Adventures in Baby-Feeding!

Anyone get that movie reference?  Anyone?  Alrighty then....well, as the title of the post indicates, we have officially started solid foods at our house.  My four and a half month old son has taken fairly well to moving from an all liquid diet to a diet that includes a couple of tablespoons of some kind of solid food on a daily basis.  As with our other children,  we started the baby off with a semi-liquid rice cereal (organic brown rice cereal) that he mostly spit out onto his bib - which is typical.  We fed him the cereal for four days, gradually thickening the consistency.  I can't say that he had any particular opinions (as far as infant opinions go).  I mean, would you have any strong opinions on what amounts to a pasty gruel?  Nope, I didn't think so. 

Anyway, things started to get slightly more interesting when I purchased several different packets of organic fruits and vegetables at my local grocery store.  I was a little disappointed with the selection there, but I figured that he didn't need a huge variety to begin with anyway.  I chose organic roasted apples by Sprout, a baby food company apparently co-founded by TV chef Tyler Florence.  I am not really sure why the apples needed to be roasted, but Mr. Florence seems to prefer that method of cooking baby food.  It definitely deepens the color of the pureed fruit, but I would kind of beg to differ that it enhances the "natural sweetness" of the apples.  Those suckers must have been some kind of tart when they were roasted and pureed because the final product was pretty sour.  I didn't taste them before I started spooning them into my son's mouth, so I was kind of surprised when he made a face after the first spoonful.  He continued eating them, so he must not have been completely put off by the flavor.

Our next adventure was with roasted butternut squash, also by Sprout.  This went over substantially better with the baby - he actually started opening his mouth in anticipation of the next bite of squash!  I can understand the roasting method here - the squash would have to be cooked somehow.  The flavor, in my opinion, was fairly mild, but my son seemed to really enjoy it (especially when mixed with a little rice cereal).

Since our baby food packet supply was being rapidly depleted, and since I happened to be at one of my favorite stores - Target - I decided to see if that store had anything else by way of different baby food to try.  I was so excited to see that Gerber's organic line was more complete at this store.  They had peas and prunes in the first foods, which I was pleased to see, especially because my grocery store did not have any first foods in that particular brand.  I picked up a couple of packages and was really excited to try peas with my son.  The packages sat in our pantry for a couple of days and the day that I deemed him ready to try peas, I happened to pick up the package to take a closer look at it.  The label on the front touted "now with DHA!", so I thought, "huh, I wonder if those have a higher protein content than the other brand's veggies".  I flipped it over to check the nutrition label, happened to read the ingredients and discovered that the DHA comes from adding tuna oil to the baby food.  I have two problems with this: first and foremost, we have a family history of severe anaphylactic-type allergies to fish, shellfish and nut products.  I always read ingredient labels and have always been extremely careful when it comes to feeding these potential allergens to my babies.  Obviously, he would not be able to eat the products with the tuna oil in them.  Which is ALL of Gerber's organic baby food line - even down to the fruits!  That is my second problem: adding tuna oil to fruits just offends my chef sensibilities.  Seriously.....I don't want to eat a peach cobbler studded with tuna fish, why the hell would my baby want to eat a pureed version of the same thing?!  Back to the allergen thing and more to the point: Gerber did not even have a warning label on the food, indicating that it contained fish products.  That just pissed me off. 

So, long story....long?.....I will be writing a letter to Gerber to complain about the stupid DHA.  I will also be making my own organic peas (sans tuna oil, of course).  Making my own organic baby food got me thinking about other things....like switching to cloth diapers instead of the disposables that my son rapidly outgrows.  That is a totally different blog though.  Right now, we have just mastered Sprout's Roasted Pear baby food.  Oddly enough, he did not enjoy that one very much either.  I will have to try to find another brand of fruit baby food for him to try because he may just not care for Tyler Florence's riff on fruit puree.  I don't know.  (Again, I tasted it - this time, it was less tart than the apples, but really didn't have much pear flavor.  Geez....this makes me think that I may be getting myself in for making more than just baby peas here.)  Until next time, baby (and grown up) food lovers! 

I'm Back!

Yes, that's right!  I am back....after an embarrassingly long period of time!  I know I usually start my posts by apologizing for not writing more frequently, but this time I am going to start by updating you all on what has been going on in my life and what I hope the future holds for my writing.  

