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Adding Variety

by stephanie | January 19th, 2010 | Posted in Baby Stuff, Fun in the Kitchen

The boys are (thankfully) still at the age where pickiness hasn’t yet developed. I am hoping to head off some of the toddler pickiness by adding lots and lots of variety now. They do have some food items they clearly love more than others, some healthy (oranges, carrots, sweet potatoes, applesauce) some more questionable (pizza, graham crackers, bratwurst). I wanted to add more fruit variety to their diet, and knowing how much they love applesauce, I knew it was a good place to start. I also didn’t want to spend every day peeling and dicing fruits, I do plenty of food prep around here and didn’t want to add too much more, plus when they are hungry they are HUNGRY. So I purchased a whole bunch of frozen fruit and spent about 30 minutes one day (with toddler help) and pureed it all up and placed it in these handy freezer containers, wrote on some removable labels, and presto I have lots of easy to grab pureed fruit to add to applesauce or anything else, like say yogurt (currently they aren’t eating). I also add a little whole grain baby cereal to the applesauce. It makes for a yummy, healthy treat.

Making Baby Food

by stephanie | November 10th, 2009 | Posted in Baby Stuff, Fun in the Kitchen

I promise not all our NaBloPoMo posts are going to just be quick photos and videos, but I will say those are so much easier right now! I have a lot I would like to share and get out of my head, but most days my brain is mush.

Noah and I making some baby food not long after arriving home from Ethiopia

I decided to make all the boys baby food even before we brought them home. I just couldn’t stand the thought of all those little glass jars, plus I figured it would save us money. I honestly have not kept good records of what we have spent so I cannot do an accurate cost analysis. I would like to think it has saved us money. We did buy jarred food once for a picnic and thought the consistency was weird. The boys ate it just the same though.

Why making our baby food works for me:

1. I love to cook and it is one of the ways I love to show the men in my life my love. I only had Matt to feed for 7 years, it is nice to have two new men to feed!
2. I do not like packaging, I couldn’t deal with throwing away/recycling all those jars and containers.
3. I like to eat organic, local, and seasonally, much easier to do if I just go to the farmers’ market and make the food.

I received a good book recommendation from a friend, “Super Baby Food.” I purchased a used copy for cheap and I love it. While the author can annoy me at times, she really likes the term super and she seems super proud of herself, I still love the book. It has lots of tips, recipes, and information on all sorts of veggies and fruits. She also has recipes for the toddler years, it is nice to have something that lasts beyond the baby years. I am going to try some of her cracker recipes soon and will share if it is worth it. I don’t do everything she suggests, in fact I haven’t even read the entire book. I got it right before we left and have been busy with the boys since we returned home, so I always just turn to exactly what I need.

Ezra enjoying something yummy

I cook most of our baby food in my solar oven, but she gives you cooking directions for each food at least three ways, microwave, steamer, and oven. I use her food cube method to make large batches and freeze so I am not constantly making food. We go through a lot of food around here!

I would like to address a couple of the bad reviews on amazon, because I always read the bad ones before making a decision.

1. She promotes a vegan menu for babies. She does not, she does promote a vegetarian menu for babies, which was fine with me, because I was only planning on introducing meat once they were eating what we were eating and since we don’t eat meat often this was a good approach for me.

2. She introduces allergy foods too early, yep sometimes she does, but she does have a short chapter dedicated to allergies and does encourage you to talk with your pediatrician first.

3. One reviewer thought she was not breast feeding friendly based on the food serving suggestions. She is not against breast feeding and suggests you serve your baby the amount of food they can eat. She does say to feed them their meals with bottles and give them snacks. I decided to feed the meals and bottles at least an hour apart and thus did not have to feed snacks. She also states the amount of breast feeding/formula drinking they should be doing and if it drops when you push solids to cut back on the foods so they get enough breast milk/formula. My boys drank 30 – 36 ounces a formula a day until about 10.5 months when they naturally started wanting less bottles.

