Can't Wait

I’ve been anxiously waiting for this amaryllis to bloom since November.  I started with a lifeless stump of a bulb and a promise on the package of an exquisite bloom by Christmas.

I carefully placed the bulb in a pot, took care to cover the stump with soil and a little water just as the instructions encouraged me to, and then I waited…even though my excitement was insisting that I couldn’t wait.

I started with it on my kitchen table as the centerpiece, so added some charming, tiny stones to the surrounding bare soil to disguise its preliminary lack of beauty…just like my under eye concealer does after a baby induced sleepless night or two.

A week passed without so much as a miniscule peek of green in indication of some form of life.  I figured it wasn’t getting enough light.  I thoughtfully relocated it to a north facing window in my family room and once again I waited.

Over a week later, still nothing.  Maybe it was too cold there?  Determined to get it to fulfill its holiday destiny and unleash its beauty I moved it once again.

Its new stomping ground was upstairs in a warm bathroom on the counter to receive light from a south facing window which was an awkward and inconvenient place for it to be…desperate times called for desperate measures.

A couple of days later, well into December now, there she was!!  A tiny winter cactus green coloured, arrowhead shaped, botanical life form was making it’s escape from the narrow neck of the bulb and it’s debut into our world!!  I did it!!!  She was growing!!

Once I was sure she was thriving, I moved her back into her rightful place in the center of the kitchen table.  The promise of a bloom for Christmas was never realized but a steady and interesting growth to oversee on a daily basis was.

Now it’s January 20^th. and she’s in full bloom…what a beauty.

After the months of tireless care, growth monitoring and waiting, I have enormous pride in what she has transformed into but now I worry about what happens next.

Now she’s confident and full of poise and can get anyone to give her a little water once a week…she doesn’t need me anymore.

Soon she’ll be graduating from school, getting her driver’s license, and leaving town with her boyfriend to secretly get married…WHOA!!  I’m sorry…I’m blurring the lines between my children and my flowers again.

I suppose the convoluted point I’m trying to make is we should enjoy each stage of our little ones’ precious lives and live in each moment rather than pining over their graduation to the next stage.

It’s human nature to “can’t wait” for our new borns to be able to hold their heads up on their own, and when they can do that, we can’t wait for them to sit on their own, and when they can do that, we can’t wait for them to start eating solids…the “can’t waits” are endless.

I think we as parents need to slow down and think of how we can enjoy and be present in the stage our kids are in right this minute rather than long for tomorrow’s or next week’s stage.

Time has a way of marching on by itself without the human race egging it on.

Whether your baby is 6 months old, or heading off to school, you can make batches of simple fruit purees for their first taste of solid food or as a special dessert straight from their lunch box.  They, and even you, can enjoy fruit purees at whatever stage they happen to be in at this very moment…so no need to wish our lives away. J

 I think most people who pack lunches for kids reach for the convenient little apple sauce packs at one point or another…my mom used to pack them for me and I used to pack them for my older son.  Instead, you can take a few of these apple berry purees from the freezer the night before school and put into a small food storage container to throw into their lunch bag in the morning.  Don’t forget the spoon though…I’ve had returned lunches from my son with an explanation of, “how did you think I was going to eat this mom…with my nose?”

Ready…Set…Evolve…

Apple Berry Joy

 Age – 8 months + due to the use of strawberries which have a higher tendency to trigger an allergic reaction.  Leave them out of the recipe if you want to make for a 6 month + baby.

 Ingredients

-          3 Apples (a sweeter variety such as McIntosh or Gala rather than a tart Granny Smith)

-          1 cup of strawberries (fresh or frozen)

-          ½ cup of blueberries (fresh or frozen)

Baby Steps

-          Peel, core and chop apples

-          Add apples to a large sauce pan.  Cover and cook over medium heat for 12 minutes, stirring often.

-          Add strawberries and blueberries to apples and continue to cook for another 5 minutes.

-          Cooking times may vary depending on how thick the apples have been chopped, but as long as apples are tender and the mixture looks juicy you should be fine.