First of all, we have had a lot of changes over the past year!  Part of the reason that, if you go back to my archives and read my posts from last fall, I did not want to cook or eat was that we were expecting our third baby!  It was a boy, who is now a healthy, happy (and huge) almost-four-month-old!  For the first couple of months, I was fairly nauseous and rarely, if ever, felt like cooking.  After that, I slowly regained my normal sense of taste and smell, as well as my appetite, but I did not really feel like writing about what I was doing in the kitchen.  At this point, I am ready to pick the blogging back up and ready to let all (two) of my readers in on what is cooking....if not on a daily basis, then at least on a weekly basis.  (That is my goal, anyway.  As it stands right now, I am typing as fast as I can to take advantage of my son's very short nap times.)

So, here is where the adventures begin!  I have recently come to a couple of conclusions about what I want to do with my life and with this blog.  First and foremost, I plan to continue writing about the healthy (for the most part) fare that I cook for my family.  I also plan to write about introducing new foods to my infant son, as I am really quite fascinated with how babies develop a taste for new foods.  (Side note: he will be eating organic foods; occasionally cooked by me, but most often of the packaged variety.  I am going to try my hand at veggie purees and, possibly, fruit.)  Part of my reasoning behind writing about what I fix for my family, is my passion for helping all families eat better.  I have always been a proponent of healthy eating, but I especially want to do my part to help combat obesity, particularly childhood obesity.  I plan to not only write about what my family eats, but also about how much the food cost, per serving, and how my readers can replicate my recipes.  

So, that is how it stands right now.  I am going to have to run and try to engineer a longer nap for my son. (I am trying to begin sleep training him right now and I usually have to help him fall back asleep once his first sleep cycle has run its course.)  Look for new posts often - hopefully, they will all make sense, as I continue to be a bit sleep deprived!  Until next time!

Fall Way Back

My oldest daughter asked me to make pancakes for breakfast this morning. Since I had the pleasure of realizing that the clocks turned back last night and I had forgotten to reset them, thus it was actually 6:30 instead of 7:30 am, I decided that I did indeed have the time to do so. Also, my kids LOVE pancakes (I mean, who doesn't?), so as often as I have to say no because of time constraints and whatnot, I actually don't mind making them when I can. Truth be told, I kind of LOVE pancakes as well, but more for the nostalgia factor than anything else.

For as long as I can remember growing up, one day out of the weekend was always designated pancake breakfast day. (It was probably Sunday, but those days also belonged to church services, after which my father would take over the kitchen to whip up hot dogs and pickle relish for lunch. It would seem that Sundays were not the best days for healthy eating during my childhood.) My mother would get up, probably before the rest of us lazy bums, put on her cream colored, polyester, front zip-up robe that almost reached the floor on her petite frame, and start bustling around our galley style kitchen. She would usually have a cup of coffee (black with creamer and no sugar) in one of her Fransican apple patterned cups while she mixed the pancake batter, from scratch, in a well worn, but serviceable plastic mixing bowl. She would fire up her electric griddle, which only saw use on pancake making days, and effortlessly ladle beautifully even 2 to 3 inch diameter dollops of batter onto the sizzling surface. Somewhere along the line, I learned that she waited until the edges of the pancakes were set and the top was bubbly and almost lacy before she would flip them over, revealing a gorgeous golden brown exterior on the one side. After just a few seconds on the second side, she would remove them to a plate, and place pats of butter (probably more likely to have been margarine, but what did I know at the time?) between each pancake. We would always have crisp and crunchy bacon, whose smokey flavor complimented the lightly sweet pancakes themselves as well as the dousing of "maple" syrup that we always poured over the top. (In those days, it was likely to have been called "pancake" syrup, but let's just say that I never had actual maple syrup until I was a grown woman. No offense, Mom.)

None of her three children went away to school and it was only two years ago when the first one of us (my younger brother) moved out of state, but any time we are at my mother's house for breakfast, you can just about guarantee that the electric griddle will make an appearance, as will my mother's pancakes and bacon. The last time I had her pancakes was when my sister, my sister-in-law and I spent the night with my mom the week before my brother got married. It was a sort of bachelorette party for my soon-to-be-sister-in-law - we ate and drank and went shoe shopping. When we got up in the morning, my mother was already in the kitchen, fresh as a daisy (she doesn't drink) and making pancakes. They were delicious. She makes them for my daughters whenever they spend the night with her and she always makes enough that my pancake and bacon loving children can enjoy some the next day (and usually the day after that as well).

