Baby Food! Carrots (and mango and apple)

I think the worst part of making carrots is peeling the damn things. It takes for.ever. I would use the baby carrots but they don't have the organic kind where I shop.

I simply steamed these and then pureed them with a touch of water. DO NOT use the water that you used to steam the carrots. Something about nitrates.

I freeze almost all of the food I make. I bought a silicone tray and it tore after a few uses. I find that the ice cube tray works the best. One cube is about an ounce. After I freeze the food I pop out the cubes and transfer them to a marked heavy duty ziplock bag. I find that by freezing single ingredients I can be more creative. Carrots with apples. Carrots with parsnips. Carrots with mango. Carrots with all three.

You can also make a carrot, mango, apple puree all in one. Just roast the peeled chopped carrots, cored and halved apples (you can leave the peel on) and chunks of mango. I roast at 350* until the carrots were tender. Then transfer that to the blender. You may need to add a touch of water to thin it out.

Baby Food: Potato, Kale, and Green Beans

I haven't been very good about posting my baby food adventures on this blog. I have a Mommy blog and I talk about it some over there but I will try to do better about posting this here.

I think everyone should make their baby food. I see absolutely no reason you would need to buy that crap in a jar. I work 40 hours a week. I have a clingy baby. I have a husband that doesn't come home until 7:00 at night and works some on the weekends. And I have a household to manage. 98% of Abe's food is from scratch. I do buy the organic pouch food for emergencies, i.e. we are at Grampie's longer than we thought we would be and Abe is starving. He also gets mums on occassion. Oh. And Cheerios at breakfast.

Making baby food really is quick and easy. I swear.

I made this batch of food while making supper. Abe played on the kitchen floor, when he got antsy I gave him a mum and that occupied him for a good 15 minutes.

I always taste his food before I feed it to him. If I think it is gross why would he think it is good?? So far everything I've made has been very tasty.

This mixture turned a bit gooey since you are blending starchy potatoes. Still...very yum. Kale and beans fresh from the farm.

Potatoes with Kale and Green BeansSource: adapted from Fresh From the Start by Tyler Florence (my new favorite book)
Yield: about 18 ounces

1 large russet potato, peeled and sliced (I only had Yukon gold so I used two of those)
1/4 pound green beans
4 leaves of kale, stems removed
1 cup organic chicken broth (I only had veggie so I used that)
3T Parmesan cheese
1 T olive oil

Put the potato, beans, kale and broth/stock in a large pot. Boil over medium until the potatoes are tender. Pour all of this into the blender with the cheese and oil, puree, cool, serve.

How easy is that??

Gnocchi with Summer Veggies

This is one of my favorite recipes and this is the perfect time of year to make it. I'm really surprised that I haven't blogged this before. It is super simple and it is so easy to get the ingredients fresh from the market. In the past few years I've been able to go out in the back yard and just pick the veggies and basil to make this recipe. I've frozen the base for this and it worked out really well too.

This year I made it and blended a bit for Abe. He loved it!

Gnocchi with Summer Vegetables
Source: Martha Stewart
Yield: 4 servings

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 zucchini or summer squash, or one of each (about 2 pounds total), quartered and sliced
2 garlic cloves, minced
Coarse salt and ground pepper
1 pint grape tomatoes, halved
1 package (15 to 16 ounces) frozen gnocchi
1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
2 tablespoons grated Pecorino Romano cheese
1 tablespoon butter
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

1.In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high. Add squash and garlic and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until squash is crisp-tender, 4 to 5 minutes. Add tomatoes and cook, stirring occasionally, until juicy, about 2 minutes.

2.Meanwhile, in a large pot of boiling salted water, cook gnocchi according to package instructions. Reserving 1/2 cup cooking liquid, drain gnocchi and transfer to skillet. Toss gnocchi, adding enough cooking liquid to create a sauce. Remove from heat and stir in basil, cheese, butter, and lemon juice.

Baby Food! Squash and Apple

Hey look, we can kill two birds with one stone.

Bake the apple right in the squash, scoop it out and blend it up.

I wanted to start out doing baby-led weaning...it hasn't really worked out for us at this point. But by trying to start with it...I skipped doing a smooth puree. I would offer him a chunk of cooked sweet potato, he didn't seem interested so I would mash it with my fork right at the table. Then he was interested. And I don't see why baby food has to be so processed that it is completely lump free. I mean, how boring is that?

So even when I process the food in my Cuisinart, I leave it a little lumpy. Obviously not big chunks he could choke on...I mean...give me some credit.

I baked this in a 375 degree oven for about a half hour. Next time I will cover the apple with foil so it doesn't dry out on the top.

Baby Food! Oatmeal and Banana

Here goes my first post about making baby food.

It is probably pretty predictable that I would make my own baby food, right?

I mean. I'm a snot about what I eat...why wouldn't I be a snot about what my kid eats?

So when most parents introduce rice cereal (what the F is that??) I milled some oats and made my own cereal.

I have now got it down to a perfect consistency. 2T of milled oats to 3T of water. Microwave that for 30 or less seconds, add about a half ounce of warmed breast milk. Perfect!! I've also started adding banana once in a while. This is the perfect way to use up bananas that are a bit over ripe for my taste. My dude doesn't care! He luuurrrvvvs his bananas....and oatmeal...and squash...