Alternatives to Store-Bought Baby Meat

[jana224]

When it came time to introduce DD to solids, I was totally grossed out by the baby meats available to me in the stores because they taste/smell like cat food... 
I am not someone who spends a lot of time in the kitchen, so I haven't made my own purees for veggies and fruit, but I did buy about 5-6 chicken and turkey breasts and pan fried them, shredded the meat, then pureed in the blender with breastmilk.  That amount of meat got me 4 weeks of meat, stored in 1 and 2 ounce baby cubes.  And it literally took me one hour to make, it would have taken me that long at the store anyway.  Then when DD was on finger foods, I bought a few packages of lean ground chicken and turkey and browned them in the frying pan and froze individual portions.  Now I just grab a Baby Cube, quickly thaw and give her the ground meat with some other hand held or pureed veggies.
Just wanted to share because I know some of us are hesistant to make our own baby food, but these were two really easy ways to get healthy (normal tasting and smelling) meats into my DD.
Jana

[Mashi]

Yes - I do the same.  I buy a few chicken legs and thighs (dark meat has more heme iron and needed fat for babies). Bake them until well cooked, then pick all of the meat off of the bone.  Chop it up into teeny tiny pieces (my favourite part as I run my big knife up and down and pretend I'm Jamie Oliver...) and then put it into little pots.  I was freezing it in my little one ounce pots put have realized that it crumbles out easily and so can freeze it into bigger pots and just use a fork to break/crumble off from frozen what I need when I need it. 

[AshleyB]

I had the same "cat food" reaction. We usually bake a whole chicken and use it for our own dinner. Then we take the leftover meat and put it in a food processor with some kind of starch and a little broth. The first time, we used some leftover brown rice, then the next time it was some whole wheat pasta. The last time we threw in some baked sweet potatoes. We then freeze small portions and we have protein for weeks!

[Canwi]

Because we didn't always use the same portion for the boys we freeze shredded meat on a cookie sheet/oven tray that has parchment/baking paper on it.  The paper stops the meat sticking to the tray.  Once the meat is frozen (usually overnight in the freezer is all it needs) you put it in a plastic container with a measuring spoon.  Now you can add as much or as little of the meat as you want.  Looks kinda like bread crumbs.

Also we've cooked the meat in the slow cooker/crock pot so that you can use cheaper cuts of meat esp. beef and it is SUPER tender.

[jana224]

Great ideas here!  Thanks for sharing.