Food, Glorious Food!

Yes, that is right, the boys have started eating food. We started them earlier in the month with rice cereal. Diego seemed to like it right away and caught on really quickly that he was supposed to open his mouth when he wanted more. Mateo, on the other hand, did not like the cereal, and gagged when trying to swallow. He has since gotten better with the gag reflex, but still doesn't like to open his mouth for more.

Last week they tried avocado as their first fruit. It was hilarious to watch. It must have tasted sour to them because they both made a face as if they were sucking on a lemon. They ate it up though, and it encouraged me to take the next step...sweet potatoes.

OK, so I did not know that there is a difference between sweet potatoes and yams, but there is. My desire is to try to make as much of their food as I can. Judging from our first experience, we may not have too much success. Allow me to give you a break down of my first baby food making experience:

My intention was to purchase the vegetables at the local farmer's market, but that plan was quickly changed due to time constraints. Next best thing, go to an expensive market where organic, locally grown vegetables are sold. I chose Nuggett, and ended up with sweet potatoes and yellow squash from somewhere in CA, not locally grown, not organic. No problem, I still wanted to give it a try. We purchased the veggies and headed home, feeling confident that we were still saving money and making healthy choices for the boys.

The next day, I opened up my Super Baby Food book to try and figure out what to do. Keep in mind, Adrian and I don't eat many veggies, so I really had no idea how to even cook the veggies that we had. After reading several options, I decided to boil then puree them and put them into ice cube trays to freeze and store.

The yellow squash was first. Boiled, pureed, poured, virtually no problem. I started to feel like this was easy...then came the sweet potatoes. Boiled, burned my hand peeling off the skin, attempted to puree but broke the food processor when the rubber ring attachemnt broke off into the sweet potatoes. OK, so I started over. Boiled, burned my hand peeling off the skin, blender (since food processor broken), several minutes later had the right consistency to pour into the trays. Froze the veggies and stored them in freezer bags.

We fed the boys the sweet potatoes first, and they were a big hit! They both loved them and wanted more. Mateo even started to open his mouth for more. We are going to offer the yellow squash towards the end of the week. As far as next steps go, bananas are in the near future! I bet they will love bananas! Oh yeah, and I need a new food processor!! The blender really didn't work very well...wish me luck!!