Baby Food, Revisited

Baby Cora has really taken to eating food lately!  The last time I posted about it, she still wasn't all that interested in food.  As much as I stressed over the what and the how in the beginning, I am relieved now that it's all working out.  We are still sorta doing baby-led weaning (BLW), but there are just some foods I wanted to introduce that don't work that way.  Plus, we now feed her twice a day (lunch and dinner), and my lunch foods are not very baby-friendly.  If we're spoon-feeding her and she really likes it, she will grab the spoon and help guide it into her mouth.  In addition, she still hasn't mastered the sippy cup (she just chews on it), but she totally drinks out of a regular cup when we hold it to her mouth and she sometimes grabs the sides.  I went to Target and got some little kid-sized plastic cups and bowls that were on clearance in the kitchen section, and they are perfect.  (I got 4 pieces for $1--can't beat that!  Pink and purple, too.)

The downfall of the BLW approach for me is that it just assumes you're eating super-healthy, which I often am not (especially for lunch).  One thing that has helped me a lot is a site called Babyfood101.  I have absolutely no idea how I stumbled upon this place, but it has been my saving grace.  Instead of being overwhelmed by a bunch of options, I get one email a week that tells me two new foods to give to baby (here's an example for the curious).  It tells me at what age she's ready (and it always matches up to her age, so there's never a food she's not ready for), how to prepare it, whether it is worth it to buy it organic or not, and it even gives an adult recipe for the food too.  For someone like me who has never had a good relationship with food (I generally eat for sustenance and didn't learn to cook until my 20's, so I mostly stick to the same stuff all the time), this is fan-freakin'-tastic!  I've been learning a lot about food and trying new things myself as well.

Oh, and most of the preparation that the site gives me is catered to not having much time (i.e., buy frozen peas instead of shelling them because they freeze well) and none of it has involved a steamer basket.  Most of the things can be finger foods or "fork-mashed" too, so I've only busted out the blender once--and it wasn't for lack of trying to do without it first when we did green beans.  I've used plain whole yogurt to our advantage too, as sometimes I just mix the food with that.  Who would've thought my baby would like pea-flavored yogurt?

Yum-o!

Speaking of the greens, I decided for this past week to be a vegetarian.  It's on my 101 list, so I figured now was a good time.  I also got to cross off another goal, which was to make something from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  I made her Ratatouille on Sunday night.  Her directions were pretty clear, and I learned how to juice and peel a tomato easily, but I still kinda screwed it up.  It just didn't have enough tomato at the end, so I did what any normal American would do and threw a can of tomato sauce in there.  The whole thing probably should have cooked even longer after that, but we were getting hungry.  The dish came out alright, but it was not nearly as good as the version my cousin made at Thanksgiving that B and I had both raved over.  From the ratatouille, though, we gave baby some green peppers and she loved them.  She has mostly liked everything so far except white potatoes.

Going vegetarian for the week wasn't all too hard, but I realized that almost everything I made had a tomato base to it.  Even the Boca burgers had tomato ketchup!  I also realized that I could never be vegan.  Or at least it would require a major pantry/fridge overhaul to do so, and at this point in unemployment/possibly-moving-soon, that is just out of the question.  As for being vegetarian?  I went to the store one night, and the fried chicken someone behind me was buying smelled heavenly.  I had already eaten dinner, too!  One week was enough for me, so pass me that bucket of chicken already.