Three Things Thursday: Life outside the cube

She had it all - a plan, the will and the Beaba.

One of my best girlfriends, who gave birth 6 months before me, was determined to make her own baby food purees. It was a way for her to contribute to the family, as she said, and provide nutritional, chemical free food. She said that it was easy and took but a couple hours a week.

Source

Inspired by Heather, I committed to the same. Or my version of same. Heather's schedule had a bit more flexibility in her day to make the purees each week. I was afraid that with working, I wouldn't have the time every weekend. I decided that it would be best for me to make in bulk.

And I mean bulk. I made 10 pounds of steamed, then pureed, sweet potato cubes; five pounds of carrots; and what had to be at least 10 pounds of pears and apples. There was banana, too, and avocado. (I saved things like green beans and peas for Gerber.)

The things I failed to realize, as my food processor whirred with exhaustion, was that Heather is a stay-at-home and would be offering every meal - not just the two or three I would be. Oh, and she would be offering meals to her twins. Twins. Double the meals, double the babies.

Miles with his friend Luke, one of Heather's twins

She made purees each week; I had enough to make it through another baby. Thank goodness I discovered how to use them without getting knocked up.

 Do you know the muffin (wo)man? The apple and pear purees were the easiest and most obvious choices. Applesauce can be a substitute for oil in baking recipes and the same for pear puree as it has a similar consistency. Both tasted delicious in the Carrot Zucchini Muffins I've baking for Miles and me.

Oat'ncha gonna try it? I am pretty sure that I've tried on more than one occasion to make a carrot cake-inspired oatmeal but have come up short every time. Shredded carrots doesn't magically make it carrot cake. I came close, though, here recently. I defrosted a cube of carrot puree and mixed it into the oats, along with golden raisins, cinnamon, pecans and a packet of Stevia.

Smoothie operator. Every fall, people flip for pumpkin this and pumpkin that - myself included. In my world, though, sweet potatoes aren't that different from pumpkin. I decided if people drink pumpkin smoothies that Miles could drink a sweet potato smoothie. He's been drinking a blended fruit drink at morning snacks lately, and he happily took down a mix of banana, frozen sweet potato, low-sugar apple juice, milk and a dash of cinnamon.

It looked so good that I considered stealing it from him ... until I realized it had dairy. D'oh.