The day my oldest daughter turned the big four months, I enthusiastically started her on her first solid food – rice cereal, of course!  When the joyous day came for her to sample her first fruits and veggies, I was thrilled to pick out jar after jar of those darling little baby food jars.  About two weeks into our solid foods foray, it occurred to me that those sweet little jars of baby food would soon be creating a big addition to our weekly grocery bill.

Super Baby Food

Luckily, a good mama friend came to my rescue by lending me her copy of Super Baby Food.  Aha and voila!  Make your own baby food!

Super Baby Food is a good resource, although at six hundred pages, it can be a little overwhelming.  I have since come across some other helpful baby food resources:

Simply Natural

* Whole food wonder woman Cathe Olson has created a Simply Natural guide to feeding your baby delightfully fresh foods.

Feeding The Whole Family

* Cynthia Lair’s Feeding The Whole Family is an immensely informative cookbook for families who want to eat more whole foods, and Lair adds ideas at the end of each recipe for incorporating the recipe’s ingredients into baby’s diet.  (For example, when you make the Deep-Fried Millet Croquettes, Lair suggests you reserve some of the cooked millet to puree for baby.)

The Petit Appetit Cookbook

* Although I’ve not read it, I hear good things about Lisa Barnes’ The Petit Appetit Cookbook.

Wholesome Baby Food

* Finally, the one resource I have gone back to time and again for preparing baby and toddler food is wholesomebabyfood.com.  With everything from recipes to solid food charts to a companion e-book, this is a one-stop super helpful resource for parents who want to create delicious and fresh baby food right at home!