Baby Food

Freddie is like a little bird when we are eating. He looks longingly at your cookie or burger. It is pretty pitiful. I just have to give him some of whatever it is, no matter what it is for the most part. He really, really enjoyed the gingery cookies on our Delta flight last week. I have been doing better at figuring out what he can eat from the meal I am cooking for dinner and try to set a little aside before making it too salty or spicy for him to enjoy.

Baby food is expensive. I figure when I give Freddie jarred food I am spending $2-3 per day currently and as he gets better at eating that is only going to go up. So in addition to feeding him foods we eat, we've been making our own food!


The Beaba is awesome and was well worth the $150. I know we will more than break even on it. It steams and purees the food all in the same little container.


I almost just invested in a regular steamer and food grinder, but I am *so* happy with this. It is small enough that I don't mind it on the counter so I can toss in stuff that I am preparing for the "adult" dinner.


After steaming and pureeing, the puree gets poured into an ice cube tray. The 2.5 cup pitcher will produce enough food to just about fill up an ice cube tray. The cubes are then popped into plastic bags for storage. I figure Bug is eating about 3 cubes per meal along with some rice cereal or oatmeal.


So far we've got:

• apples
• pears
• pears and pineapple mixed
• sweet potatoes
  
• acorn squash and corn mixed (a favorite of his)
  
• acorn squash
• butternut squash
• peaches
• mangos
• blueberries
  
• blueberries and pears mixed
  
• carrots (really likes one cube carrot and one cube apples mixed)
  
• spinach (likes this mixed with some baked potato)

I think we'll browse the produce section tomorrow and dream up some other yummy purees for you, my dear Freddie. Looks like we need more veggies.

Welcoming Fall

It's October. It's autumn. Well, at least in other parts of the country it's autumn. We've had a few cool mornings, but for the most part, summer is hanging around.

I've been wanting to make a big pot of soup, chicken and andouille gumbo or some tortilla soup, but the weather just isn't right.

So I had to come up with a more appropriate fall treat....


Pumpkin cheesecake with gingersnap crust!

It turned out rather well, considering it was my first cheesecake, and I didn't know all the ins and outs of a springform pan. I have no idea why it didn't occur to me that the springform pan is not a closed system, sealed to all leaking. We had a bit of a smoke out for the 55 minutes it baked and the buttery goodness dripped onto the bottom of the oven.

That hint of smokey flavor did the cheesecake just right, and I needed to run a cleaning cycle in the stove anyway.