Beaba Babycook Review

I decided that I wanted to make my own baby food long before Niamh arrived. Jeff and I stick to a mostly "paleo" diet - meat, veggies, some fruit, nuts, and seeds. Basically, grains, dairy and sugar are a no-go. While it is possible to purchase prepackaged baby food with simple organic fruits and veggies, the process that makes them shelf-stable for so long removes a great deal of the nutritional value. That said, I've had pretty good luck with my Beaba Babycook but there are a few things worth mentioning:

• I could not figure out how to use this crazy Swedish thing for the life of me. In the picture above, the main body of the machine has a twist-off green lid. When steaming veggies, you fill the plastic pitcher with water up to the appropriate measurement and then pour the water into that main reservoir. Somehow, even after being a huge dork and reading through the instruction manual multiple times, it wasn't clear to me that you measure the water according to the lines on the plastic pitcher, but don't actually cook with the water in there. Once I opened that green lid, poured my water in, and switched on my Babycook, it was smooth sailing.
• There is no timer or alert when the steam process is complete. Granted, this isn't a huge deal, but when I'm multitasking it would be nice to know once my baby food is ready to move onto the next step.
• I recommend making things in bulk and I've discovered that the Babycook just isn't big enough to allow me to cook large batches of food the way I'd like to. It works well for whipping up some simple fruit and veggie purees, but now that I'm making meat and veggie dishes I need something larger. I end up braising some meat with vegetables on the stove top and pureeing with my food processor (although the consistency isn't as smooth as with my Babycook). 
• Easy to clean! I throw all the parts in the dishwasher and don't think twice about it. 

Basically, the biggest downfall to the Babycook is size and, wouldn't you know they've now solved that problem? Meet the Beaba Babycook PRO...

And if you need even more space, here's the Babycook PRO 2X...

In my humble opinion, go with the PRO 2X. The three prices are approximately $115, $150, and $200, respectively. You get twice the capacity of the PRO for $50 more and I'd say it's worth the upgrade.

**For those of you interested in my homemade baby food process, I try to keep it as simple as possible. Ditch the pricey little OXO Tot containers and stick with regular old ice cube trays. I puree my food, spoon it into ice cube trays, and later store all my frozen cubes in labeled freezer bags. Each cube is approximately an ounce, so it's easy to measure. I recommend Annabel Karmel's Top 100 Baby Purees to get started making your own food. After a few batches, you'll get a good idea of what you're doing and start making up your own combos! Good luck!