So, I also carry on my mother's pancake tradition. I have had her (and my grandmother's before her) recipe memorized since I moved out of her house. When my younger daughter was about to be born, I made and froze two gallon-sized ziploc bags of blueberry pancakes for my older daughter to enjoy while I was in the hospital and after we came home. I have experimented and altered the recipe to make it healthier, to make it seasonal (pumpkin is one of my personal favorites), to add more fruit, to add more fiber, to reduce the sugar, etc., etc., but I can't really beat the flavor of my mother's original recipe. This morning, when I made pancakes, I did actually add some whole wheat flour, which is an ingredient that my mother probably did not have access to in the mid-1980's. For the most part though, this morning's creation was pretty near her original recipe. I poured the batter onto my electric griddle (my Cuisinart Griddler - my absolute favorite kitchen gadget), watched for the edges to set and the bubbles to form, then flipped them over to reveal golden brown perfection. (You know, after the first couple - those are the "seasoning" pancakes that don't look perfect, but taste just as good.) I let my pancakes set on the second side slightly longer than my mother did, and I used the time to smear a little bit of Smart Balance spread (also something my mother did not have) on the top. I stacked them up on a plate, just like her and served them to my daughters with a drizzle of honey (no bacon, much to their chagrin). They were delicious and probably the closest I have come to recreating one of my mother's recipes in a very long time. They got me thinking - about my pancake memories, my family and how we make new memories for our kids every single day. Maybe my kids will remember me bustling around the kitchen, tea mug in hand, whipping up a batch of pancakes. No one will remember the flavors - they were all experimental anyway. In any case, breakfast was great this morning and ended up being a great trip down memory lane - pancake style!

The Chef is Back in the House!

For the first time in several months, I feel like I actually COOKED dinner last night! Why the fanfare you may ask? I cook at least once, sometimes twice a day, but I have stuck to a lot of comfort foods and very basic recipes for the last little bit. I am used to CREATING at least once per week and I just have not been up to that lately. Last night was different and made all the difference for me in really enjoying the meal.

Last night, we had herb and panko crusted tilapia, baked in the oven until crisp and golden brown, alongside which I served a quinoa "pilaf". The fish was good, but the "pilaf" (in quotations for lack of a better word) was where I really let my creativity shine. I started with a basic organic quinoa, which I rinsed (I am still not sure why you have to do that with this grain, but I did it anyway), and then simmered for about 25 minutes until all of the water I added was completely absorbed. While that pot was bubbling away, I put a pan with about 1 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil over low heat and added a large clove of garlic that I had minced. I let the garlic brown lightly and perfume the oil, then added one sliced shallot. I turned the heat up slightly and sort of oil braised both the shallots and the garlic together. When they were all soft and golden, I turned the heat off and set the pan aside. Earlier in the afternoon, I had picked our first red bell pepper (almost out of season, but my husband planted it late this year), which I roasted on our stove top until it was blackened and completely soft. I removed the skin and seeds, then chopped it finely and added it to the pan of oil, garlic and shallots. When the quinoa was ready, I added the roasted red bell pepper mixture, a splash of red wine vinegar, freshly ground black pepper and a mixture of sweet green and opal basil (also from our garden). I mixed the entire concoction together and ended up with a really delicious side dish (which also boosted our family's protein intake for the night. Don't know if you knew that about quinoa - it is an ancient grain with a high protein content and a delicious, nutty flavor.) I loved it, my husband loved it, my kids.....were not entirely crazy about it. Oh, well, sometimes you can't please everyone at the table and they did actually try it before declining to eat all of it. (This was mostly my little one; my older daughter was angling for more salad - shocker!- so she finished all that was on her plate.)

I also have big plans for this weekend: today or tomorrow, I am going to try my hand at making marshmallow fondant for a Halloween cake that I am planning for my kids. My older daughter offered to pay me to make a cake for her and, because I thought it was so cute and funny, I posted the conversation on Facebook. My mother saw it, of course, and informed me that, "[I] needed to make that baby a cake." So, that is my goal for tomorrow - a surprise Halloween cake, complete with fun, ghoulish decorations for my babies to enjoy. I am also hoping to try some more new recipes next week - I saw a cooking show yesterday with leek and mushroom turkey meatloaf that sounded really intriguing. (Sounds like it would go well with roasted garlic mashed potatoes, yes?) The weather is changing and with it, my outlook on cooking/creating in the kitchen, hopefully. I am ready for it! Bring on the experimentation!

