We’re hanging out at home all weekend potty training our “big boy” so I thought I’d use the opportunity to make a bunch of baby food for our “little boy”. I like to make and freeze a few batches of baby food at a time so I’m not having to make small batches every day.

As I’ve mentioned before, I like making my own baby food. It’s cheaper than buying it in the store, it’s healthy (I only make exactly what I want my baby eating–not preservatives or extra additives), and it’s really is pretty easy to do.

Today I made brown rice cereal. This is a good first food for babies who are new to solids, and it can be mixed with any other baby food to give it more texture and a thicker consistency. If you’re so inclined, you can follow my little tutorial on how to make your own baby rice cereal!

1. Start with a milling blade (basically a flat blade) for your blender. I have a Baby Bullet with different types of blades that you can attach to the blender, but you could really use any blender that has a similar blade.

2. Add 1/2 cup uncooked brown rice to the blender (or, apparently, the smiley face cup)

3. Blend the rice until it is a fine powder (about 30 seconds)

4. Add the milled brown rice and 4 cups of water to a pot.

5. Cover the pot until it boils. Once it hits a boil, turn down the heat to low and cook with the lid on for 20 minutes.

6. Test the consistency of your rice cereal. If you want it thinner, you can add more water or breast milk. Be careful, though. On my last batch I added too much extra liquid and it made the rice cereal so runny that it wouldn’t stay on a spoon.

6. Once the ideal consistency is achieved, pour the rice cereal into storage cups. I like transferring the cereal to a large Pyrex with a pour spout for this part–it makes it a lot easier to pour the cereal into the small containers.

7. Feed the baby his yummy rice cereal!

8. Freeze or refrigerate the leftover cereal. Frozen baby food can last up to 6 months in your freezer. When you’re ready to eat the frozen rice cereal, just take out 1 or 2 portions the day before and defrost them in your fridge. The rice cereal will keep for about 3 days in your fridge.

I was able to make about 20 portions of brown rice cereal today. Since Jacob is just starting on solids, this will last us 2-3 weeks if he has 1 portion per day. At a cost of about 50 cents to make this whole batch of rice cereal, that makes for some cheap eats!