the red spoon | baby

peach sauce with nutmeg

meg — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 14:47:27 +0000

Fruits have been my favorite introduction so far. It’s like making jam for my kid. Finally I can be the good ~~cop~~ parent. Not the parent stressing that he has all nine servings of green vegetables a day. Or that his food contain no salt or sugar is completely organic and chemical/unpronounceable word-free all while having less than 4 ingredients. I mean too many components and you will have things like xanthen gum in your jarred food, which is yes, pronounceable, but totally not a word I use on a ~~weekly~~ ~~yearly~~ lifely basis. So why feed it to my kid? Exactly.

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first applesauce

meg — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 00:50:08 +0000

Not to wax nostalgic here, but applesauce and I go way back. My mother started me off on applesauce when I was ready for first foods and the lunch tradition carried on until high school when I brown bagged it to school. Except it was never just applesauce. It had to be speckled heavily with cinnamon. Or as my family likes to say: our applesauce needed to be dressed.

Perhaps it’s a bit silly, then again I was six and this would send me into a fit of giggles, but it is an unwavering law in my family, passed down from generation to generation, that applesauce is naked until dressed in cinnamon. Restaurants, grocery stores, they never get it right. My great grandmother always toted around a small canister of cinnamon wedged in her purse that unfortunately needed to be pulled out to save the despairingly speckle-sparse white pureed applesauce served to us during lunches out. If my family is snobby about anything it’s the fact that applesauce is not applesauce until there is a healthy, thick cinnamon jacket. Cinnamon was made for applesauce. Applesauce was made for cinnamon. It’s simple. Those are the facts.

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first zucchini puree

meg — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 02:21:07 +0000

As with most introductory first foods, this one is rather plain and simple. A few zucchini simmered in broth then pureed until velvety. Perhaps if I found my love for zucchini before I introduced our tiniest mouth to its charm I would have come up with something a little more interesting then plainy plain jane summer squash. I would have thrown in a handful of microplaned parmesan, a few flecks of basil or thyme and the tiniest smidge of garlic and splash of lemon. Instead, I was in a rush and knew nothing of the things that could make zucchini sing.

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green beans with thyme roasted potatoes

meg — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 18:06:49 +0000

Alright folks. We’re going to play a round of catch up with a baby food blitz. Are you ready? I still have to tell you about baby’s first foods, and our introduction to fruits and second and third stage foods because the little guy is already ~~starting~~ on finger foods and my to-do list of things to tell you is practically drowning me.

After our gleeful spinach introduction followed by pea introduction I decided green beans would be next. Green beans were perhaps the one green vegetable I knew would be hastily eaten without a single complaint, but the thought of mushy green beans sounded, in a word, bleh. I’m finding baby is not at all a texture eater (like his mama). Or at least, he is not yet. He puts just about everything in his mouth (shoe soles watch out, you’re the current favorite) and though green beans cooked until slush sounds unappetizing to me, he, I’m sure would have no problem with it.

But here’s the thing. I have a problem (in the words of my husband) to make sure that he likes, loves and enjoys every single food I offer up to his tummy god. It’s not a ego thing, where I need him to like my food. Just a thing of, I don’t want him to be a picky eater. I don’t want him to be like me (and some of my friends) who only eat three vegetables: potatoes, pasta and cheese. I don’t want to have “eat your vegetables or else” ultimatums. My childhood had enough for the next three generation’s lifetimes.

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first peas with mint

meg — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 16:05:48 +0000

Now that we are back from vacation and have had sufficient time to ease ourselves back into our normal routines without fear of impending teeth popping through gums, I’ve been simmering up a baby food blitz. It was a month ago, and forgive me if I am going on about our situation as if we went through Hurricane Katrina or the earthquake/tsunami in Japan back in 2011. I know losing power for almost four days is nothing in comparison. It did however bump our little world just enough that we are still trying to repair the damage. The damage being my kid thinking he is being tortured at meal time. You see, all the baby food I had so carefully made, froze and tucked neatly into my freezer’s crevices was lost. I could have spent the remaining few days before vacation whipping up enough goo to get us through our week at the beach, but I decided to not stress about it and instead pick up a few purees from the store.

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spinach puree with caramelized leeks

meg — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 23:17:13 +0000

I guess by now you’ve probably figured out I’m the kind that buckles under pressure. Pressure I put on myself, mind you. It’s absurd isn’t it? It’s like squishing myself under my own thumb, but nonetheless, that is what I’ve done. I rushed to get my favorite puree (the smell alone sends me into conundrums of why I don’t love jam and makes me wish I loved to slather such things on toast) to you before your markets closed the bill on such spring fare like rhubarb and cherries. I then made promises to pump out this back log as I am drowning in it and have neither the time nor the patience nor something to say about everything we’ve shoved into our littlest pie hole. I epically failed us both. I’m still drowning and you’re still waiting. So let’s get the show on the road, shall we?

