Hello, again, baby food

My sweet third son, Odin, is now seven months old. Unbelievable. As with all things, Odin has gracefully taken a liking to solid food. This third time around I found myself having many bittersweet feelings. I was excited for him to try this new adventure as I got to whip up batches of nutritious, simple baby food. Yet, he was taking a tiny step towards independence. Sigh.

I've been meaning to write about my method of introducing solids all month long! I'm glad to be here now writing these words. Yay! Each baby is different as is each parent. This is one way of introducing solids that has worked well for my family, and I hope it makes your transition to baby food a little bit easier!

When?
Six months has been the golden age in our home. I love, love, LOVE the information on www.askdrsears.com. They have incredible, straight-forward information that has naturally resonated with me. Check out their Feeding At A Glance Birth-24 Months. Awesome.

What?
I love starting with banana or avocado. So easy and no preparation needed. Simply mash and add a tad of filtered water for the appropriate consistency. Next, I love adding pear (pictured above) to their diet which is great for helping with their bowel movements during this transition. My babies eat this for breakfast every day until they can graduate to true oatmeal with the rest of the family. Don't believe the hype that fruit is too sweet as a starter food. There is plenty of research showing that is an unnecessary worry. Check out this great website on how to make your own rice cereal, which will also lead you to sources (including The American Academy of Pediatrics) backing that you don't have to start with commercial rice cereal or even veggies.

How?

Keep. It. Simple. While you are cooking breakfast, lunch or dinner, make a batch of baby food. This is actually a small amount of food. Three peeled pears fills up two and a half ice cube trays which will last for weeks during the first months. Babies eat so little, especially in the beginning, that cooking a batch in your 2 quart sauce pan will get your very far. I clean, peel, then evenly dice the fruit or veggie. Just cover with filtered water. Bring to a boil then lower to a gentle simmer. Cook until you can easily puree in with a hand blender, food processor or food mill. Spoon into ice trays. Transfer to freezer bags for easy preparation for weeks to come. You can find several books and websites with even greater detail. Just make sure everything (including your hands) are VERY clean.

Books?
Feeding the Whole Family: Cooking with Whole Foods by Cynthia Lair is incredible. It supports my theory that children should be given real, simple food. She thoughtfully approaches "Raising Healthy Eaters" as well as the nutritional realities of new eaters.

Simply Natural Baby Food by Cathe Olson is a fun resource if you want to add extra creativity to your menu. A small, easy companion.

Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron is redundant and an overload of information HOWEVER it has some great recipes...especially on how to make your own cereals such as her super porridge.

Being a healthy eater begins with first foods. If it's important to you to introduce a healthy, whole foods diet commit yourself to avoiding jarred food. Save it only for vacations. You can do it! I believe in you! Give you and your child the gift of avoiding food battles in the future by introducing food in their freshest most simplest way. Only feed your children what you are willing to sit down and eat yourself.

Lastly, you don't need recipes. Keep it simple. Keep it stress-free. Have fun!

What to do with way too much cream...

During my weekly mad-dash trip Mississippi Market, I accidentally grabbed a quart of cream thinking it was milk. Oops. I never use cream other than for my daily cup of coffee. This bottle would surely spoil, or I would have to increase my coffee intake expotentially. I couldn't let the mama cow down that worked so hard to make this cream! I cringe every time I see my own breastmilk go down the drain.

I had no idea what to do with so much cream, but I knew exactly who would. I called up my super duper mama friend Lauren. She suggested that I use it to make scones. Fantastic idea! So, I opted for this dreamy cream scone recipe from Smitten Kitchen. My only alterations were using Earth Balance rather than butter and chopped dried apple as the dried fruit.

I still had cream...so! I was inspired by a pancake post (also from Smitten Kitchen). I used the same amounts for the dry ingredients, but my wet ingredients were:

2 cups half and half
1 large banana (mash until creamy - I simply let the KitchenAid mixer pulverize it)
1 Tablespoon sunflower oil



My heart doesn't know what to do with all this high-fat intake...oh, well. Enjoy!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Hearts

This Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe posted last week on 101 Cookbooks, and I knew I would love it. I love making chocolate chip cookies, but I don't like the time it takes. This batter whipped up so quickly, and then I just pressed it into a pan! I decided to make these for Valentine's Day for my dudes and used little heart cookie cutters to make them special. The Izzy's ice cream cake Ethan brought home wasn't so bad either. :)

Vegan alternative - Using a handblender, I whipped 2 Tablespoons of flaxseed meal and 6 Tablespoons of water to a creamy consistency to replace the eggs. Perfect egg replacer for cookies.