-          Remove from heat and let stand for a few minutes to cool.

-          Transfer to a blender, food processor or bowl to use a hand blender to puree to a smooth consistency.

-          Transfer to freezing trays to be used within 3 months, or to a food storage container and put in the fridge to be used within 48 hrs.

Makes approx. 10 Servings (1 serving size = 2 tbsp.)

Have fun and take advantage of doing something with your kids today that they won’t want to do once they’ve advanced into their next stage.

Smells Like Something

Do you ever find yourself watching this week’s episode of your favourite T.V. show and somehow feel indifferent?  Out of the two writers employed you just know it had to be the dud writer who was in charge of this one.  It’s the same with me and this blog, except I am both the dud writer and the half decent writer depending on my circumstance.  Who shows up depends on how stressful a work week I’ve had, how many times my toddler interrupts me to “watch him walk sideways”, or how often my pre-teen asks me to smell him to make sure the verdict is good.   I’ll let you be the judge of who showed up for this one.

There is something wonderful about the scent of babies, or more likely the baby products we use to bathe them in, moisturize them and de-rashify them.  I LOVE the fragrance of lavender baby powder…I would douse myself in it head to toe every day if it didn’t leave a cloud of powder all over my work outfits…that, and I guess it would be weird for a grown woman to smell like a baby all the time.

I also love the “L’il Goats Milk" baby lotion, diaper cream and body wash products.  They work wonders on baby’s skin and they have this amazing fragrance that I can’t put my finger on.  It doesn’t really smell like usual baby products but it reminds me so much of something…if someone knows what it might be and can put me out of my wondering misery I would be grateful.

I came across a Facebook post from Gretchen Rubin of “TheHappiness Project” fame, where she was discussing a book by Rachel Herz called “The Scent of Desire”.  She says that our responses to smells are learned rather than instinctive and therefore nothing smells good or bad until you learn that it’s a good or bad smell.  Our sense of smell is connected to the olfactory cortex which is the part of the brain that processes emotion, memory, and motivation so this sense is imperative to our physical and emotional well-being.

An article in Prevention further goes on to say that we all have a cache of fragrant memories stored in our brains and just a whiff of a special scent can evoke a happy, magical moment.  Research also shows it can lower our stress levels, improve mental and physical performance, ease pain, end insomnia and even help us lose weight.

It’s also becoming popular for retailers to use “scent marketing" in their stores to draw in customers and keep them lingering and therefore shopping.  Bloomingdales uses a baby powder scent in their children’s department, a lilac fragrance in lingerie, and coconut in their swimsuit section so people can imagine themselves at a tropical get away… and what does everyone need at a tropical getaway…oh ya, a swimsuit…of course I hope I can find one that covers all my baby induced extras.

All this talk about fragrances that evoke emotions is inspiring a baby food puree in me right now…PEACHES!  Thinking of peaches reminds me of summer, peach trees (of which I’ve never seen one in real life but somehow thinking of peaches reminds me of how beautiful I think a peach tree would be in real life), and the happy faces on kids and adults alike who take their first bite into the first, in season, juicier than juicy peach.

Ready…Set…Evolve…

Just Peachy Puree

Age – 6 months +

 Ingredients

·         5 very ripe large peaches

·         Yes, that’s it

Baby Steps

·         Peel peaches using the “boiling water method”.

·         O.K. I should tell you what the “boiling water method” is…

·         Score an “X” on the bottom of each peach with a sharp knife and place in a large bowl.

·         Cover peaches with boiling water and leave for 2 mins.

·         Move peaches from boiling water to a bowl with cold water and leave for 1 min.

·         Remove from water and place on cutting board.  Skin should easily peel back if they were very ripe. Start peeling from where you scored the “X” on the bottom.

·         Once all the peaches are peeled, chop into small chunks put into a bowl and mash or puree using a hand blender.

·         Transfer to freezing trays or a food storage container to put in the fridge.

