Simple- Baby Food

My daughter eats a lot.  I am not kidding.  I think she eats almost as much as me and I eat a lot.  Her appetite and possible allergies have made lunch meals kind of difficult.  She basically eats what we eat for supper, but lunches are more difficult.  She is still too young to eat salad and she can't have most sandwich items at this time (allergy stuff again).  I don't usually feed Miss. E bought baby food, as it makes our job with cloth diapering a lot more difficult.  (That was seriously the most tactful way I could think to put it.)  I have begun making parts of meals ahead and freezing them.  That way I can pull out a meal the night before and lunch is ready for the next day.  

My basic process is to boil sweet potatoes, make applesauce and cook extra meat a few nights in a row.  I then mash the potatoes and grind up the meat to make the portions easy to freeze.  Super easy, eh?  (That's the Canadian in me coming out!)  Here is my baby food breakdown:

Sweet Potatoes

I wash, peel and dice the sweet potatoes.  I then boil them until the are super soft.  I can mash them easily with a fork.  I drain them and then mash.  I like to freeze them in containers because Miss. E LOVES sweet potatoes. 

Applesauce

This is easy, as well!  Wash, peel and core 3 lbs of apples (basically a bag of apples).  You chop up the apples and throw them in the slow cooker with 1/2 cup of water.  You cook them on high for 4 hours.  After four hours, mash the apples with  your potato masher and there you have it!  Applesauce!  Easy!  Since there is no sugar added, I definitely recommend using a strong flavoured apple, otherwise your applesauce will be bland.  My favourite apples to use are Granny Smith, Pink Lady or Macintosh.  I freeze the applesauce in ice cube trays and then pop out a few as I need them.

Meat

I like to use my Ninja to grind the meat for Miss. E.  I find that it freezes better this way.  If you want to make it easier to get the meat to freeze into cubes, you can add a little water or stock to the ground meat.  

When I go to make lunch, I just boil up a few veggies (broccoli and carrots are favourites here) to go with the meal and lunch is served!