Although I'm not ready to start weaning Amber yet, I am ready to shop for all the equipment I need, so I'm after some advice...

What food processors do you use and are they any good?

What do you store prepared food in and is it good?

Hopefully this will save me from spending money on things that aren't very good - and for anyone else that hasn't invested, perhaps will help them too!

Thanks

Hi I just bought a hand blender for about ??10 and ice cube trays to put food in to begin with most ??1 shops do differant size ice cube trays xxxxxxxxxx

i got a hand blender too as you only make purees for a short while before mashed food so i thought food processor was waste of money just for baby food. i used normal ice cube trays then when food was frozen, popped cubes out into sandwich bags and labelled them, so i had lots of bags of diff things ready to go.
xx

I use a hand held blender too, great for the smaller amounts when you first start weaning Cally.
I bought some cheapie ice cube trays in the supermarket and made the mistake of putting them in my steam steriliser, oops, they went all brittle and then cracked when I froze them. Got some great rubber cube trays in a kitchen shop and now I cold water sterilise everything just in case!! I then pop out the cubes once frozen into sterilised tupperware boxes marked with type of food and the date.
My sis gave me some good advice re weaning though...although all mums think it's best to offer home cooked food do try and use the odd jar as you never know when you may need to give jar food in an emergency (for example). Her lo turned up his nose as she had only ever offered home cooked purees/food and he screamed the place down when they were out when given a jar! So I give Skye a jar once a week or so as I believe they taste very different. Don't want to be caught out and have her refuse it if I need to use them!!

Iz & Skye x

Great advice about the jars - I was wondering what to do about integrating them so I didn't get that reaction.

I'm just using my standard braun hand blender that I've had for several years. I did have a mad minute on Friday and think - 'well I've got to sterilise the blender bowl as foods going in it', so stuck it in the steriliser and forgot about the metal spike in the middle!!!! Thankfully there was minimal damage with only the bowl being unusuable, the microwave survived fine!
Container wise I got a load of the tt small containers and brother max ones that clip together. Thought these were good as they can be taken out of the house straight from the freezer, and I don't have an ice cube rack as we have an inbuilt ice maker so it would be a waste of space for it to take up a shelf or too. One thing I am going to do is one stuff is frozen, push the lumps out into a freezer bag so I can re-use the jars/tubs more quickly.

I use a hand blender too, mine's a standard John Lewis one and it's very good.

My puree storage is a bit random - I have all different sizes and types of ice cube tray so there's no standardisation which as a bit of an obsessive drives me BARMY!

Kristin and Iz, do you find that once the cubes have frozen and you pop them into freezer bags/tupperware boxes they all stick together, or is it easy to break off the cubes you need? Had thought of doing this but wasn't sure if it'd work. She's now having 3-4 cubes at a time (plus baby rice for starters) so it'd be handy to make an enormous batch of something and then be able to bag it all up, rather than have trays and trays of the same food hanging about.

OH, not sure if you have any bibs yet Cally but would def recommend the ones that just do up with a bit of velcro - ties are way too fiddly.

i just bought a baby blender from tasda, not to put babies in tho : ) it was bout 13 quid but i think its good, its small and just right to blend all his food, i put his food in little pots then freeze them, havent done the ice cube tray thing i dont really get it! am dumb : ) but am going to get some and give it a go. how do u all defrost it? x

Hey PT, I'll have to let you know about whether they stick together as only just tried putting them into a freezer bag, I should know by the end of the week as I'll need some of it by then. I can't see why the would particularly stick together. If they do stick together it should be fairly easy to get them apart with a knife, just like blocks of frozen spinich etc.
One thing I have found is that it's virtually pointless trying to get the frozen food out of the brother max pots using the push out bit at the bottom of them. both me and dh tried last night and gave up as it was stuck fast.

As far as defrosting goes, I'll just take the cube of food out and put it straight into a bowl to defrost. I then have to stick it in the microwave or oven (when it's off) so the cats don't get it!!!

I haven't found that any of my cubes get stuck together yet PTB, so long as I make sure they are properly frozen solid when I pop them out into the tupperware boxes. I did get some out too early once and yep, they got stuck together, but I got them apart with a knife as Kristin suggested!

Defrosting wise I sterlise 2 pots and lids each night and get cubes out of the freezer and pop them in the fridge to defrost slowly for the next day pinklady. Sometimes I use the microwave if I forget to get them out though, doh!