Awhile back I did a DIY Wednesday post on making baby food
and many of you were interested in the Infantino Fresh Squeezed products I had
used, so I thought I would share with you a little more about them. Their Fresh
Squeezed line of baby food making products and accessories include the
following:
-squeeze station
-reusable pouches
-one-time use pouches
-spoons that can be used with the one time use pouches
-steam and mush kit
-food processor
-mush bowl
-food masher
-funnel
-food mill
-fridge/freezer sleeve to store one time use pouches in
-lunch bag/cooler to keep bottles and pouches cool on the go
So far I have only tried the squeeze station and one-time
use pouches, but I would love to try some of their other products, especially
the reusable pouch/container! In this post I will share with you my experience
with these products, how they work, and some tips on using them!
*
Note: I have quite a few pictures of the squeeze station
and pouches in my post on making baby food, so I have not included many in this
one. If you’re interested in seeing the other pictures, follow the link HERE.
Admittedly,
we never made baby food BEFORE we got the Infantino squeeze station and
pouches, but they have made making it SO easy and much less of a daunting task
as originally thought. The thought of having to mess with ice cube trays kind
of bummed me out, so I was glad we saw these products before we had to try that
out!
The squeeze
station is super easy to use, store, and clean…Ok. It’s just super easy! In
layman’s terms, to use it you simply pop in your pouches in the 3 slots on the
top rack, screw the tubes onto the opening of the pouches, and pour your baby
food purees in the tubes. Make sure you fill your purees up to the top line so
that your bag will be full. Next, take the plunger thing and push the food down
into the bags. Once all of your pouches are full, unscrew the tubes and remove
your pouches from the slots, screw their caps on, and label and date! It’s
really that easy! It’s like having your own little production line at home. :D
Now, I have
a few tips relating to the plunger device. I have found that it works a little
TOO well. Many times it creates such a tight seal that it pushes air down
inside of the pouches. This is kind of annoying since you want them to be as
full of FOOD as possible! My husband suggested this and it’s going to sound a
little ridiculous, but it seems to work. Making sure you have the cap on tight,
hold the pouch by the cap and swing it back and forth. The idea is to force all
of the food down to the bottom of the pouch, so then you can take the cap back
off and push the excess air out without spewing food in the process.
Pulling the
plunger back OUT of the tube once you’ve pushed all of the food in can
sometimes cause some of the food to be sucked back up into the tube because
again, the plunger’s suction works a little too well. Before you take it back
out, just unscrew the tube from the pouch opening. Then you don’t have to worry
about sucking any food back up into the tube and pushing air back in and yada
yada yada. It also helps getting the plunger out if you wiggle it back and
forth instead of trying to pull it straight out. That has worked better for me,
at least.
Another tip
I would like to share is to use a spoon. I don’t know about you, but I can make
an ungodly mess if I try pouring things from one container into another.
Therefore, I use a large spoon to scoop the purees from the food processor and
pour them into the tubes. So far this has worked nicely for me with everything
but mangos and bananas. They were just too runny.
I also like
the squeeze station because it doesn’t take up much room in our already
cluttered kitchen. Once everything has been washed and dried, of course, you
just pop on the bottom tray, click the filling tubes to the pegs on the inside of it, and
put the top tray in place. Voila! Tuck it away until the next time you need to
make baby food.
We chose
(and like) the one-time use pouches for several reasons. First of all, while I
really do hate being wasteful, we are cheap. You can get 50 of these pouches
for a decent price. This also means being able to make larger batches up at a
time, which I like. I don’t want to or plan on making baby food every week, so
we do several different fruits and veggies at a time and freeze the majority of
them and put one of each in the fridge. If I remember correctly, it’s ok to
keep them in the freezer for about 3 months and 2-3 days in the fridge. I like
being able to have a larger variety too because of the amount of disposable
pouches you get per box. We have been making Myka’s baby food for a little over
2 months now, have made 4 batches of varying fruits and veggies, like I said,
and just now ran out of pouches this last time.
I will
admit, we bought off brand spoons that attach to the disposable pouches, but
it’s still a neat idea. We haven’t made pre-mixed blends of food for Myka yet
so we still use a regular kid spoon and bowl. I can’t wait to try it out,
though, since it will “cut out the middle man” and there won’t be nearly as
many baby dishes to wash!
If you
would like to check out more of the Infantino Fresh Squeezed products or
purchase some for yourself, click
HERE.
*Getting Green with Baby was not compensated in any way
for this review. All opinions expressed herein are my own. I am not affiliated
with Infantino in any way. I simply like their products discussed in this post
and felt like sharing them with others.
