Frank Sinatra Has a Cold.

No, actually, it's Jane who has a cold, but I still sure do love that story. I, too, have a cold. Steve does not have a cold, and I'm sure he hopes it stays that way. Nemo also does not have a cold, but he does have a bladder infection. Hooray!

Actually we are all in fairly good spirits, if you don't count the cat, and aside from when it's about four in the morning, and really it's not four in the morning for very long in any given day. 

Heidi expressed interest in the details of my baby food concoctions. At the risk of being tremendously boring, I'm going to oblige. Currently these fall into three main categories:

(1) Fruit, baked, cooled, and then cut up into pea-sized pieces ideally suited for an infant to chase around the rim of her plate with her tiny pincer grip. Apple, mainly. One cored apple plonked into a little dish with an inch of water and baked for an hour or so provides at least three breakfasts or luncheons for the discriminating miniature human. Obviously you can do more than one at a time.

(2) Crumbled unsalted rice cake. Mm! "Food"! She likes bits of toast too.

(3) What I have come to call "Highly Palatable Baby Chow". This is, I guess, not something you want to make if you are worried about egg allergies. If you're not, full speed ahead?

The principle is that you take about a cup of unsalted cooked vegetables that you've tried the baby out on before. Sweet potatoes, say, or regular potatoes. Peas, squash, spinach, red peppers, cauliflower, chickpeas, that sort of thing. One or a mix that sounds nice. Generally I just keep something aside from whatever grownup food I'm making.

Roughly mash or chop very fine, depending on what seems best suited to the vegetable in question. Then mix with a few tablespoons of that enriched rice cereal stuff, a beaten egg, a fat pinch of baking powder, and some tasty herbs or spices (highly palatable!). No salt. I often include some minced green onion. A little olive oil, if I think of it.

Then I just cook this in spoonfuls on a nonstick skillet, two minutes per side, in an odd fifteen minutes or so, and put them in a container in the fridge. Then I have many little neat portable baby-friendly foodcakes ready to deploy at any time. At home we break them up and let her go after them with the pincer grip, out and about I tend to break them up and handfeed them to her bit by bit, for the sake of tidiness.

Does that sound insane and elaborate? Maybe! I find the small amount of fussing about involved kind of fun. Also I figure I may as well enjoy this brief window in which she likes my cooking.

Comments

[ben w]

It has seven and a half sides?

[redfox]

Yes.

[The Modesto Kid]

That Talese article is great, thanks for letting me know about it.

[Heidi]

Thanks for the baby food info. Not too much fuss if you want to feed baby healthy, and such a good idea. I like the portable patties idea. I'll have to try it. No spoons and dishes required! I think you should add a baby section to your food blog. It would be most helpful, especially for those trying to feed little ones a vegetarian diet. Thanks again!

[oudemia]

Also worth reading: "When Old Blue Eyes Was Red." Style wise it's got nothing on Talese, of course. But it's a good read.

[oudemia]

Oh boo. It's one of those cannibalized Google Books entries.

[Yer Mum]

Cheese?