·         The frozen puree should be used within 3 months and the refrigerated within 48 hours.

Note:  If the peaches weren’t ripe enough and you’re having trouble peeling them, just use a hand held peeler, then chop them and cook in a saucepan with 1 tbsp. of water for a few minutes over medium heat until they are soft and juicy and then puree.

Makes  8 servings (1 serving = 2 tbsp.)

Hmmm…smells like Carter needs a change…this is evoking an “I wish he was potty trained” emotion in me.

Comfort & Veggie Glory

I do love living in Canada, but with it insists the tolerance of the unrelenting cold of winter in January & February.

December weather is endurable because it promises Santa, pretty lights and the first light snowfall, but come January, St. Nick is long gone and the novelty of shovelling the driveway has worn off.

Leaving the house in the morning isn’t quite as simple as it was in the more temperate days.  The calamity that unfolds trying to get Gore-Tex coats and snow pants on the kids in a timely manner is beyond belief, just like trying to jam mitts on these mini creatures you swear had opposable thumbs a minute ago is.

When you ask people how they manage to get through these two infamous Canadian winter months, a resounding, “by curling up with some comfort food”, is a beloved response.
The Oxford English Dictionary added the term “comfort food” to its 1997 list of entries defining it as, “food that comforts or affords solace; hence any food that is associated with childhood or with home cooking.”

An article in “e-notes.com” on the history of comfort food further goes on to explain, “throughout history and across cultures food arguably has always been associated with the provision of comfort.  From the moment following birth, the crying infant is immediately soothed with mother’s milk.”  “Only in the last decade of the twentieth century, however, did the notion of comfort food as a unique concept become part of the vernacular of everyday life.”

Wikipedia also has an interesting list of the top rated comfort food choices across different cultures…what Chicken Soup is to America, Tom Yum is to Thailand.
There is one comfort food that pops up on several people’s lists…macaroni and cheese!

So in honour of this cold, dark, hibernation instigating period, I’m sharing my mac and cheese baby food recipe.  I will add tuna, cauliflower and carrots to mine though.

The good thing about cooking for baby is that you don’t have to be deliberate about hiding veggies in the meal.  They can be right out there in the open in all their glory.  Babies don’t care what the dish looks like.  If they are introduced to veggies early on (6 months +) they grow accustomed to them, declare some their favourites and some not so much, but best of all, as they grow into toddlers and beyond they won’t refuse to eat them.

Unfortunately this is not the case with my pre-teen, anti-veggie boy Eric.  When I had him 12 years ago the closest I came to making homemade baby food was to put on a chef’s hat and chant “bon appetite” in the name of getting him to eat his jarred peas.  I think that’s evident today when he says things like, “I wish I had no taste buds, ‘cause then I could eat really healthy.”  The truth is, he refuses to even try new foods because he’s convinced they are horrible.  Geez…if only I knew then what I know now…it would have saved me years of trickery and trying to hide the veggies in the spaghetti sauce.

Ready…Set…Evolve…

Tuna Mac & Cheese (may contain carrots and cauliflower)

Age – 6 months + (just make sure that baby has gone through the first foods stage and was introduced to each leaving a few days in between to watch for any allergies)

Ingredients

·         1 cup chopped carrots

·         1 1/2 cups chopped cauliflower

·         1 can of tuna packed in oil or broth (120g.)

·         1 cup mini alphabet pasta

·         1 tbsp. butter

·         1 tbsp. flour

·         1 ½ cups milk

·         ¾ of a cup grated cheddar cheese

Baby Steps

·         Peel and chop carrots and chop cauliflower.

·         Place carrots in a steamer over boiling water, cover and cook for 12 mins.

·         Add cauliflower to carrots and continue to cook for another 8 mins.

·         Cook pasta according to package directions but leave out the salt.

·         Drain oil or broth from tuna and place tuna into a food processor or blender.

·         Add cooked veggies to tuna and pulse until mixed well and reaches a consistency similar to scrambled eggs.  Set aside.

