Food Friday

Typically, I do a post once a week on Tuesdays. I'm going to try my best to implement Food Friday you know just for fun and because, I like to cook and people ask me a lot about the food I make.

Right now the big thing in my life is baby food. I love making it more than real person food. That statement implies that babies are not real people. I halfway agree with that. So for my first Food Friday post (woah alliteration) I'm going to tell you about what Zoe has eaten.

Here is a list of foods she has tried - roughly in order

Fruits: apple, peach, pear, plum, banana, avocado, grapes, apricot, blueberry, strawberry, raspberry
Vegetables: sweet potato, carrot, butternut squash, spinach, acorn squash, broccoli, peas, leek, zucchini, potato
Animal Proteins: chicken, eggs, yogurt
Grains: brown rice, oats, quinoa
Spices: cinnamon, garlic, clove, nutmeg, allspice, cumin

I love giving her new things and I try to introduce new foods all the time. I was a super picky eater until pretty recently, so I'm hoping I can at least expose her to a lot of tastes now even if down the road she decides she is only eating food that is yellow. 

I have to say, I pretty much live by this book

It gives you guidelines on when to start foods and what the nutritional value is of them. Most of this info is on the interwebs, but I like having an actual book to sit down with and read over. I find that cook books help me make things I wasn't looking for. When I search something online - I get great recipes for exactly what I wanted to make. When I read cookbooks - I get great recipes for things I didn't know were options.

Two of the websites that help me in my baby food making venture are Wholesome Baby Food and Baby Food 101. These sites give great menus and tips for which foods to buy organic.

I use a combination of a mini food processor, a big Cuisinart, and an immersion blender. Usually whichever is clean and the least amount of work. Zoe really likes purees, but I also let her try "regular" food if she shows an interest, like my apple.

Yesterday morning I had a pear that was half rotting, a badly bruised apple, and a banana that was about to be used for bread. Instead I made her food with it. Ha, I basically just confessed that I feed my baby our garbage! Really, each only had small amounts that were unusable, but with all three combined it made breakfast for her for 3 days. I added some clove and ginger and it tasted magical!


Next up on the list is mango and coconut milk!