chemically' than premade wipes)

Water

Using an electric knife, bread knife, hacksaw, or whatever you prefer (I've used all of the aforementioned :), cut paper towels into half lengthwise, so you end up with 2 shorter rolls.  I do this outside usually, as some brands produce some 'fuzz'.  I usually do a bunch of rolls at once too, just so I have them ready to go.

Add about 2 cups of water to your container, as well as a good squirt of soap.  This is not an exact science, obviously :)  Place the paper towels, cut side down, into the solution.  It will fairly quickly absorb the liquid; then flip it over, replace the lid, and let sit. 

When you're ready to use the wipes, the core cardboard of the paper towels should be soaked through.  If it isn't, add some more water, as the amount varies by brand and roll size of paper towels.  When it is soaked, pulling on the cardboard core will easily remove it, as well as start the first paper towel wipe pulling out of the center.

Keep pulling paper towels out of the center to use as wipes.  For 'wet only' diapers, you can even tear them into half so they last twice as long.

Homemade Baby Wipes (Cloth)

For cloth wipes, I have a combination of fleece & t-shirt knit fabric I cut into 'wipe size' that I use.  And I personally only use them for wet diapers, and still use the disposable wipes mentioned above for dirty diapers.

In a spray bottle, fill it nearly to the fill line with water.  Add a good squirt of gentle soap.  I always use and greatly prefer Dr. Bronner's Almond Organic Liquid Castile Soup but any really mild baby soap would be okay, and less 'chemically' than premade wipes. 

To use, just squirt the wipe (not the baby, just to clarify in case you thought I was crazy, ha!!) with the solution, and wipe.  Put the cloth wipe in with your regular diaper wash.

Enjoy!  Becca

Baby Food

 If you're not a new mom like me, you might be able to whip up some homemade baby food in your sleep! However, if you find something so easy a tad bit challenging still-allow me. :) I had plenty of advice from my mom and sisters on how to make baby food and thank goodness for it! It's not rocket science, but it's something I wanted done right. So, I started with carrots.

 I bought a BIG bag of carrots, washed, and peeled most of the bag. I then cut them into chunks and placed them in a colander.

 Next, I wanted to steam the carrots, not boil them. I wanted to make sure my girl was getting as much of the nutrients as possible! I don't own a steamer, but my contraption above worked great! I placed the colander on top of a pot of boiling water. The water may have been slighly touching the boiling pot, but not by much. I also placed a lid on top of the colander, allowing the steam to gather.

 I kept checking on the carrots and probably let them steam for about 20 to 25 minutes. I'm sure there's a faster way to do this, but I wasn't in a hurry and was content to let them take their time. I then put the carrots into the blender.

 I tried using the "Baby Food" setting on the blender but it wasn't doing a thing. So I then put it on the "Smoothie" setting. I let it blend for a minute, then stirred, blend and stir, blend and stir. Soon the texture was getting to be just right! Once it was smooth I let the blender run for a couple of minutes without stirring it. Yummy-the perfect texture!

Lastly, I stored the pureed carrots in an icecube tray. This idea came to me from my mom and sister. Genius! I already gave my six-month old daughter a taste of these and she loved them! Even did a little spoon-diving to get more! (I snuck a taste too and they really are good! No artificial flavors or preservatives...all natural, all good). Enjoy! -Sara