Freshfoods Cook-n-Blend Baby Food Maker

Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program My resistance to getting a baby food maker like this was based on my fear of having a large, hard to clean appliance that would make a mess. I'm someone who hates speciality appliances, as I have a NYC kitchen.

I am very happy to say that this appliance is actually very small, and fits in a cabinet (although it doesn't take up too much space on the counter anyway). Think about 2 mugs sitting next to each other. It takes up about that much space. Also, it is very non-messy. You steam and blend in the same container, which is SMALL (the downside is, it won't work for someone who wants to make 20 meals at a time). Cleanup is easy. I would compare the mess and hassle to making coffee using a french press if you grind your own beans. It's about the same effort in my opinion, and the same mess.

Today I made organic sweet potatoes and carrots, and I ate half of it. Oops. That's ok I'm not big on freezing this is simple enough to make fresh every day. If you want to start REALLY easy, get a bag of baby carrots. For those, you can toss them straight from the bag into the basket.

How does it work:

Pour water in the tank

Put vegetables (or whatever) in the basket)

Press the "on" button and wait until it beeps, letting you know it's done

Come back, flip the basket over, in the same container that was used to steam

hold the dial in the "blend" position until it's blended as you wish

DONE

Now you can quickly rinse the container, and you're done. No mess. The no mess is really the thing I want to stress. I feel like most people who don't make their own baby food are worried more about the mess than the prep. It's easy to take a sweet potato out of the fridge and cut it into pieces. The hassle is in the cleanup, right? I can tell you there really is nothing to clean. It's easier than rinsing out a blender because it's so small.

Anyway one thing to mention more as an FYI than a downside to the machine ...

It's IMPOSSIBLE to open when you first get it. Seriously difficult. I was about to call the manufacturer because I thought the lid was welded shut. I came here to see if anyone addressed this in a review, but no one did. Then I looked back in the instruction booklet, and it mentioned "The lid may be difficult to open the first 2-3 uses." Ok well that gave me the confidence to use force along the lines of "I think this much force will break the whole thing." And when I did, the lid finally came off. It has loosened up and been easier to open in the times since. But just note that if you buy this, you may have a lot of trouble getting the lid off the first time. It's hard enough that they must have gotten some indication to know they need to let you know in the instruction booklet.

Aside from that, this is a fantastic little baby food maker. I highly recommend. The biggest pros are that it's small and no mess. If you were looking for something to make a dozen portions at a time though, this is too small for that.

Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program The Cook-n-Blend has a lot of utility for new parents and parents of toddlers but it is also quite useful as a kitchen appliance. It is a VERY handy and easy to use steamer that busy parents will appreciate. It also does make pureed baby food and a more chunky version. I've also used it for salsa with good results. And it has a smoothie blade. It is powerful enough to crush ice pretty well. But my favorite feature is the steamer.

Steaming food preserves a lot of nutrients. It also is usually a method that produces results that babies and toddlers like. This is just a fantastic steamer; tasty results and you can set it and go on to other kitchen tasks or whatever. You put water into a level the instruction book lists as appropriate for that vegetable. You then put the vegetables in. The machine heats the water and puts it under the basket. The basket also has a divider that is handy when you want to keep two things separate and save time. It also turns the machine off. The results have been uniformly pleasing to the whole family: soft, thoroughly done vegetables that are not mushy at all.

You then have a more traditional food processor. One setting purees and is very powerful. The other one leaves more chunks but is also pretty powerful. As I mentioned above you can use it for regular food processor chores. It also has a smoothie blade that has produced good results.

There is one very annoying design flaw. Nuk made it EXTREMELY hard to read the water level when you are steaming. I use a light app on my iPhone and I still can't tell where the water is. They should have made the level lines white but instead they are barely discernible. I also got a small cut unpacking the smoothie blade. It is very sharp and had gone through the plastic wrap. Just something to keep an eye out for.

This is a well-designed and very useful product. The recipes offer good combination, are fairly simple (although I don't need to skin tomatoes in my recipes something the author loves to recommend) and come in a nice spiral notebook. Here is the thing though: many people have steamers, many people have food processors. Is something that does both well worth getting?

I think it would make an excellent shower gift or first year gift. Things that allow you to walk away and not check on things are invaluable to parents of young ones. It also gets warm but not hot when steaming. But overall much safer than another pot of boiling water. There is always a space issue when you get a new kitchen appliance. The design really is compact for the size of the bowl. I do recommend it. Anyone giving or getting this for themselves will find a lot of utility.

