Martha Stewart

I don't cook very well. At all. I enjoy the process, but being married to someone like Jon who can whip something up with the most random ingredients - and have it taste AMAZING, kind of makes it less fun. In other words, I'd rather leave the process to him. :)

I also enjoy baking and have since I was very small. The organized, practical part of me (which is like, 90%) loves the measuring and preciseness of baking. However it doesn't make me feel very adventurous when I simply follow directions from a book or a box.

This being said, I'm happy to realize I think I've found a happy medium by making my own baby food! It's something I really wanted to do since I found out I was pregnant. I'm always looking for ways to save us money, and the idea of something so simple as bananas coming from a jar just never seemed right to me. Last year in the family Christmas exchange, I wound up with a mini food processor - PERFECT! That sealed the deal, and tonight was the first time I got to use it. I started out easy the other night by mashing a bunch of organic bananas and freezing them. - aha! Another use for the covered ice cube trays I used to freeze all that breast milk (which we still have a plentiful stock of, by the way! Harper still hasn't ever had a bottle of formula). Tonight I branched out and cooked two sweet potatoes and a butternut squash, pureed them in the food processor and they're now taking their turn freezing before getting popped into labeled freezer bags in the morning.

The bunch of bananas made 2 full ice cube trays last night. The 2 sweet potatoes filled 1 and a 1/2. Since I only have 3, I filled up one tray with the squash and had to put the rest of it into tupperware for freezing tomorrow. Tons of baby food!! For super cheap!! I tossed around the idea of making applesauce too but I really hate peeling apples, so I think I might spring for a big jar of regular all-natural store bought applesauce.

Not everything has gone perfectly. There was one casualty that I must mention. I bought mangos in the hopes of pureeing some of that as well. I love mangos but have never actually bought one and sliced it. Being a busy working mother with way too much to do, it proved much too time consuming to try to tackle on a regular basis. Heck, even trying to slice it open was like trying to break into pandora's box! Once I (Jon) got it open, I tried peeling the skin off and it was just coming off in little shreds. I think I spent all of about 4.5 seconds doing this before it all went into the trash.

Still on the list of things Stage 1 foods to try: organic carrots, which are sitting in the crisper drawer waiting to be cooked. Peas, peaches, pears, apricots, pumpkin and, yes, avocado. So excited to see how she's going to like (or not like) them all.

Fun stuff.