Squashed!

I was randomly flipping the channels the other day and came across a PBS cooking show on vegetarian cooking. We have periodically gone vegetarian in the past - mainly for my husband's cholesterol issues - but have never really been able to stick with it. (I am a protein person - if I don't have enough of it, I get a little cranky.) In any case, I typically do several vegetarian dishes during the week, in addition to our meat based meals. I am always on the look-out for new stuff to try, so when I stumbled across this cooking show, I decided to watch for a few minutes.

Bear in mind that I started watching this thing at about the midpoint of the show, so I had already missed some of this woman's other concoctions. I began watching her make a pureed watercress and potato soup. Now, let me just say that this sounds fairly foul to me, even on a good day. (One in which I am willing to let go of any previous food bias and try a new combination of flavors.) I am sure it is pretty mild - especially since the vegetables were simmered in plain water and the final soup was seasoned only with sea salt and ground black pepper - but, seriously, I am not sure who, particularly in my family, would enjoy warming up with this odd soup.

Despite my obvious reservations about this TV cook, she did say something that caught my attention. As she began pureeing the cooked potatoes and watercress, she said, "you know, kids will eat almost any kind of soup, as long as it has been pureed. If they go poking around, unable to find any chunks of vegetables, they are more likely to try and enjoy them." Huh. That totally makes sense, actually. Honestly, I don't often like chunks of vegetables in my soups (please see a previous post on Roasted Vegetable Soup and my hatred of any form of celery), so wouldn't the same apply to my kids? Worth a try anyway....

Fast forward to menu planning at the beginning of this week: I had decided to try a pureed butternut squash soup to see if my kids would actually eat it. The recipe came from a cookbook called, "Great Food, Fast" by the editors of "Everyday Food". They also have a cooking show, which my kids and I enjoy watching together and I often rely on them to find recipes that are both kid and adult friendly. In any case, this was a pretty simple soup, calling for butternut squash (I subbed acorn squash), onions, garlic, ginger, water, salt and pepper and a small amount of fresh squeezed orange juice at the end of cooking. Puree it all together, top with a little (optional) sour cream and/or spicy roasted pumpkin seeds and viola! Instant, healthy and delicious family meal, right?

Oddly enough, the answer to that last question was: YES! Both of my kids tried the soup and my older daughter loved it! She actually finished her entire bowl! To be fair, I think she actually loved the spiced pumpkin seeds better than anything else, but still: I got that kid to eat a full serving of a vegetable that, had I prepared it in its whole form, she would not have touched with a ten-foot pole! My younger daughter, who I often accuse of surviving on air alone, tasted the soup, declared she did not like the sour cream that she had insisted on swirling into it and refused to finish it. She did, however, finish her salad, so that was a partial win for me there as well. My husband and I both enjoyed the soup ourselves and, yes, we both finished our bowls. Even without the addition of a stock (chicken or otherwise), I found this soup to be warming, filling and even a little refreshing. Pureed squash soups are often heavy or cloying, but this one was neither. It was nice - and we will probably repeat the recipe again.

In conclusion: thank you random vegetarian PBS TV host who suggested pureeing vegetables into soup to get kids to eat it. That was a great idea, even if your potato and watercress soup turned (and still turns) my stomach at the mere thought of it.

Et Tu, Trudy's?

Monday was a school holiday for our oldest daughter and my husband decided to take the day off to spend with the three of us. We planned to go out to eat and then to go to the Texas State History Museum to view a special exhibit on aviation that is currently featured there. It has been a while since we ate at Trudy's, a local Tex-Mex joint with several locations around town, so we decided to make that our lunchtime meal. We set off in the late morning, headed for the University of Texas campus (where the museum is and where one of the locations of Trudy's may be found), a little hungry, but nowhere near ravenous. That was fine - I figured that, by the time we got a table and placed our order, we would be ready to eat. We pulled into the parking lot and were bemused by the lack of cars. Up to the restaurant we walked, hand in hand with our daughters, only to find that the UT area Trudy's doesn't open until 2 pm. The girls suggested we just wait the two hours (they don't really understand time yet, obviously) and then have lunch. Nah - that wasn't going to work for me (or shortly, for anyone else, once they realized they were starving).

