As soon as I get my freezer organized (which I think I might do tonight!), I plan on buying some more fresh organic food to make into baby food for Ryan.
My freezer sucks!! I can't wait to buy a house next year so that I can buy a new fridge with an awesome freezer (of course, I can't wait to buy a house for so many other reasons!). We also want to buy a freezer for the basement to store plenty of other stuff (probably mostly meats). But of course, by then, I won't be making purees for the little guy anymore (pause for tears).
My freezer is basically a really small cold box with a door. No shelves or anything. And for some strange reason (I think when DH and I were in our health kick) we have 2 or 3 huge bags of veggies in our fridge taking up most of the space. I will probably have to start cooking those veggies for Ryan...but then I'll have to store them where? You guessed it! Back in that freezer. We also need room for meats and all of Ryans purees.
Anyways...
When I first started giving Ryan solids, he started at 4 months with rice cereal and oatmeal. I think it was literally 3-4 days of that for practice before we moved on to avocado...his first real food. He loved it and did very well. At first, I was so scared of the thicker texture that I added lots of formula to the avocado making it more watery...errr...milky. He did great. I did this with some of the other first foods too like his butternut and acorn squash and some other things.
At first, I only gave him one food at a time. No mixes...being very careful to follow the 4 day rule. He did great with them all. After a couple weeks of trying different foods, I began to mix the ones he'd already tried. A little squash and avocado puree...peas and carrots...banana and apples and so on.
At around 6.5 months I began to add a couple of other foods that I thought he was ready for like chicken, mango, papaya, white potato, and yogurt. He loved it all. I also began to get more creative with his combinations. Once I made a combination I wasn't too sure of. I tried it for the first time at a friend's house and found myself feeling the need to justify it. "Well...I know it looks a little weird but I think he'll like it?" And like it, he did! I think it was something like carrot/ blueberry/ sweet potato or something like that.
Today, I sent Ryan to day care with a rainbow! I was so proud of myself last night after looking at the 3 bowls I was preparing for his breakfast/lunch/dinner at day care and deciding to throw in a small cube of blueberry to complete the rainbow of colors in that 1 day worth of food.
Here is what he's having today...
Breakfast: Yogurt/Pear/Banana/Blueberry
Lunch: Sweet Potato/White Potato/Avocado
Dinner: Chicken/Carrot/Peas
Being that he's now eating 3 solid meals a day, my stash of baby food cubes is dwindling faster than ever before. I am now planning on adding some additional foods with more flavor cooked into them. Such as a salmon/dill/mustard recipe I found on someone's blog recently. I plan on adding onion and peppers and cooking meats in low-sodium broths.
My grocery list includes (in addition to Ryan's usual faves)...
Lentils (red/yellow)
Butter Beans
Chick Peas
Onion
Bell Pepper
Salmon (skin removed)
Pork (center cut)
Beef (lean ground beef/top sirloin/eye of round roast)
Turkey
Eggplant
Zucchini (yello or crooked neck)
Low-sodium chicken/beef/veggie broths
Tofu (maybe...I just don't have any experience with tofu but I don't want that to stop us from offering it to him).
Tonight I am going to empty the freezer and put my zip-lock baggies of food cubes into labeled tupperware containers. I have somewhat large rectangular deep containers with lids that I can stack. I might separate the veggie from fruit from meats into their own containers. Hopefully this will work. I will try to remember to take before and after pictures for you (my thousands of faithful readers! hehehe)
Wish me luck!
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