Today, I decided to finally document the baby food adventures. I started at 1:30 pm and finished at 2:45 pm. An hour and fifteen minutes... That's a shopping trip. For today's baby food cooking mini-session, apples.
Gather your equipment.
Cutting board, pot, vegetable peeler, knife (use a chef's knife, not a steak knife - this was the only knife I could find... I'm not at home) and apples.
Ryan saw an article that if you're making baby food, there are certain things you buy organic. Apples are one of them. These are fuji apples, a mildly sweet taste.
Grab your vegetable peeler and get to peeling.
(This is my intense work face)
If you're going to be making a lot of your own baby food, you should definitely invest in a good peeler. I used an old one that was completely made of metal. Not fun. This red one has a great handle. Very comfortable.
Don't worry about getting all the peel off at the top and bottom. We'll just cut that away later.
Cut your apples in half.
This is where the chef's knife would come in handy. It was such a pain cutting these large apples with a steak knife. Not made for this job.
Lay the half down and cut into fourths.
Then remove the core with a slight diagonal cut.
Cut the quarters (eighths really) into chunks. Make sure you cut away any questionable areas and leftover skin.
Feel free to taste test (uh, I love apples).
Give them a good rinse and just cover with water.
Boil on high for... oh 10 minutes.
This is the perfect time to clean up what you've used so far. This is a concept that my advanced foods class couldn't quite comprehend even after several time management essays. They lost kitchen privileges.
Ah, look at that perfect boil.
Still a way to go, get one of these out. You can use a food processor or a blender (which is what I use at home). Do you see any specialized equipment here? No. No hand food grinders. No specialized baby food steamers. And later, no special prepared baby food freezing containers.
Test for done-ness. If you insert a fork, does it give? Is it soft? Here, not so much.
I'm furiously texting my mom at this point.
When I cook, I cook by smell. Can I smell the food? Then it's done. I can smell apples in the air! (This is my intense food-sniffing face.)
Apple chunks into the food processor.
Reserve the cooking liquid.
Boiling food releases vitamins into the cooking water and water seeps into the food. Reserving the liquid helps you retain some vitamins. You can add those vitamins back into the food during the processing by adding that water if the food isn't moist enough.
I'm ready. Machine is ready. Are YOU ready?
Here we go!
No more apple chunks.
Looks like applesauce. That's what it should be.
I think it's a bit dry though so I add a little of that reserved water.
Go ahead and taste it. My motto, I won't feed it to Ivy if I won't taste it. I did taste this. I also tasted so I could do this...
Yes, it was cool enough. And yes, she seems to like it.
I pour the applesauce into a more manageable container to better pour with.
And then I pour the sauce into cleaned ice cube trays. Oopsies, I forgot to rotate this picture.
I actually pour as much as I can on one side of the ice cube trays.
And then smooth it all out which pushes excess into the next cup.
Perfect.
Into the freezer it goes!
Once it's frozen, pop the food out of the trays and store in large freezer zip bags.
Clean everything else up and you're good to go!
Okay... I mentioned this in an earlier post... about the green beans being very different from each other. I forgot to rotate this one too. Poop.
