Making your own baby food is quick, cost-effective and rewarding. All you need is a blender or food processor, a steamer basket and ice cube trays.

Pick up a few vegetables and fruits — broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, peas, sweet potatoes, apples, mango. Anything except citrus fruits will do.

Clean and peel the food, steam it in separate batches, and then puree it in a blender or food processor until it is smooth. Spoon the purees into ice cube trays, cover with plastic wrap and freeze. Once frozen, dump the cubes into labelled freezer bags. They’ll keep for up to three months.

In less than two hours, you can make enough food for baby for a month.

To prepare food from frozen, remove the required cubes and thaw them overnight in a small container in the fridge. Initially, baby may only eat half a cube or less, but will soon move up to a cube or two or more of different foods.

Making your own baby food will trim between $10 to $15 a month off your food budget, or more as baby consumes more. Quality and taste are also among the reasons most parents give for making their own baby food. By making your own baby food, you’ll have greater control over what your children eat, and their taste buds can be exposed to foods the rest of the family already enjoys.

You’ll also make fewer trips to the grocery store, saving yourself the hassle of lugging home and then recycling all those little jars.

Essential tips

•    Safety. Practice safe food-handling procedures.

•    Brush. Scrub fruits and veggies very well with a vegetable brush.

•    Mashing. Soft fruits like bananas need only be mashed. Hard fruits should be cooked first.

•    Less is more. Don’t add salt and sugar.

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