·         Drain pasta and put into a large bowl and stir in the veggie and tuna mixture.

·         Now you can make the cheese sauce.

·         Melt butter in a large pan over medium heat.

·         Add flour to butter and stir with spatula until it makes a smooth paste, approx. 1 min.

·         Add milk and stir until all lumps are gone and milk starts to thicken, approx. 3 mins.

·         Add cheese and continue to stir until smooth and bubbly, approx. 3 mins.

·         Remove from heat and pour cheese sauce over pasta, tuna and veggie mixture in the bowl and stir until well combined.

·         Let cool and transfer to freezing trays that will keep well in the freezer for up to 3 months.  You can also keep some in a food storage container in the fridge to be used within 48 hours.

Makes approx. 18 servings. (1 serving = 2 tbsp.)

We can make it through these next couple of cold, dark months…all it takes is a little comfort food.

The Birth of My Leap of Faith

I was going to name my blog, “On my Way to a Baby Food Revolution”, but no one is revolting here.  Although the name sounded catchy, there is no anarchy, bloodshed, destruction or violent behaviour developing.  So I dropped the R and was left with Evolution which depicts change, growth and transformation. Yes, that’s more like it.

I’m a happily married, working mother of two wonderful boys in my 39^th. year with that next big number looming.  Also looming is my unanswered desire to take a leap of faith and pursue my dream of creating a livelihood out of something that means more to me then numbers that never seem to quite add up the way they should.

My oldest son is 11 years and the other is 21 months…and let’s remember my age of “39”.

I never even considered making my own baby food for my first son.  I figured it would be way too time consuming and let’s face it, impossible.

My boys are almost exactly 10 years apart in age, which translates into 10yrs. of cultivating my love of fresh foods and overcoming the intimidation of preparing a nutritious meal from scratch.

Although on occasion I feel as if I need more time and energy to enjoy all the things I love to do, I have many moments of zest for life brilliance that I attribute to eating basic fresh foods and getting some exercise.  When my youngest son came along I figured by nature babies and toddlers have the exercise thing worked out, so I wanted to provide him with the fresh food to fuel his energy and zest for life.

I experimented with different baby food purees and concoctions and came to love and look forward to my meal preparation rituals.  I discovered that it’s not that intimidating and it’s not that time consuming once you get a routine down and learn certain tips and tricks to save time.  Let’s not forget the $ savings…just imagine how many baby veggie meals you can get out of one bunch of $2 broccoli, compared to 1 or 2 jars of baby food.  The savings definitely translates into a nice pair of shoes…or a tool of some sort if you happen to be a Dad.

Life is busy and you don’t always have time to do everything you would like to…I get that feeling every time I walk down to our basement to do the laundry and see the abandoned drum kit my husband got me for mother’s day this year.  I swear every time I look at it it’s hollering, “YOU DON’T HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO ENJOY ALL THE THINGS YOU WOULD LIKE TO!”

Here is what is at the top of my list of things I will do:

1.       Write a baby food cook book and blog about the process.

2.       Navigate my way around starting and registering a small business to develop and wholesale baby goods and accessories required to make homemade baby food preparation unintimidating and fun.

3.       Keep my day job until this takes off to keep Mr. 21 month old in Cheerios and Mr. 11yr. old in stuff that 11yr. olds like.

4.       Get up at 6am. to exercise in the basement with my homemade workout VHS tapes before everyone in the house is up so I have enough energy and “zest for life” to get me through my day.

5.       Spend quality time with my wonderful, funny, inspiring and funny husband.

6.       Spend quality time with my wonderful, funny, inspiring and funny boys.

7.       Catch up with close friends.

8.       Work in my garden and read the Martha magazines I have under the coffee table that I think I read all the time but couldn’t possibly because there are 4 back dated issues there.

9.       Continue to make baby food and test new recipes.

10.   Maybe get a few hours of sleep each night.

There is no room on this list for those damn drums.  I bet there is room on your’s to add, “make my own baby food.”