Cooking with Emmy

Wait, don't run away! I'm not burning anything, I promise!

I've discovered my new favorite style of cooking...pureeing. Yep, I've started venturing into making my own baby food! (I must say, it is MUCH easier than cooking regular food!) Before I get into how easy this is, let me tell you a few of my past cooking mishaps:

-a recipe called for "refrigerated linguine"; naturally, I went to the grocery store, bought a box of linguine and stuck it in the fridge. My mom was over one day and we were trying to figure out what to make for dinner; I enthusiastically suggested this recipe and produce the box of linguine directly out of my refrigerator. Needless to say, my mom got a good laugh out of that one.

-While attemping to be all "Suzy Homemaker" during my maternity leave, I decide to make cupcakes just for fun. My cupcake pan only holds 12 cupcakes, but the box makes 24, so I just filled the little cupcake tins up as far as they would go and the leftover batter went into a small square cake pan. I was really proud of my quick thinking, until I pulled the product out of the oven, only to discover that they looked like cupcakes on steroids and had taken over the entire pan. Determined to make the most of it, I decided to go ahead and ice them (and my small cake) anyway, only no one ever told me that you should let stuff cool off before attempting to ice. My cake looked like someone let a rabid dog get a hold of it. :(

-And last, but not least, Brian & I had our friend Olivia over for dinner one night....while chatting away with her, I was putting some frozen twice-baked potatoes into the oven (you know, the kind that come pre-stuffed in a box, you just plop them onto a baking sheet?) when Brian interrupts our discussion to inform me that I was putting the potatoes on the sheet upside down. I was adamant that I was doing it right, for some reason, I thought for sure you put the skin side up! Brian then pointed out that if I did that, the cheese & stuffed part would bake onto the sheet and make a big, burned mess. Oops. (Liv was not surprised by this incident---she had Cooking Class with me in high school...my group always put me in charge of making the Kool-Aid to go along with the meal, I'm not sure why....)

So, back to my latest cooking adventure...you may be thinking to yourself, "If she can't even cook dinner for herself, why is she trying to cook for her baby?" I'll tell you why...baby food is expensive. It may not seem like it when you're looking at the individual cost, but add up what you're spending over time and it's quite a bit! We've been using Earth's Best and the cheapest I've found it is at Walmart (about .48 for the Stage 1 jar--he gets about 2 meals out of that) So instead of doing that, I started buying bags of frozen veggies (for about $1), steaming 1/2 bag, pureeing and freezing and viola, meals for the Jake Man! A 1/2 bag makes about 12-14 meals!! Much more cost-effective.

For any moms looking to venture into this (and clearly if I can do it, anyone can) I have been using www.wholesomebabyfood.com as a resource for many of my questions. So far I have stocked our freezer with peas, carrots, pears and bananas!