Jinxyisms

I had read that yogurt made a great lunch for babies but it had to be the plain kind. The flavored ones were just candy. So when we were grocery shopping this past Sunday we bought one little container of plain.

I sat Lily in her chair, dished some yogurt into a small bowl and something made me go back for the camera. I set the self-timer and figured I might get a cute look on her face when she tried this new food. Boy was I glad I did. I spooned the first bite in and then prayed that I actually got the shot.

Priceless!

I set the timer again but I assumed the face was a one time thing.

Boy I was wrong.

At this point I was ready to give up on the yogurt but she grabbed the bowl and tried to drink it. I missed this face but let me tell you it was just as good. I gave her a couple of more bites but every time she made the same disgusted face. I figured if I hated something that much I wouldn’t want to eat it so I put the dish in the sink, Lily screamed her little heart out over this however. I gave her some cut up apple and all was right in the world again.

I am so glad we only bought the one container.

I was asked recently about homemade baby food. My response was that I love making it and it is so simple. I know that their are a number of resources on the internet on how to make baby food, this is my take. I use wholesomebabyfood.com as a starting point, it has great lists of what to feed and when and recipes.

I have found that Lily is a lover of all things squash.  This is how I do acorn squash.

Most acorn squash are greenish but this one happens to be orange.  It looks very much like an odd shaped pumpkin.

I scrub it clean and then cut it in half lengthwise. I swear to you cutting this thing open was the hardest part of the whole thing. I had no idea how tough it was.

I then scraped out the seeds. Since making this one I have bought a set of grapefruit spoons at Target. (I couldn’t find them on the Target website. Those things are a life saver.

Then they went into a pan, flesh side down with an inch or two of water.

I cooked them at 400° for about 1 hour.

The flesh was nice and soft and the skin was a little browned.

I scraped all the meat into my little food processor and gave it a whirl. You might need to add some water to get it to puree nicely. I try not to add too much water at this point though. From here on out it is very much like making sweet potatoes.

Once its cooled I spooned it into an ice cube tray, wrapped with plastic wrap and froze it overnight.

I make butternut squash just like this too.

I have a different method of heating these up then most people that I’ve read. We have a microwave but we never use it.

In the morning I take out a couple of food cubes and put them in the fridge in the cup I use to feed Lily. They are usually mostly defrosted by the time I feed her dinner, although this method still works if I forget to take them out, it just takes longer.  Lily only eats solids at dinner, the rest of the day she nurses.

When I’m ready to feed her I turn the water kettle on and put the food cup in a bowl. Once the water has boiled I fill the bowl with water and if the food needs to be thinned I add some of the hot water to it. I stir the food every so often and it heats it up in about 3-5 minutes.

I try to always keep some frozen green beans and peas around for the days I forget to take cubes out. That way I just cook the beans and peas according to the package directions, throw them in the food processor and then feed Lily.

As you can see this takes a few more minuted then opening a jar but I love the whole process of making my daughter’s food. And she loves eating it.

This Saturday was full of firsts for my little Lily.  I think my favorite was that she didn’t get upset and scream in the car during our weekly shopping trip, of course when we went out again later in the day there was a whole didn’t vibe in the car but I won’t dwell on that.  She didn’t cry at all, that is what I want to remember.  She had her first sip of water and it was from a “cup” which was another first and that went right along with her fist medicine.  Lily is teething (people following me on Twitter may have heard something about this) and its killing me her so I bought some Hyland’s Teething Tablets and dissolved a couple in a tiny “cup” with a tiny bit of water.  She drank that down just like a big girl.  I was so proud of her.  I have no idea if the teething tablets helped at all because her crankiness comes and goes so quickly it gives me whiplash but I like to think that it did help.

Another first for Lil was sweet potatoes.  Its the first non-rice cereal solid-ish food that she’s eaten and she liked it.  She was really unsure at first and I think that was partly my fault.  I didn’t mix any water, breast milk or formula into it, I just left it the consistency and texture it was right out of the food processor.  So it was a little thick and totally a different flavor/texture from the rice cereal she was used to so I wasn’t surprised that she wasn’t too sure at first, but she got over it very quickly.

I was so shocked at how easy the sweet potato was to make for her.  I bought 1 medium sized organic sweet potato (I should have taken a picture of it) and I followed to the directions that I got off of wholesomebabyfood.com.  But to make it sound more like my idea I will tell you what I did and add in the few pictures I managed to take.

I washed and scrubbed the sweet potato, then punched a bunch of holes in it (I love to get aggression out this way), then wrapped it in tin foil and tossed it in a 425 degree oven.  That is hotter then the website suggests but our oven seems to not run as hot as it should.  After 30 minutes Waldo flipped the potato over and after an hour total I took it out.  I left it wrapped to cool off for probably another hour.  Honestly I forgot about it so I have no idea how long it sat there but probably no longer then 90 minutes.

So I unwrapped it and sliced it in half length way and then peeled the skin off.  It was still a little hot but the skin just slipped right off.** I think cut it into large chunks and tossed it in the food processor.  I have a tiny processor and it was just perfect for this size sweet potato.  I then smushed the life out of the tuber.

I let it cool off a little more and then put some in a cup for Lily. Like I said before I didn’t add any liquid to it and I should have. I’ve been giving it to her all week with water added, its much better. She really liked it once she got over the new taste and texture.

When she was done she cleaned herself off.

After the smushed potato in the processor was all cooled I grabbed a clean ice cube tray and filled it up. Did you know that one ice cube is just over one ounce. I didn’t know that till I had Lily. The things our kids teach us.

Oh yea I wrapped it in clingfilm and then I stuck it in the freezer. The next day I wacked it on the counter and the frozen cubes of sweet potato fell out onto a paper towel.  Now they reside in my freezer in a zip lock bag and I take one out in the morning so it can thaw for dinner. It works out wonderfully.

Lily’s next new food will be avocado. I had to search around for an organic one or she would have had it before the sweet potato.

**I think this was from leaving it in the foil while it cooled.  It was easy peasy what ever the cause.