adventures in baby feeding

About a month ago Squirrel started eating solids. She had been giving us the stink eye when we ate in front of her, and our suspicions that she was ready were confirmed when she spent our Spring Break trip reaching for everything on our plates (or pictured on the menu even) when we ate out.

Some of my breastfeeding compadres are sad about their short people requiring more than just boob. I, however, was only too happy to start experimenting with cooking my own baby food. So after a week of rice cereal success I bought a sweet potato, roasted it, blended it and fed it to a very eager Squirrel.

Happy rice eater!

Sweet potato was amazing good for the baby, so we moved on to banana (with a quick unhappy detour into the realm of avocado) and next to peas. Following a recipe I got from a fellow mom, I prepared the peas using a shocking technique to keep the vivid green color. Very fun!!

Ice cube don't have to be square.

Also very fun? Freezing baby food in fun-shaped ice cube trays. A major component of making your own baby food is freezing the food in ice cube trays, both for easy storage and easy portioning. I got these a while back at Ikea (the penguins I found at a thrift store) and seeing as they were the only trays I had, I created surprisingly fun and festive frozen baby food.

This is how we make sweet peatatoes.

We quickly discovered that Maelyn's tastes, for the time being, are like her father's... she despises peas. Thankfully, I just popped a heart-shaped sweet potato cube into her peas, let it melt and she ate it right up with no problem... well, aside from being extremely grabby with the spoon.

NOM!

Independent? My child? Never. I'll be glad for that later.

Thanks to Lestlie Berryhill for these super-easy recipes:

Sweet Potatoes
2 medium-sized sweet potatoes (or 1 really big one)
24 ounces water

Preheat oven to 400.

Cut the potatoes lengthwise and place flesh side down on a sheet tray. Pour 8 ounces of the water onto the tray. Roast approximately 1 hour, or until tender. Remove the potatoes from the oven and allow them to cool. Spoon the flesh into a blender and pour in the remaining water. Puree until smooth; pour into ice cube trays and freeze. Once frozen, pop out of the trays and put in a freezer-safe plastic baggie.


Peas
1 ½ lbs frozen peas
8 ounces water

For the “shock” station, to keep the green color:
Colander
Large bowl filled with ice water - lots and lots of ice to get the water as cold as possible!

Pour the peas into the colander and run cool water over them to rinse. Pour peas into boiling water and cook for about 3 minutes (add about 1-2 minutes for fresh peas) on high heat. Pour peas back into the colander, run cold water over them, then pour into the ice bath. Let peas chill for 3-5 minutes, and then pour them back into the colander and remove any remaining ice. (Green tip - I poured any water that would fit, plus ice, into another bowl and used it to water my patio plants when I was finished cooking.)

Pour peas into the blender and add 8 ounces of cold water - puree until smooth. Pour into ice cube trays and freeze. Once frozen, pop out of the trays and put in a freezer-safe plastic baggie.