Learning to Cook

Well its no secret that I don’t like to cook. Many (Mark and Julie) find cooking fun and calming and I just find it stressful. I feel pretty sad that as a creative person I can not deviate from any recipe, but I can’t. I finally just gave up and threw my hands up in the air … until Elsie arrived. As she got closer to the solid food age, I read bits and pieces of Super Baby Food (careful these guys are total health nuts) and became intrigued with actually trying to cook baby food. (this was also the time that I wondered if I could be a stay at home mom, and mark said only if I did the cooking and cleaning … )

I went to my trusted source (amazon) to look for some books that might help me be successful – that is when I came across Annabel Karmels 100 Baby Purees: 100 Quick and Easy Meals for a Happy Baby – key word here easy.

Making baby food is really easy … I usually take an afternoon every couple of weeks to make batches of food that I freeze. Each sitting I pop out a few cubes and Voila! homeade baby food. I am sure there are lots of books out there, but one of the reasons I love this one is that she really experiments with flavors – I think I am really making an adventurous eater.

I took some photos last time to document my process:

First you cook the food (don’t worry, first you cut all of your stuff up and put it in little bowls, then dump it in according to the recipe … which I follow to the letter!)

We spoon the food into ice cube trays – each batch makes about 1 tray and Elsie is now up to eating 4 cubes in one sitting (3 veg/meat and 1 fruit).

The cubes pop right out of the ice cube tray. Here is “Eat your Greens”, “Broccoli and Yams” and “Chicken with Leeks and Carrots”

I batch up the cubes in little ziploc bags

and here is our freezer which is dedicated to all things for Elsie (oh and Mark’s pesky bread which falls out every time you open the door!)

Well that seems fine, but how does frozen baby food travel? you ask … 😉

Homeade baby food travels well. I snagged a few baby food jars (glass not plastic) and I put one cube in each and heat it in the microwave.

I then purchased this cute Dwell Bottle holder that perfectly fits 4 mini jars of food on the go. I think I have finally started to understand the joy of cooking … I guess since Elsie can’t talk she doesn’t judge me on my poor cooking (sorry Els, hopefully I continue to improve).

Some of our favorites: Chicken with Sweet Potato and Apple, Lovely Lentils, Eat your Greens, Cinderella’s Pumpkin, Pasta with cauliflower, tomato and Basil, Apples with Cinnamon.
Some not so favorites: Shepard’s Pie, My First Beef Casserole (both made by dad, I might add!)