Making Nutritious Baby Food With Freshfoods™ Cook-n-Blend Baby Food Maker

Are you tired of wondering exactly what all those words you can't pronounce are in your baby food?

Would you like to know exactly how fresh, and which ingredients are going into the food your baby is eating?

Freshfoods™ Cook-n-Blend Baby Food Maker by NUK has mastered the art of making easy and nutritious baby food at home in just two easy steps - steam & blend!

With both of my children, I found that they often rejected store bought baby food, but would chow down on any of the baby food I made at home.  This Cook-n-Blend Baby Food Maker, allows you to steam fresh veggies or meats, and then blend them up in the same unit.  That means no blender to bring down out of the cupboards, and no extra pots and pans to wash!

MomsMeet (greenmomsmeet.com) recently gave me the opportunity to try out the Freshfoods™ Cook-n-Blend Baby Food Maker and see how it worked in my kitchen.

First things first, you need to fill up the little water reservoir.  The baby food maker comes with a handy-dandy recipe book that will tell you what the water level needs to be (1-3) depending on what type of food you're cooking.

PLUS 

• The water used to steam the baby food ingredients pools at the bottom of the cooking bowl, which you'll use as the liquid to blend your baby food with. This means nutrients released in the steaming process are re-infused into the food, instead of discarded!

MINUS

• The window of the water reservoir is kinda dark, which makes it hard to see how much water you've put in. Also the knob comes off all the way, and I can just see my clumsy self  loosing it under the fridge. Would be great if it attached somehow.

 
I decided to use the recipe book, included with the Freshfoods™ Cook-n-Blend Baby Food Maker and try my hand at a DHA rich, fish puree for my 9 month old - Baby O.

First = chop 1 1/2 cups of sweet potato and put them in the steamer basket.

Easy!

Second = Press the little steam "on" button. 

It lit up green to let me know it was on a mission to steam up my baby some healthy food.

Third = Add 3oz white fish (cod) & 1/4 cup frozen peas


After the sweet potatoes cooked, the unit beeped to let me know I could add my next ingredients.  The steaming took about 12-14 minutes, so this is definitely something you want to make ahead of time. Not conducive for a short-order cook sort of thing. 

Look at all that steaming liquid pooling at the bottom of the cooking bowl!  That's all the nutrients cooking out of the potatoes, peas and cod that you'd usually just toss - but we're going to use it when we blend the food. 

This means that baby gets more vitamins in their food. That makes me happy!

Fourth = Use the handy-dandy spatula aka. basket handle to remove the steamer basket.

This spatula also works great to scrape the sides of the bowl after blending the food. Perfect depth and width to get all the good stuff at the bottom.

Fifth = Pour the steamer basket into the cooking/blending bowl.

There are two attachments, a puree blade and a smoothie blade. Both were super easy to attach and remove for cleaning.

Sixth = Add 2 TBSP of the cooking liquid, 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese & 2oz milk.

You're almost done!

Seventh = It's time to turn it up to ONE (no, not up to 11 - anyone know the reference?) and blend!

There are two settings for blending, a double blade for a smooth mixture to feed your younger babies and single blade for older toddlers. 

NOTE: You have to hold the dial while blending, I assume for safety purposes. While being a tiny big taxing on your fingers, this is really a great feature so no little curious fingers are harmed in the process. 

Most of the recipes make at least 4 meals. This recipe made 5 servings of fish puree. I froze 4 of the 5 containers to defrost as needed. 

If you don't have freezer safe containers for your baby food, you can check out Freshfoods™ Freezer Tray  or Freshfoods™ Stackable Cubes to keep your nutritious baby food safe from freezerburn!


I found the whole process of making baby food with the Freshfoods™ Cook-n-Blend Baby Food Maker really easy, and the clean up was a breeze. Most of all, I'm really happy, knowing that my daughter is getting all organic, natural baby food with tons of vitamins and minerals straight from the source.

I can't wait to decide which cool baby food recipe I'm gonna make next!

 Things to Think About

MINUS

• The recipe book looks kinda daunting at first glance, it looks like there's tons of steps in the instructions, but I think it's just really wordy (kinda like me) heh-heh.
• The lid to the cooking unit is a bit difficult to get off the first few times, it's a twist and a screw that just doesn't come natural, but after a bit of practice I became a pro.
• The water reservoir window, is dark and hard to gauge if you're at the right level. 

PLUS

• You'll save money by not having to buy jarred baby food at the store.
• You can use the freshest, seasonal ingredients for baby.
• Preserves the vitamins in food by using the reserved steaming liquid.
• Steamer basket has two sides to keep flavors separate if needed.
• Spatula is designed great! Used as a handle as well as scrapes out food effectively
• You can cook both frozen and fresh ingredients at the same time.
• Components are dishwasher safe!

If you're interested in making your own baby food, like I did, you can use this coupon for $20.00 OFF the Freshfoods™ Cook-n-Blend Baby Food Maker!

Plus, stay in the know about new deals, sweepstakes and offers by liking NUK® on Facebook




Disclaimer: I received this product for free from the sponsor of the Moms MeetSM program, May Media Group LLC, who received it directly from the manufacturer. As a Moms MeetSM blogger, I agreed to use this product and post my opinions on my blog. My opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of May Media Group LLC or the manufacturer of the product.