That's It??

When people ask about making Norah's food (as opposed to buying jarred food) I find myself saying, "It's really not that bad." As she has gotten older and requires more food, however, I have to admit it is a little high maintenance.

Last Friday I spent several hours in the kitchen. I can't say I know exactly how much time was spent specifically on Norah's food because I was doing several things at once, but let's just say quite a bit. In the end, this is what I had:



I know! What a pitiful amount for so much work. At least that's how I felt last Friday. I MIGHT have enough for close to two more weeks , but that's just of the veggies. I tend to do fruit along the way, depending on what we find fresh each week.

And even though I have all of this frozen, it still requires more prep for daycare. Once defrosted, I make 5 bowls for each day - 1 for breakfast, 2 for lunch and 2 for...I don't know, I guess we'll call it an afternoon snack. By "making" I mean defrosting and mixing with rice cereal to get it to the right consistency. (Side note: I also prepare 3 bottles, totaling 16 ounces, every day for daycare .)

I'm sure it sounds like I am complaining, and maybe I am just a wee bit. But in the end, I feel good about knowing exactly what is in the food Norah eats and that makes all of the hard work worth it. Besides, I figure I don't have much time left of this - little by little Norah will get closer to eating what we eat. Earlier this week I soaked black beans and cooked them with carrots and celery. I also cooked spaghetti squash. So all of that is waiting for pureeing, mixing and freezing.

By the way, what you see in the picture are several combinations of lentils, chicken, spinach, carrots, peas, sweet potatoes and applesauce. I have two books to help when I'm not feeling creative: Top 100 Baby Purees and The Everything Organic Cooking for Baby & Toddler Book. I don't really follow the recipes, but it is helpful to get new ideas of what to combine. I didn't label anything because it's not a huge deal to me - I just try to make sure she has at least one orange and one green each day and see what else is "in stock."

The daycare teachers still laugh at how serious Norah is about food. Just this morning one teacher told me that when Norah wakes up from her afternoon nap and spies her bowls of food on the counter she gets very excited and has a one track mind. This evening, the other teacher told me that a "floater" who was helping this afternoon saw the two full bowls on the counter ready for Norah and asked, "Will she really eat all of this?" When Ms. Wanda said, "Yes" the floater still didn't believe her...until Norah ate every bite.

The teachers also joke about not having a clue what Norah is eating. On her daily report they simply write, "Food from home" because they don't know what they are feeding her. The funny thing is that I don't always know either.