Making food for babies and people older than babies

Oh dear, sweet blog, I swear that I haven’t been ignoring you. I really just haven’t had anything to report.

I am still making baby food, but realized that the era will be coming to an end in the near future. The little man prefers feeding himself tiny bites with his fingers and is desperate to use the spoon (or at least have enough control over it so that he can wave it in the air or bang it on the tray or do whatever else he wants with it). So, my days of pureeing are numbered. I am a little sad, as this made me feel more of a part of my son’s nurturing where I feel that I miss out on so much.

There is an upside to not making baby food – I can focus my efforts on making food that the entire family can enjoy. I really want to make my own bread. I would love to get my husband away from the white Wonder bread and I have been dreaming up yummy combinations that I can’t wait to try. Hopefully I will have the time and the tools to begin this project soon. I am also anxious to try canning my own spaghetti sauce and pizza sauce. I have daydreams of a weekly family night involving the entire family making homemade pizzas together and watching a movie together afterwards. Of course my child will have to be a little older to help out and appreciate a movie, but that’s why they are currently daydreams. Making and canning my own pizza sauce will help make this dream easy and doable, plus give us a fresh from the garden taste in the middle of the cold Ohio winters.

I have been buying mostly organic groceries for a couple of months now. Cheese and meat has been an obstacle, because of cost and availability. Luckily our Farmer’s Market has an organic cheese stand that is wonderful. It takes all of my power to not spend my entire paycheck there. Unfortunately it is only available during the Farmer’s Market, so the off season will still be a challenge. I still can’t find a good solution for meat, so I have been serving vegetarian meals a couple of times a week. Eggs were also costly, but availability was easy. I thought eggs were going to break me, but luckily I have a co-worker that has chickens and has been selling eggs to me at a much more reasonable price. I have become pretty proud of my organic pantry.

 We are still undergoing the slowest move in the history of moves. This is not only draining our energy, but also our bank accounts. Fixing and replacing to make the new house livable has come before any green changes that we would like to make. So, sadly, I have not begun to compost or recycle or do anything else that I want to do in the new house.I really didn’t expect the move to stall my green efforts so much. I plan to continue to make little changes whenever I see the opportunity and the funds and hope that some of my bigger changes can come into effect by the end of the year.