After our brief introduction to orange vegetables, we moved right along into green vegetables. This phase was the one I was most anxious about. I haven’t met too many kids, let alone babies, who like and tolerate green food things. It is usually spit back out, along with gagging attempts followed with absolute refusal to open the intake valve. Plus, as most of you know, I’m twenty three and still green averse, so what hope really did my kid have? That’s why I wanted to make it interesting, or at least attempt to slightly mask the flavors. We attempted spinach first and I threw in some caramelized leeks. I know, we kind of jumped ship and went straight to a stage two food, but I was sure I’d be trying to coax determined tight lips open.

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strawberry rhubarb sauce

meg — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 00:42:35 +0000

Whew! Where were we? Oh yes, it’s July and I still haven’t told you about the strawberry rhubarb jam, err sauce I fed Henry. Apologies, of course, though if you keep up on these pages I’m sure you understand the lack of getting to you all in a timely manner. Even now, I am only taking a short 5 minute break from packing tiny man pants with matching tank tops and bucket hats and sand castle gear, because really I can’t stall any longer.

Unfortunately all of my frozen baby food was ruined in the derecho last weekend and I have yet to make up some yummy compotes. We’ve been surviving off of organic gerber food, which I’m finding the baby does not enjoy with any kind of enthusiasm. After all, none of it tastes like jam, like this does, and I would be completely put out if I was fed some conglomeration of whole wheat pasta and harvest vegetables instead of sweet summer berry medleys too. Once we get back from the beach I will be whipping up a ton of new sauces and purees — I’m beginning to dread the thought because the backlog I still have to share with you isn’t even close to being done. I guess to take the pressure off, I will just share the recipes. You wouldn’t be too terribly upset, would you? The only thing missing will be me, rambling up a storm, and really, it won’t be missed, let’s not kid ourselves. So for now, I give you the best smelling and wonderfully jammy strawberry rhubarb sauce. It’s all the rage around these gums and company.

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cherry peach sauce

meg — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 04:19:29 +0000

I’m going to take a quick jump here to some dual fruited second stage sauces before plunging through our green vegetable introduction. I’ve got this cherry peach sauce and a jammy strawberry rhubarb sauce (coming next) that I’ve been dying to tell you about, and I just hope that your local farmer’s market or grocer still has or will be getting the last round of this seasons cherries and rhubarb.

In my long list of food combinations I wanted to feed my kid (the very first thing I made after seeing the second line show up on the knocked up stick, ya know, priorities), strawberry rhubarb was always at the top. Luckily for us, he began food right as it was coming in season and I made some, froze it and saved it until we were ready to start introducing the second stage of goo. Cherries, didn’t make the cut. They’re expensive, a lot of work for such little reward, and honestly there are so many better fruits out there. Well, needless to say, me and what my husband refers to as my “besetting sin” (am I the only one who gets suddenly greedy after seeing bright, fresh, wonderful smelling produce at the farmer’s market and get, errr, carried away and bring home far more than any two normal people could possibly eat?) got the better of me and I slew home a bundle of cherries and didn’t use nearly as many as I thought I would need.

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winter squash puree

meg — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 19:46:19 +0000

I’ve completely thrown seasonal cooking to the wind when it comes to baby food. To be honest, it was an inner struggle for weeks leading up to my decision. We’re all about seasonal food – simply put, it tastes far superior to hot house multi-continent shipped produce. That being said, I also wanted to give Henry a wider variety of foods, and hopefully instill in him a like, enjoyment and glee for all food. Though summer time seems to contain the most abundant in-season produce selection there was something in me that really wanted him to try everything. I didn’t want to create a picky kid. I am picky enough for this entire household. He shall not steal my crown.

Of course the toddler years are right ahead of us and I hear these walking tornadoes can be absolutely in love with peas and carrots at lunch and thumb their noses at them during dinner. It scares me. I’m not the kind of mom who will spend an hour fixing dinner, place it in front of my kid, he refuses to eat, and then spend another hour fixing something else to entice his enormous appetite. It’s just not going to happen. I really dislike doing dishes.

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first sweet potatoes

meg — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 20:28:47 +0000

We’ve started with orange vegetables per our doctors recommendation though our little guy has started to get the infamous orange nose so we’ve moved on to green things and have now started to introduce fruit. Needless to say, we’ve got a ton of back log here, and I apologize for not pumping it out sooner.

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