Noah eating avocado

I feel with any book or recommendation with child rearing you look at it with an open mind, discuss with your pediatrician, and then decide what works for your child. Not every single suggestion will work for every single child/family. I understand making baby food will not work for every family, but for ours it did, and if you think it will work for yours, I highly recommend it. You get to avoid all those little glass jars and no preservatives.

Now for a typical daily menu at our house at 11 months old:

Wake-up – 8 oz Bottle
Breakfast – Whole Banana and 1/3 cup of prepared steel cut oats (each)
Wake-up from nap – 8 oz Bottle
Lunch – 1/2 cup of yogurt, 1/4 cup of fruit (apples/pears/peaches), and iron fortified baby cereal to thicken (each)
Wake-up from nap – 8 oz Bottle
Dinner – They snack on something while we eat, sometimes crackers or cheerios, but sometimes it is what we are eating. For their actual dinner they eat about 1/2 to 3/4 of a veggies (sweet potatoes, carrots, butternut squash) about 1/4 lentils and sometimes I sneak a green veggie in there!

Now that that we have transitioned from formula to whole milk, I will start giving them snacks because the milk doesn’t seem to hold them over as long. Since we don’t eat a lot of meat I will ask the doctor about iron supplements next week at our 1 year appointment. That’s it in a nutshell. Please feel free to ask questions!

Wordless Wednesday – 10.7.09

by stephanie | October 7th, 2009 | Posted in Fun in the Kitchen, Noah, Wordless Wednesday

Pesto Chicken and Sweet Potatoes

by stephanie | October 5th, 2009 | Posted in Fun in the Kitchen, Recipes

I recently discovered this blog and was thrilled. I am learning to love my slow cooker more and more every week. It allows me to put meals together during nap-time and it doesn’t heat up the kitchen. When I saw this recipe I had to try it. I love sweet potatoes and pesto! I had never thought of layering a meal in the crock pot and was super excited to try it. Hey its the little things people!

The chicken going in, I had some parmesan left over from another recipe so I added that instead of all mozzarella. Also, I didn’t make her pesto since I still had some in the freezer from last year’s bumper basil crop.

The sweet potatoes! YUM!

The finished product.

Overall I loved this recipe and will do it again. Unfortunately the chicken came out a little dry. This is my fault, I know my crock pot is a rock star and cooks a little faster than most but I still used the suggested times, and I used small chicken breasts not the breast halves or thighs that she suggest.

Random Tip: When chicken comes out dry and I know neither of us will eat the leftovers as is, I shred it up toss it with some lite mayo, little mustard, little lemon juice, cayenne pepper (if I am feeling spicy), and some grapes and/or apples chopped up. This makes a yummy chicken salad sandwich.

Food Waste Reduction Challenge

by stephanie | January 19th, 2009 | Posted in Fun in the Kitchen, environment

More than 40 percent of all food produced in America is not eaten, according to research by former University of Arizona anthropologist Timothy Jones. That amounts to more than 29 million tons of food waste each year, or enough to fill the Rose Bowl every three days. Nationwide, food scraps make up 17 percent of what we send to landfills.

The above excerpt was taken from the article, “The Food not Eaten – Food Waste: Out of Site, Out of Mind.” Food waste is and has been one of my biggest focuses over the last couple years. When I have to throw food out, I feel extremely guilty. I think about all the energy and effort that went into the production and transport of that food, and it is all such a waste. I also think of the money I spent on that item, a dollar here and there does add up! If you are throwing out just 14% of what you bought think about that in comparison to your monthly food bill! (The 14% is from the study linked in the quote above from the University of Arizona and includes just food thrown in the trash, not food composted, put in the garbage disposal, or given to the family pet.) We have made marked improvements in the area of food waste, we compost significantly less than we did last year at this time and we hardly have to ever throw out items in the pantry or freezer any more, but we still do . My goal is to throw nothing out, this seems like a very difficult and challenging goal right now. Sometimes you forget about items, they get shoved to the back of the fridge or pantry, and sometimes you just can’t take another night of leftovers!

