Baby food explosion

I admit that I'm often more of a pessimist, but here is proof that I can see the sunny side of life.

I last posted that Evan had successfully eaten his second meal of rice cereal. We've continued to feed him this watery mess every night at dinner and he is still really into it - in all senses of the word. In fact, we can't seem to feed it to him fast enough. So, immediately, I thought...I've got to get started on making some baby food!

I made my own baby food for Anya, but let's face it, most of it ended up getting freezer burned from lack of use and eventually was thrown away. Or else Dylan ate it on her visits to Colorado (before the freezer burn set in).

But Evan will be different. I just know it. I have to believe that he will.

I have spent the last three days making food. It started because we had this huge amount of apples left over from Kim's wedding reception. She had a really cute idea to write people's names and their tables on fake leaves and pin them into real apples for the place cards. It looked really neat, but then all our guests brought them back to our house and didn't eat them. So since we had a dozen apples left at our house, I knew we would not eat them all ourselves. But maybe Evan would? So, I decided to make baby food out of them. Thanks, Kim!

Then I got super inspired and we went grocery shopping, bringing home peas, sweet potatoes, acorn squash, butternut squash and pears to turn into pureed goodness. I have a couple baby food cookbooks, but the basic procedure is to wash and peel the items, place them in a lidded glass container with a tiny bit of water and microwave. Then you take it out, add more water if necessary, puree the heck out of it in the food processor, and freeze in ice cube trays. Once the cubes are frozen you pop them out into ziploc bags and return to the freezer. Then you can defrost cubes as needed.

You might ask why I did this when you can easily buy baby food in the store. First of all, it's totally cheap! Second, it's super easy. Third, it's pretty cool to know exactly what went into your baby's food. Fourth, it's great for the environment since you aren't using all those jars. And fifth, I actually think it's really fun to make.

Here's a pictures to show you just how much food I made...Evan looks interested already!





So, Evan sure better be a good eater. If not, we'll just have to invite some other babies over. Or who knows...maybe Anya will get inspired and start eating it. Okay, let's not get carried away with optimism!