Baked Brown Rice

I have been meaning to try baked brown rice for a while. This winter I gave it a shot, and I am so glad! I don't know if I will ever cook rice on the stovetop again. It comes out perfect every time (make sure it's always placed on the middle rack), and you don't have to keep an eye on it. I can walk away (which is mandatory...many meltdowns occur with my little ones between 4 and 6pm) and not worry about it boiling over.

I use Cathe Olson's recipe in The Vegetarian Mother's Cookbook, but here is a very similar recipe from The Motherload. I simplify by heating the water up in a teapot and adding oil rather than butter to the rice at the same time as the water.

Sometimes I fancy it up with adding a cube of Rapunzel bouillon at the same time as the water - just stir with a fork to break it up. Then adding some minced parsley just as it comes out of the oven. This is a great side dish to Snobby Joes.

Pesto Pasta

Want a super quick healthy meal? Go to pesto. You can even have it during the depths of winter. I've shared a recipe during the summer, and this is basically the same minus the fresh summer roasted vegetables. During the winter, our pesto is straight parsley.

This meal is so quick. You can pair it with a salad or just a side of toast. My kids love it, and it's very fulfilling. You can get this made in less than 20 minutes if uninterrupted (unlikely in my house). :)

Ingredients:
one pound whole wheat pasta (I prefer penne - so easy for kids to eat)
two handfuls of walnuts
three garlic cloves
one teaspoon sea salt
six twists of freshly ground pepper
3/4 bunch of flat-leaf parsley (I leave the other 1/4 of parsley for other meals during the week - through it in rice or a pasta sauce)
olive oil

Directions:
Bring large pot of water to boil. Cook pasta 8-10 minutes. Reserve 1 cup of pasta cooking water. While pasta cooks, process walnuts, garlic, salt and pepper in a food processor. Add all the parsley and continue to process. Drizzle no more than 1/4 cup of olive oil while processing parsley. Use reserved pasta cooking water to continue processing the pesto for your desired creaminess. Add pesto to cooked pasta. Add more cooking water if more creaminess is desired.

To bump up the nutritional value, add frozen peas or roasted kale.

Post Punk Cornbread

My family loves, loves, loves, loves, LOVES this cornbread! Guests really enjoy it, too. I make this at least once a week during the winters to accompany our chili. It is so hard to not eat the entire pan. It's perfectly moist and not too sweet. The authors of theppk.com (The Post Punk Kitchen) are also the authors of Veganomicon. This recipe also shows up in that fantastic cookbook, but it replaces the 2 Tablespoons of maple syrup with 1/4 cup of sugar. So choose the sweetener of your choice. And...as you can see...it is very much kid-approved!

Planning Healthy Meals and Making Them Happen

It's that time of year when our meals are the most predictable. During a Minnesota winter, someone like me who is interested in keeping our food (in order of importance) local, simple, sustainable and organic needs to get creative with dried goods and root vegetables. I often repeat the same repertoire every week in order to meet the previously mentioned pre-requisites but also to keep the family happy. My four year-old is in a phase where he can find something wrong with everything, so I find the more predictable (like most things in our life) the meal the less arguing.

Making the meal and its preparation simple is key in order for it to actually happen, since I rarely have a moment where a child of mine doesn't need my hands, words or breasts. Ha! Also, I want our food to taste like itself...I want my children to know what parsnips, rutabagas, kale, garlic, etc all taste like. I believe knowing these tastes from the moment they begin eating is what encourages them to grow into adults that will continue to choose and enjoy healthy foods.

So, here's a glimpse into how I plan our weekly meals. "Plan" being the key word. Planning is essential in getting wholesome, simple meals on your table if you plan on feeding people beyond yourself every day of the week.

I plan six dinners a week. We enjoy allowing ourselves one dinner out if we feel up for gathering the children and taking them somewhere...or we simply order pizza. Ordering pizza is a guilty pleasure of mine. Often our lunches are leftovers from the night before which helps guarantee a balanced lunch. These are the categories I use along with some of our most common winter recipes:

1. Pasta
-Cabbage Pasta

2. Chili

3. Lentils
-Lentil Bolognese
-Snobby Joes

4. Tofu

5. Soup
-Potato Leek
-White Bean and Tomato

6. Burritos
-Yes, burritos get their own category, because they are awesome.

Sometimes these categories overlap - like Lentil Bolognese. When that happens, I will then plan for two soups or two chilis that week...or a new random recipe!

I hope this inspires some to simplify and plan their family meals. I hope you have some tips for me! I plan to share some of our staple winter recipes in the coming weeks...