January 14, 2015 - Try to make baby food

In a previous adventure, I taste tested store bought baby food and found it all wanting.  All it really amounted to was pureed ingredients thrown together in a jar.  It was tasteless, bland, and overpriced. With Nugget needing food every two to three hours, that means a lot of jars and a lot of crap food.  It's something I want to avoid, so I need to figure out a way around this.

My cooking skills have improved dramatically over the last few years.  It really was The Holiday Month that kicked this off.  Cooking different kinds of food from different cultures ignited a curiosity in me to try new things and to expand my culinary palette. I've watched a lot of MasterChef, and a lot of Kitchen Nightmares (I'm a fan of Gordon Ramsay, what can I say).  I have practiced a lot (thanks for being my guinea pig, Elizabeth).  In doing so, I have found that I have a knack for it, and it has become one of my biggest hobbies.

Add to this the fact that I live in walking distance to a fantastic Farmer's Curb Market, one of the oldest in America in fact, and this means that I should have the tools and the skills necessary to make some awesome baby food.

Friends of mine have said that they made all of their baby's food by steaming or boiling random foods and throwing them together.  Peaches and broccoli...who's ready for dinner?! Chicken livers and rutabagas...yum! I have also read on Parents.com that it is a perfectly good idea to take whatever you are making for adult dinner and blend the crap out of it until it is in a form that a baby can easily eat. Spicy foods should be avoided, but that does not mean that the baby's food cannot be flavorful. 

The makings of a feast...

I took some left over cabbage and boiled it into a mushy mass (our kitchen smelled wonderful).  I then poured the liquid and the cabbage (my first mistake) into a blender.  I added some left over spaghetti dinner to this and went to town.

My definition of "going to town"

The result was...soupy.  Basically just a liquid on top of bits of pasta and meat.  This did not turn out as I had hoped.  I tried straining it with a coffee filter, but still, it was mostly a soupy mass with no real consistency.  As this reminded me of some of what I had eaten from pre-made options, at least I was on the right track there.  It also tasted very similar, so at least I know that even at my most rookie stage, I can whip up something that is on par with what I found in the jars at Harris Teeter.

But I want to be better than Gerber.  I want to be Diane Keaton from Baby Boom (a movie I will introduce Elizabeth to this weekend).  This is going to take practice, I know.  And I've already identified ways that I can improve.  Hopefully, by the time Nugget gets here, I'll be a pro at throwing together concoctions in my food processor that will fit all of his dietary needs and excites his taste buds.

If not, he can deal with it.  It's not like he can send it back.