Fresh Baby Food Trays

www.freshbaby.com

I have to be honest; jars of baby food kinda freak me out. Deep down I know that it’s just pureed food with some water and then canned basically. I know this, yet I sort of cringe. So of course I made ALL of my own baby food right? Not by a long shot, but I did try really hard! I made as much as I could, but my Little Moxie has never been a champion eater, so I got very frustrated in the beginning especially. I tried to make my own cereal, spent the time and energy and dishes, but when she only begrudgingly ate one bite, maybe two, I gave up. Boxed cereal to the rescue, and I got the healthiest whole grain cereal that I could, so I felt a little better. Of course meat has always been another toughie. How do you puree meat? I never mastered it. It was never soft enough, never moist enough, or too moist, and basically it never got eaten. Hello jarred meat! So out were cereal and meat, but what I could do was fruit and vegetables (well all but peas, I just never got those right.) Sweet potatoes, broccoli, carrot, peaches, blueberries, split pea soup, asparagus, pears, butternut and acorn squash, etc. etc. I was on a roll with the fruit and veggies. One of the things that made making my own food so much easier were the Fresh Baby Food Trays. I have four of these little guys and I only wish I had more! Just pour in your freshly pureed treasure, snap on the lid and pop them in the freezer. When the cubes are frozen, take them out and put them in a storage bag so that they trays are available for your next batch. Seriously easy! I still use these even though I don’t need to puree her foods anymore. Soups, fruit and vegetable pieces, left over sauces and broth all get frozen in these beauties.

Not Your Average Ice Cube Tray
Most make-your-own baby food sources say to use ice cube trays, which I know for many people is just fine, and I'm not knocking them (much...) You may have noticed, however, that I don't really do "fine," I want great, near perfection at the very least. I personally don’t trust a lot of plastics, I just don’t, especially ones coming in contact with my baby's food. I do trust the Fresh Baby Food Trays though. They are BPA and phthalate free, so I know that they are way safer than "normal" ice cube trays (again, not knocking them exactly). You've probably heard a lot about products being free of those chemicals lately (especially BPA) but if you don't know what they are check out www.healthychild.org (http://healthychild.org/issues/chemical-pop/bisphenol_a/ and http://healthychild.org/issues/chemical-pop/phthalates/) It's good to be informed, but I digress... back to the trays. They have lids, very secure lids that are still easy to remove. Lids are genius! They stack well in the freezer, saving loads of space and the food doesn’t get little bits of who-knows-what floating in on top, yuck. Oh and no foil or plastic wrap frozen on top that I had to somehow pull out of the frozen cubes. It was also very nice to pull out one veggie cube and one fruit cube and know that she was getting two servings, about an ounce each (not that she usually ate it all, but at least I tried right!) None of my trays ever stained, nor did they collect any odd odors as many plastics are prone to do. Lastly they are dishwasher-safe, so clean up is easy. I have been using these trays for about 8 months and they show no signs of wear, leading me to believe that they should easily last though the next baby and most likely well beyond.

Check out the Fresh Baby blog at http://freshbaby.typepad.com/ where they share lots of great recipes and advice.

To buy the Fresh Baby Food Trays at Amazon click here: Fresh Baby So Easy Baby Food/Breast Milk Trays or order directly from Fresh Baby at http://freshbaby.com