Operation: Hide The Banana

It's no secret that Scout HATES banana. She hates it mashed and she hates it puréed. She hates it mixed with rice, oats, peaches, sweet potatoes, and mangos. The only time she actually ate it was the one time I drowned it in breastmilk, and even then she wasn't a huge fan. Despite this, I seem to have some strange impression that all babies should love bananas and so I have taken it upon myself to get Scout to eat bananas, even if I have to be sneaky about it. Thus begins "Operation: Hide The Banana". I will always be able to tell if she tastes it because she gives me this look that I like to refer to as Banana Face. She wrinkles her nose, gives me her best wtf eyebrows, and holds out her arms with her hands in front of her face as if to say "Stop mom, you're not fooling anyone!".

Stay tuned to find out if I am successful in my attempts. I highly doubt I will be, but it will be fun to try!

Mango

Wow, well mango definitely wins the prize for the most annoying food to prepare! It has the most awkwardly shaped pit I have ever seen in my life and it was almost impossible to predict where to cut the fruit in order to avoid it. It easily took me over an hour to pit, chop and peel 6 mangos. In the same breath though, they were definitely one of the most delicious foods to snack on while preparing!

I bought 6 mangos on sale for 2 for $3 (that's a total of $9 for the mathematically challenged), and it made 42 1 ounce servings. That's almost 10 jars of baby food! Scout really liked it too, and it's a good thing because I now have a freezer full of it!

Avocado

I was so excited when I walked into the grocery store today and saw avocados on sale at 3 for $5. I had been wanting to give Scout avocado for a while, but it is just so darn expensive and I have been trying to stick with the more "economically efficient" foods. I snatched 3 up at that price and rushed home. I have a secret crush on avocado myself, so I couldn't wait for her to try it!

Avocado, like banana, is one of those no-cook foods; you just scoop it and mash it with a fork. It looked so fresh and creamy!

She hated it. She seriously gagged. I tried puréeing it thinking that it was too chunky, and she still hated it. I tried adding some water thinking that maybe it was too rich, and she still hated it. Now I'm stuck with 2 1/2 avocados sitting in my fridge. Secret crush or not, I have no idea what I'm going to do with them now...

Zucchini

I had some serious reservations about making zucchini for Scout. I personally love the stuff. It's one of my favourite vegetables, but it tends to turn to mush when it's cooked and I thought it might be a really gross texture once it was puréed. Well, I'm happy to report that I was WRONG! It had such a smooth texture and was a beautiful yellow-green colour that was a little bit unexpected. Scout absolutely loved it. It is definitely her favourite so far. She couldn't stop smiling and laughing the entire time she was eating it!

The zucchini was so easy to make too. It took nothing to peel it, chop it, and pop it in the microwave. I only bought 2 small zucchinis because I didn't want to really commit to it until I knew how it was going to turn out, but it still made 7 1 ounce servings, which is about equal to one and a half jars of baby food.

Peach / Banana Medley

This morning was a bit of a breakfast experiment. I had peaches frozen in the freezer and fresh bananas sitting on the counter, so I decided to mix them together. As I'm mixing, I'm thinking to myself "I am a genius! Alone, I have to thicken the peaches and thin out the bananas. Mixing them together makes so much sense! I am AWESOME!".

Then it was time to feed Scout. I could tell from the start that she wasn't really a fan. She reluctantly took a few more bites, then decided to stop humouring me completely. Leave it to the 7 month old to knock me down a few notches..

Apple / Sweet Potato Medley

Tonight I decided to try one of the combinations suggested in my book. Since I had both apples and sweet potatos in the freezer and she had already tried and seemed to do well on both, I decided to try that one. I think she really liked it. The apple seemed to cut the starchiness of the sweet potato and the sweet potato cut the sourness of the apple, so it worked out well. It also doesn't get much easier than microwave and stir!

Ugh, stupid grains!

It's official, making my own baby food has turned me into a control freak! When I was at the grocery store the other day I took a wonder down the baby food aisle because I thought it was time for Scout to try out a new grain. I wanted to buy her some oats that you prepare by mixing in breastmilk. So down the aisle I go, a little bitter to begin with that I can't make my own vitamin enriched grains. When I reach the baby cereals I see "just add water" rice, "just add water" oats, "just add water" barley, and "just add water" wheat, but not a single "just add breastmilk" ANYTHING in the entire aisle! It infuriated me to think that someone would go to the store looking for something to be prepared with breastmilk, not see anything, and buy the "just add water" one instead, thinking that it's pretty much the same thing. Now, I'm no nutritionist, but I have been lactose intolerant most of my life and know first hand that "modified milk ingredients" translates into powdered cows milk. I also know that babies aren't supposed to have cows milk until they are at least a year old because there is a risk of allergy. Needless to say, I walked out of the store without baby cereal. This whole experience made me realize how important it is for me to control what goes into my baby's mouth (well, in terms of food anyway...). Whether parents decide to make their own baby food or not, reading lables and knowing what the ingredients actually mean is very important and nobody should settle for something less than what they were looking for just because the store doesn't have it. There will always be another store around the corner!