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Make your own natural, healthy baby food

Little Peanut is seven months old and she’s ready to start eating baby food. How do I know? Because she eyes every single bite that goes into our mouths with a combination of intense curiosity and drooly longing.

Jackjack can hypnotize her with a peanut butter sandwich…and he does. Her eyes follow it like a kitty watching a laser pointer. Thank goodness she’s not mobile yet or he would have her running into walls, just for laughs.

I spent a little while last weekend making her some baby food. Yes, it takes more time than running to the store. So why do I do it? Economy and variety.

Economy
We all know that processed food costs more than the real thing. This is painfully evident when you check the prices of baby food. Store bought baby food costs about 30 cents per ounce. Plus there are all those teeny jars or plastic containers left over that need to be repurposed or recycled.

Variety
Homemade food is a great way to expose baby to more flavors than the handful produced by Gerber. There are so many yummy things in the garden that you’ll never find in a baby food jar! When Jackjack was little, he ate pureed parsnips and zucchini, along with the usual sweet potatoes, carrots, green beans, and so on.

Preparation
Sweet potatoes are a great first food for babies, and they’re one of the easiest to prepare.

Preheat the oven to 425. Scrub the potatoes (we aren’t going to use the skin, but you don’t want to bake in any gunk).

Washed, poked with a knife, and ready to bake.

Poke a few holes with a fork or sharp knife and place them on a foil-lined baking sheet. You’ll thank me for the foil at cleanup time…baked sweet potato juice is like napalm on cookie sheets. Bake for about an hour, turning once.

See that bubbly napalm goo? Just toss the foil--no scrubbing!

When they’re done, slice them open with a knife. Resist the urge to sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and butter and eat the whole thing yourself (or don't...I won't tell).

The skin slips right off and the smell is divine.

Dump the potatoes into a large bowl and mash lightly with a fork or potato masher. Add water, a little at a time, and blend (a stick blender is perfect for this) until completely smooth.

Mash a bit and add water so the blender can do its thing.

Close, but not quite--too much texture for a new eater. Needs more water.

Smooth, blended, and ready for the deep freeze.

Scoop into containers to freeze. I use Green Sprouts Freezer Cubes to send food to daycare and the Green Sprouts Silicone Freezer Tray for home storage.

Once frozen, I pop the cubes out and store them in a labeled ziplock.

When you’re ready to serve, warm a cube for just a few seconds, stir thoroughly, and test the temperature with your finger. Put a bib on baby and a splash guard on yourself and enjoy!

I hear that "sweet potato eyebrow" is the in look for 2012.

Why Didn't I Think of That? Wednesday

Each Wednesday I'll share a tip to make your week go more smoothly or just make you say "aha!"

For many people, the next step after Spring Cleaning is Spring Redecorating. Sounds like you? I know people who can't go more than two years without re-painting a room or three.

Instead of storing a large and nearly-empty paint can, put the extra paint into a recycled glass jar. It takes up less space, and is easy to identify in the garage/shed/workbench cupboard.

What a Waste

Here in Sacramento, tens of thousands of pounds of fruit falls from trees and rots on the ground--backyard apples, oranges, grapefruit, lemons, and more. Maybe the owners have more than they can eat; maybe they are elderly and can't harvest their trees. Maybe they just moved in and don't like the fruit that's there.

In 2009, Mary McGrath and Robin Aurelius (who coincidentally was my high school computer teacher) were pained by the sight of rotting oranges piled in the streets of East Sacramento every spring. Rather than just shaking their heads and wishing people would do something, they started a grassroots campaign to harvest oranges in the McKinley Park area. With more than 30 volunteers, they harvested and donated about 3,000 pounds of fresh citrus to Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services.

This community effort evolved into Harvest Sacramento, a project of SoilBorn Farms. It's a collaborative effort of area residents, non-profits, community groups and businesses that harvest surplus fruit and vegetables from backyards and small orchards and donate it to local food assistance agencies. I've been volunteering with Harvest Sacramento since late 2009, and I was thrilled when Jackjack asked to help with some harvests this month.

Put a picker pole in the hands of a six-year-old and you'll be amazed at how much work he'll do! He was even using it to pick fruit that was within arms' reach. Picker poles have a wire basket with metal "fingers" that grab the fruit. This keeps the fruit from falling and being damaged.

Our small group visited five houses of people who had surplus fruit to share. (You can register your tree here for future harvests.) We picked oranges, lemons, and grapefruit. Jackjack decided that this orange was bigger than Baby Thumbelina's head.

I was encouraged to see that many of the volunteers were teens from the community. I was one of the (ahem) oldest people in our small group!

One tree can yield a lot of fruit! We filled all the buckets below numerous times. After harvesting, we tally the weight of the fruit and give the homeowner a donation sheet for their taxes.

After just a few short hours, all the small groups reconvened at the park to consolidate the donations. All together, 42 volunteers gleaned 2,785 pounds of fruit for Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services. That's a whole lot of healthy food being put to good use!

Show your support for Harvest Sacramento on Facebook. You'll get the news on upcoming harvests and other efforts to improve food access here in Sacramento.

Not in Sacramento? Find a food bank that welcomes your fresh food donations at FeedingAmerica.org.

Got Birds?

What gardener doesn’t? Around here, they’re either splashing in the birdbath or pigging out at the hummingbird feeder. And this weekend, you have permission to sit on your duff and do nothing but watch them.

It’s time for the 15th annual Great Backyard Bird Count! This event engages bird watchers of all ages to create a real-time snapshot of where birds are across the U.S. and Canada. Anyone can participate, from novice bird watchers to experts. Count for as little as 15 minutes (or as long as you wish) on one or more days of the event and report your sightings at birdcount.org.

The instructions are here and they’re super-easy. You can type in your zip code for a list of birds you may see, and then click the birds’ names to see photos. Since I can’t tell a Spotted Towhee from a hole in my head, I found this especially helpful.

Each bird count list we submit helps researchers at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society learn more about how birds are doing—and how to protect them and the environment we share.

Are you counting this year?

Why Didn't I Think of That? Wednesday

Each Wednesday I'll share a tip to make your week go more smoothly or just make you say "aha!"

After painting a room, grab a big piece of cardboard and paint it the color of your new room. Then write the brand, paint number, and name on the back. When you go shopping for decor, you have a giant paint swatch to take with you!