New MVP thrifty kitchen tool

My lovely daughter turns one in a few weeks. She still has ZERO teeth! Because of this, we aren't as far along on her eating "real food" as some babies are at this point. However, now that she has quite a bit of experience in gumming foods, I have stopped using the food processor to puree everything. My new best friend for making her homemade food is....



a potato masher.

It's perfect. I can steam or boil vegetables, drain, and then mash them up right in the pan. A current favorite is the frozen carrot/pea/corn/green bean mixture. It makes a colorful, nutritious mash. She eats that alone or mixed into yogurt. Who needs to spend a bunch of money on processed "stage three" baby food when you can mash it yourself! I did the same thing with canned peaches- mashed them up and mixed in rice cereal. Viola- peach cereal! The masher also works for meals like lasagna and mac and cheese.

So those of you out there who are registering for baby gifts, maybe a potato masher should be your next addition.

Baby Food Stories

Still making all of our daughter's baby food. Some recent purees include carrots, yams, and a mix of peas/carrots/corn. However, since she's nine months now she is eating more and more "real food." Some interesting things she's eaten lately:

- Vegetable curry from an Indian restaurant. I ordered it mild and mashed the peas, carrots, and chickpeas with my fork, then mixed with some rice and some yogurt. She loves it!
- Meatloaf. I made it from scratch and again, mushed some up with my fork and she ate it right up.
- Pulled pork. We were staying with friends who made an amazing pulled pork shoulder in the crock pot. I gave her some small pieces. The meat was so tender she was able to eat it with no problems.
- Pumpkin pancakes. We were out to breakfast and had to try this seasonal special. They were very tasty and our daughter agreed.

Have you fed your baby anything interesting lately? Experts say it's important to have them try many different flavors. Of course I still try to abide by the rule of not introducing more than one new ingredient at at time.

Thrifty Recipe- Turkey, Rice, and Apple Baby Food

We have quite a bit of leftover turkey from the recipe (posted here on my blog) I made this week. I decided to use some of it to make a new baby food concoction. It turned out well and she liked it! This is also quite thrifty as a Gerber 2nd Foods Turkey Rice dinner is about $1 a jar if you buy a 12-pak. I got an entire 5.5 pound turkey breast for $5.

Turkey/Rice/Apple Baby Food

• Take leftover cooked turkey, break into chunks, and place in food processor bowl
• Add cooked rice, brown or white, I used jasmine
• Put in some applesauce. I'll bet it would also be good with sweet potato or even pears.
• Turn on food processor and let it run until you don't see individual grains of rice, then drizzle in a little water until the mixture turns into a paste-like consistency, right for your baby
• Store covered in the fridge for a day or two or freeze in individual servings

Thrifty Strategy- Making baby food

Today was a big day. My daughter turned six months old today (can't believe it), and what better way for her to celebrate than by trying peas for the first time! After successful eating of rice cereal, unsweetened applesauce, and some avocado, I decided it was time to bust out the cute little grinder I had registered for and make some baby food.

Even better, Target had their Market Pantry frozen peas on sale for 99 cents this week.

First, I steamed about 3/4 cup of peas on the stove. Then I let them cool. I used my little hand grinder to grind them up and got....

Yummy! I tried it and it tastes really good. The whole process took about 10 minutes. It was a bit thick for our daughter, so I mixed her serving with a little breastmilk. She seemed to like it. This little container above probably has enough in it for four or so servings. I still have over 3/4 of the bag of peas left. Talk about thrifty! And it feels really good to know exactly what she's eating.

In the future, I plan to use my giant Cuisinart food processor to make large batches of baby food to freeze, but the hand grinder is great for making small amounts so that we can make sure she will eat it before we go nuts making a huge batch. Or if I'm going to make a veggie for dinner, I could just steam some extra and grind it for her to eat when we are eating.