If you are interested in wasting less food and less money please join Food Waste Reduction Challenge. Green Bean also offers some great tips on her blog.

In truth, stretching meals and reducing food waste is not much of a sacrifice. It only requires a pinch of organization and a teaspoonful of effort.

Reducing food waste also makes a positive impact on the environment.

There’s also a large environmental impact as well if your food waste gets sent to a landfill. Food waste is the largest landfill contributor to methane gas production, so unless your municipality has a landfill-to-gas capture, your rotten bananas and forgotten pickles are contributing to global climate change.

There you have it, you can save the earth and some money by simply reducing your food waste. Anyone interested in joining in? Please feel free to share any of your recipes that use up leftovers or any other tricks you may have.

Cranberry Sauce

by stephanie | November 27th, 2008 | Posted in Fun in the Kitchen, Recipes

Okay it’s half-time (Cowboys are winning!) so I thought I would share the cranberry sauce I made. It is yummy! I know some people prefer the canned version but I never could get myself to eat it straight out of the can, just not appetizing to me.

Ginger & Pear Cranberry Sauce
Good Housekeeping November 2008

1 bag (12 oz) cranberries, picked over
2 Bosc or Anjou pears (1lb), peeled, cored, and chopped
1 Tbsp. grated peeled fresh ginger
3/4 c. sugar
1/4 c. water

1. In 3-quart saucepan, heat all ingredients to boiling on high, stirring occasionally.

2. Reduce heat to medium and cook, uncovered, 5 to 7 minutes or until most cranberries pop and pears are tender, stirring occasionally. (Mixture will thicken as it chills.)

3. Spoon sauce into serving bowl; cover and refrigerate 3 hours or up to 4 days.

I was tempted to make the Southwestern Cranberry Sauce that was offered instead:

Prepare cranberry sauce as above in step 1, except omit pears and ginger and add 1 jalapeno chile, seeded and finely chopped, 1 teaspoon grated fresh lime peel, and 2 teaspoons fresh lime juice to cranberry mixture. In step 2, cook only 3 to 4 minutes or until most cranberries pop. Complete recipe as in step 3.

I think I will have to give that one a try sometime soon.

Chewy Apple Oatmeal Cookies

by stephanie | October 20th, 2008 | Posted in Fun in the Kitchen, Recipes

Here is another one of our favorite apple recipes. I also like to count this one as healthy because it has apples and oatmeal, just ignore all that butter and sugar.

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 cups old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup chopped dried apples

In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Combine flour, cinnamon and baking soda; gradually add to creamed mixture and mix well. Fold in oats and apples. Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls 2 in. apart onto ungreased banking sheets. Bake at 350° for 10-12 minutes. Let stand for 1 minute before removing to wire racks. Yield: about 4 dozen (funny I only got 3 dozen).

These are super easy and yummy. I did try to substitute 1/2 cup of the all purpose flour once with whole wheat to try to make them slightly healthier. I do NOT recommend this, they were not good.

Cookie Monster loves me

by stephanie | October 1st, 2008 | Posted in Fun in the Kitchen, Recipes

Last night I decided to make some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. (They are seriously yummy!) I decided to double the batch to make sure we would have enough for our small group on Thursday night. Doubling the batch was a bad idea! I couldn’t even use my mixer to stir it because there was so much, luckily my buff husband stirred the batter for me. It ended up taking me about 2.5 hours from start to finish (I didn’t even do the dishes yet because it was past my bedtime) and I estimate I made somewhere between 8 and 10 dozen cookies. I wish I had more room in my freezer to store some of these. To all the lucky people that live near me you will be getting some cookies.

