I haven’t met a mother or a father that doesn’t want the best for their little ones. We all want our children to be healthy, and we want to give them the best start at life as much as we can. Making your homemade baby food is one of the best steps towards giving your baby the best start in life. Store-bought baby food can contain many chemicals and other ingredients you don’t want in your baby’s body.
Making your baby food means giving your baby fresh, nutritional, and chemicals free food. And don’t worry, making homemade baby food is super easy, and it is not time-consuming like many would think. Sometimes it will take you few hours to make food for a month or even longer. Green beans are first-stage food, and they contain minerals like magnesium, iron, manganese, and calcium, plus vitamin A and lots of fiber.
Table of Contents
1. Making the green bean baby food
To make this recipe, you will need green beans and filtered water. The green beans should have bright color, and make sure they don’t have brown spots. You also don’t want the floppy beans. They need to be thin, smooth, and stiff and also avoid the too matured ones.
Firstly, wash the green beans. Hopefully, you can find organic beans, we recommend those for babies. Then trim or snap the stem ends. If the beans are larger, cut them in half, and the small ones can be used whole.
1.1 Steaming the green beans
Steaming is the easiest way to cook any vegetable. To do this, you will need to put the beans in the steamer basket and place the basket in the steamer where you have added a little bit of water. The green beans need to be steamed for 10-12 minutes.
1.2 Making the green bean puree
Add your steamed green beans to the blender. If you want the blending to go faster, you need to fill only 1/3 at a time, meaning you will blend in batches, but the process will go faster. You will also want to add a little bit of water into the blender. You can use the water that was used for steaming the beans, which contains some of the nutrients that were lost during the steaming. The water you use both for steaming and blending must be filtered.
Before you start blending, add only a few tablespoons of water, you can add more if it is necessary. If the puree is too thick, it won’t blend well. Make sure you stop the blending to scrape down the sides of the blender and see if you need to add more water. That is how you will get a smooth consistency. The puree should be thick but not runny. Therefore avoid adding too much water. Water is added only to help with the blending. Without water, the green beans will stick to the sides of the blender, and you won’t be able to blend them. When you have achieved the smooth consistency, your work is done. Yes, you read it right, it is that easy!
1.2 Storing the green beans puree
There is no way your baby will eat all the puree in one day, so what are you supposed to do with it? Making more puree than your baby can eat at once is good because then you can properly store it and use it later. That was the whole point here, to make more food which you can use whenever you need. The important thing is to freeze the puree you want to use some other days. Don’t freeze the puree all together. You need to freeze it in serving sizes, which will make it easy for you to just grab and use that amount when you want to give it to your baby. By using this method, you will have puree for a month or even more.
2. How to properly freeze the green beans puree
You will need baby food cube trays; these look similar to ice cube trays, but additionally, they have lids. Them scoop the green beans puree and put it into the trays, place the lids on, and put them in the freezer. When the puree is completely frozen, pop them out and store them back in the freezer into bags. It is good to put a label on the bags with the date you made the puree. And that is it, super easy and not time-consuming.
3. Warming up the frozen green bean puree
It goes without being said, but if you want to use the green bean cubes, you will need to defrost them first. There are few ways you can defrost the green bean puree.
One easy way to defrost the puree is to put it in a bowl with a lid on and let it defrost in the fridge so that you can use it the next day. The following day the puree should be soft and ready for use. The experience will tell you that this will not always be the option but don’t worry. We got few more options.
Microwaving the baby puree is not a good idea because it will leave hot spots in the baby’s food, which can burn the baby. Also, microwaving is bad for the food, and you can google it too to see what the disadvantages are.
If you happen to need the baby food as fast as possible, take a puree cube, put it in a bowl, and place that bowl into a larger bowl filled with hot water. The heat from the hot water will defrost the puree, but you might need to change the water by adding fresh hot water a few times. Occasionally break up and turn the cubes so that they will get softer, which will make the defrosting process a lot faster.
It looks like a lot of work, but trust me, it is the best way to defrost the puree when you need to use it right away. This method won’t make the food too hot, so you don’t have to worry that it will burn your baby. Also, this way you will preserve the nutrients and isn’t that the whole point of making this food. Always test the food before you give it to your baby.
There you have it, that is the whole process of making the green beans puree. The only thing left is for your baby to enjoy it. Hopefully, he/she will find it yummy.
