Food for Thought.....literally.

I know this is supposed to be my craft blog, but cooking is just another kind of craft, right? I've been busy in the kitchen the last couple of days pureeing up food for the girls. Formula and baby food prices have been rising and I am just getting sick of paying the prices. Formula cans went up almost $6 per can (depends on where you shop) to over $26 per can! I couldn't believe it! To save 50% per can, I switched to the off-brand. I talked to the pediatrician and she said that there isn't any difference. They are all approved by the FDA, so I wouldn't be doing Camryn any harm by giving her the off-brand. (Whew! Good to hear!)

So with Emerson always being a finicky eater (when she was born, she only ate every 6 hours! Scary at first and hard to get over what "normal babies do", but kinda nice. It was nice to run errands and not have to feed every 2 hours). Anyways, I saw Jessica Seinfeld on Oprah a few months back when she was talking about her cookbook Deceptively Delicious. I was hooked! I am not a good (healthy) eater myself (I have a texture problem with food), so I thought this book would be good for me and my kids. (My husband will eat anything that is edible, even the healthy stuff!) So I've been busy pureeing squash, potatoes, bananas, pears and today, broccoli. In the cookbook, there is a recipe for Chicken Nuggets using pureed broccoli. So I cut my broccoli into little florets and steamed them according to the directions. Then I tossed them into the blender to puree them. I don't know about you, but I have a hard time feeding something to my child (let alone me eating it) when it smells like fresh cut grass! I was just gagging! I put the lid back on and continued, but I just couldn't do it! I think I'll stick to the aforementioned veggies and fruits and stay away from the green stuff!

It's not always a better deal (money-wise) pureeing your own food. You are giving your kids healthier food and saving the environment (less plastic packaging, etc.), but sometimes it costs you more money. I bought 3 pears (1.69 lbs) for $2.52. Once steamed and pureed, those 3 pears filled 4 of the Stage 1 plastic rectangle food containers. When purchasing pears from the store, you get 2 rectangle containers per package which costs $0.92 each at my store. So that's $1.84 for the same amount that I paid $2.52 for, plus my time and energy to steam and puree the food.

Now, when I pureed butternut squash and a golden Yukon potato (I mixed the two together in the blender) it cost me $2.58 for the two. After steaming and pureeing them, I got about 4-4 1/2 cups of the squash/potato mixture, which equals about 8-9 rectangle baby food containers, which would have cost $3.68 for 8 containers. So in this case it WAS worth it to puree the food. I can also use this mixture to mix in with macaroni and cheese and hide the vegetables from Emerson (and me!)

No time for stamping as now I have to go and clean my kitchen! Thanks for listening!