Determined to have our meal at Trudy's, we set off for the North Star location - just a few miles up the road on Burnet. Upon arrival, we were relieved to discover that this restaurant was, in fact, open for business. We were promptly seated, our drink orders were taken and our friendly waitress informed us that they currently had their "specialty foods buffet" set up and we were welcome to "load up". While she retrieved our drinks, my husband checked out the buffet and pronounced it, "meh" with a shrug of his shoulders. When our waitress returned, I said, "I guess we just need a couple of menus so we can decide." She responded with, "oh, we don't have menus". Argh! Are you kidding me?!? All I wanted was the salad that I always get at Trudy's - this, in fact, being the menu item for which we had driven all the way into Austin. Now, obviously, I have some personal issues here, but let's just say that I was more than a little disappointed that I couldn't have what I wanted, not to mention the fact that we had passed the point of no return as far as feeding our children. They wanted something to eat and they wanted it right then. So, with my own "meh" and shrug of my shoulders, I stomped over to the buffet line with my oldest daughter and filled her plate and mine with Trudy's "specialty foods".

By the way, "specialty foods", in general, means "fried" at Trudy's. I had a mini fried avocado, a mini fried chicken taquito, fried coconut shrimp, fried chile relleno and fried corn nuggets. To be fair, they also had a number of other "off-menu" items such as meatballs in guajillo chile sauce, pasta with a chipotle cream sauce and a chicken pot pie, not to mention a rather meager salad bar. I actually had a small amount of salad with my lunch (nothing compared to my original plan of the Ensalada Grande with Habanero Honey Mustard dressing) topped with a mediocre dressing. The food tasted ok (at the time - my husband later thought he had gotten a touch of food poisoning), but I was already really disappointed in one of my favorite restaurants. First, finding one location with crazy hours (can you say drinking joint?) and second, finding the other location which, crazily, doesn't offer a la carte service during the week anymore. WTH?

Ah, well, personal issues aside, I still love you Trudy's, even if Monday turned out to be a bad day for enjoying your food (from the menu). Hopefully, I will get my Ensalada Grande fix sometime soon, though I think I will have to just stick with the south location from here on out. Such a bummer - at least the museum turned out to be a good choice. The kids enjoyed themselves and we managed to have a really fun family day together (despite the disappointing lunch).

Busy, busy, busy

Whew! I have been crazy busy these last few weeks and (shocker!) I am just now finding the time to sit down and write a little something. Last weekend I did a cake for the largest wedding I have ever done. Now, to be fair, the wedding was only for about 115 people, but still, that is bigger than I have ever done. (I usually do small weddings - about 50 people on average.) In addition to doing the cake, I also assisted with the catering (by Mari Desautels of Mari Cooks) at the event, so last Saturday was fairly busy for me. The wedding had an overall Mexican theme to it, so the food and the cake were along those same lines. For the cake, I made three cinnamon-spiked French vanilla tiers, covered them with a basic butter cream and decorated using handmade, royal icing flowers as well as more butter cream to mimic the embroidered patterns found on traditional Mexican dresses (I think the one I used was specific to the region of Oaxaca). I served a cream sauce on the side, which the guests could pour on themselves, and which recreated the flavor of a traditional tres leches cake. (We were missing at least one of the "leches", but the flavor and structure of the cake worked really well without it.) Ultimately, I was pleased with how the cake turned out.

I was also very impressed with the food the caterer set out on the buffet. (I didn't actually help prep any of the food, but I did assist with set-up, clean-up and taking home some of the leftovers. Yum!) She had cheese enchiladas, beef and chicken fajitas, pulled pork shoulder (phenomenal), rice, beans, red and green salsas, guacamole and all the other accoutrements that a delectable Mexican buffet would need. Seriously, all of the food smelled divine and it tasted just as good the next day. The guests seemed to really enjoy everything - cake included - and the bride and groom seemed very happy with how their reception turned out (pretty much the most important thing for wedding caterers).

In any case, I hope to write more about what I am cooking at home in the coming days. Doing so has proved slightly more challenging lately, both for personal and for professional reasons. Time is always a factor for sure, but I definitely want to continue to share what our family is consuming (as much as what they are not - anybody with kids out there knows EXACTLY what I am talking about). For now, enjoy the cake picture!