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Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program I don't cook barely ever and I NEVER imagined I would be making my own baby food. However, after using this product a few times, I'm making it all the time! First I started off small and made "banana blueberry" recipe that came in the small book that was included with the baby food maker. If you can slice a banana and measure 1/3 cup of blueberries, you can make your own baby food. It steams for ~14 minutes and then you blend it. It's easy to clean dishwasher safe. Last night, my Mom made Sunday dinner that consisted of chicken, mashed potatoes, glazed carrots and applesauce. Well, I took a little of everything and blended it up when I got home last night and made a 'chicken dinner' baby food. It's totally a hit! You can be quite flexible with the types of food that you make. There are some recipes for chicken sweet potato that involve steaming partially cooked chicken however, I prefer to add cooked chicken after the other items have been steamed, just to be sure it's fully cooked. The recipes included with this are from the "Top 100 Baby Purees" book, which we also own and never used until now! Now I am unstoppable :) And, I will say the food tastes so much better. My little guy is tearing it up, and my daughter is even eating the fruit purees like she would yogurt. Definitely a hit!

UPDATE: I bought 1 sweet potato for about 90 cents at the grocery story and this made about 4 jars of baby food. I also used baby carrots, cut them in thirds, and made food with those no peeling, no rinsing. (Like I said, I don't cook very often). And, I made a batch of apple/strawberry/blueberry that came out great. With some of the extra, I froze it into pops and my infant and toddler both loved them! My baby is teething and was refusing to eat any solid foods for a few days (of course, now that I was whipping them up like crazy!) but the popsicle went over great. You can make both big batches and smaller batches, and freeze whatever you don't plan to use within a few days.

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I purchased this before there were any reviews and have owned it for about 6 months. I have now used it to make all my little guys meals. He has only had to have store bought baby food twice.

What I LOVE about this machine:

I do not have to pull anything extra out to cook with it. I peel, chop and throw in whatever I want to make. I add water depending on the fruit or veggie I add. I press the button, I walk away. In 13-17 mins it beeps. I usually wait to start and have waited up to 30 mins after it beeped to start making baby food (because I was wrapped up with a toddler and an infant) and the food is still steamy and happy when I get to it.

Yes you can do this on a stove top, yes you could use a blender.....BUT this takes up NO real extra room, I do not have to wash pots and pans, or a BLENDER, which I hate trying to wash those. It really is very simple to take the cook-n-blend apart I have not had any trouble cleaning it. Plus you lose nutrients on the stove top. This locks them in and you use the water you cook with to puree.

When I make baby food this is what I use, the basket from the machine, a knife, a measuring cup, a vegetable peeler and a rubber spatula. Everything I have made so far has made 12oz or more, I have a freezer full of ready to eat baby food. I have tasted everything and my toddler LOVED the sweet potato butternut squash mash I made. I pureed the rest and froze it for the baby.

What I didn't like about the machine:

It is hard to open at first, but with each use it gets easier.

The water level indicator is very hard to read, I just finally figured out how much water to put in a bottle to get it to the line I need without having to worry. 7oz gets it to the max line, and 5oz gets it to the second line, about 2oz gets it the first.

The book they send with the Nuk Cook-n-Blend is mostly stuff for older babies, not babies in stage one.

____

But I did find this website more than helpful when shopping for my baby's next meal http://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com They also have a book out:The Wholesome Baby Food Guide: Over 150 Easy, Delicious, and Healthy Recipes from Purees to Solids

So far we have made, Sweet Potatoes, Butternut Squash, Sweet Potatoes and Butternut Squash, Carrots, Apples, Pear, Apples and Pears, and Green Beans.

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So I have 2 kidsa 4 yr old and 7 month old. I bought this after researching several makers.I will start by saying this does a great job making baby food. It is easy to useput the water in as instructed (they DEF NEED to make the water line easier to read though!!), put in your chopped fruits/veg and push the button. When it's done it beeps and you need to grab a measuring cup or mug to reserve the "steaming" water so you can add some back to the food you are then going to puree. Pretty easy to clean. The thing is this does not make much at once. I used I apple and 1 pear together and that was about all I could steam and it made two 4oz serving. It took 17 min to steam the food. So, do the mathIn one hour I could make 8 cont. of food. Maybe if I didn't work and have an older child as well I could see making the food this like this but for me it's just not that practical. I can just as easily steam a whole bunch of stuff (or bake) at once then throw it in a blender and have more. The unit itself is also a pretty good sizeyet another appliance on the counter.... But if you can commit yourself to making food every other day then this may be perfect! Also it says you can reheat and defrost but I didn't see how that would work as the basket has a piece in the middle that doesn't remove so I don't understand that part and it didn't say anything about it in the directions.

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