Here is the recipe for those who are interested, I got it from my mom:

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Mix together:

1 can pumpkin – 15 oz

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 cup cooking oil

Add:

5.5 cups flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

Mix together then add to batter:

2 tablespoons milk

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons vanilla

Stir in 1 package mini chocolate chips. Batter will be thick. Drop heaping teaspoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350° for 12-15 minutes.

My New Toy

by stephanie | September 25th, 2008 | Posted in Fun in the Kitchen, environment

My Solar Oven finally arrived this week. I figured since we lived in one of the sunniest places on the planet we should put all that sunshine to good use. So, now the sun dries my clothes, makes my garden grow, and cooks my food.

I put it to use the very next day to make of all things cookies. Yes Matt asked me if I would make him cookies in the solar oven.

I made basic chocolate chip and they turned out just fine. I think they are a little crunchier than from the oven, but they taste the same. It was so nice not heating up the kitchen to make cookies. It is a slightly longer process because I cannot fit very many cookies in the oven and it takes an hour and a half to bake. I just kept the dough in the fridge and made it a day long project. I even left the cookies in the “oven” and ran some errands.

I was making this pie last night which uses butternut squash and sweet potatoes and both had to be pre-cooked. I put them in the solar oven in the morning and was able to make the pie by the afternoon. They smelt so good and were cooked perfectly.

I didn’t actually bake the pie in the solar oven because the instructions discuss making cookies and cakes but not pies and I didn’t feel like doing any research yesterday, so I used the oven to finish the pie.

It gets topped off with marshmallows:

I forgot to take a picture of the pie before the neighbors and us dug in:

It was yummy!

The solar oven can be used similarly to a slow cooker and I will soon be making some meals in it. It is so nice to be able to cook without using electricity.

Solar cooking is similar to slow cooking. Slow cooking retains flavor, moisture and nutrients and makes meats tender. Recent studies indicate that foods cooked at moderate temperatures may be healthier. Solar cooked food is succulent, moist and delicious.

You can learn more about Solar Ovens here.

Alone time in the kitchen

by stephanie | September 10th, 2008 | Posted in Fun in the Kitchen, Recipes

So while Matt was gone on his epic trip, I had some down time to spend in the kitchen. I decided to try out a few new recipes while he was gone and was happy with everything I tried.

The Awesome-est Blueberry Muffins. Very yummy muffins, but not the awesome-est I have ever had. I do suspect the blueberries I had could be to blame, they weren’t very “blueberry,” kwim?

Crisp Rosemary Flatbread. This was a big hit with my neighbors, some friends, and even nine month old Ethan.

Marinated Eggplant with Capers and Mint. Eggplant is not one of my favorites but we get quite a bit from the farm so I am always looking for new recipes. This one wasn’t too bad, probably the best eggplant recipe I have tried where it wasn’t completed smothered in some sort of cheese. (cheese makes everything yummy!)

peanut-butter-oatmeal-cookies.

Okay this is actually the second time I have made this recipe, the cookies are so yummy. It is actually a vegan recipe, but since I am not a vegan I did use regular white chocolate chips the first time and butterscotch chocolate chips the second time. I also substituted the egg replacer powder with 1/4 cup of apple sauce. Mmmm these cookies are good, I think I need to go eat one right now.

(Sorry no picture on this next one.) Grilled cheese with Fontina Cheese, Fig Jam (good thing I made that a couple months ago), and arugula. I think regular old grilled cheese might be ruined for me now. I really liked this recipe.

Actually it wasn’t really alone time, Tank was always nearby waiting for me to drop something. Someone knows his mom is a very messy cook.

Friday Update 8/29/08

by stephanie | August 29th, 2008 | Posted in Adoption, Crazy Animals, Fun in the Kitchen

Adoption Update: Our agency didn’t have any referrals this week, it has been since the week of 7/11/08 since the last set of referrals and probably none for the next couple of weeks.

Running and Push-Up Updates: Let’s not talk about exercise this week.

Pets:

Carter has a favorite room in the house and it is the nursery. Hopefully he is willing to share when Tom and Jerry get here.