Individual Fruit Pizza

We had a baby shower for a beautiful friend this weekend who may very well be the cutest pregnant woman I've ever seen!

I was asked to make something to eat at the shower and of course I jumped at the chance to try out some new recipes I've found on Pinterest!

There has been a really fun fruit salad idea going around from The Entertaining Elf that's perfect for baby showers but it's a bit popular and I like off-beat so I opted for the fruit pizza idea I found at Joy Is At Home which I spun off of and used the Amazing Fruit Salsa recipe I love so much. 

So here's how it goes... 

What You'll Need: 

sugar cookies {baked and cooled}

1 container cool whip

8 oz cream cheese

1 batch of fruit salsa 

What To Do:

Mix cool whip and cream cheese together with a fork or hand mixer. {If you taste this mixture you'll notice that it's light on flavor but I promise you, that's just how you want it.}

Get your cookies handy...{I opted to save my time and use the Pillsbury cut and bake.

 They hold up well if the salsa gets juicy. I don't recommend using a soft sugar cookie recipe with this.}

   and then...

 and...

Finally, you send me a "thank you" card for finding and sharing this yummy-ness! 

Happy Day To You!!

Waffle Iron Cinnamon Rolls

I am in no uncertain terms claiming that these are healthy, just that they are quick and dee-licious!

{P.S. I've read that you can do this with cookie dough too! I'll keep you posted.}

What You'll Need:
refrigerated cinnamon roll dough
waffle iron

 

What To Do:
Plug in waffle iron. Once heated, place individual rolls around the iron. Close. Wait until light brown all around. Frost... or don't. Let cool... or don't. Enjoy! 

Cinnamon Popcorn

I overheard a friend talking about this amazing popcorn recipe with sugar, cinnamon, and popcorn baked for a delicious snack.
When I got home I checked it out and...

OH MY! She was right!!

It's so butter, melt-in-your-mouthy, delicious!
... and if you're not a big cinnamon fan, like me, don't be deceived, this isn't overly spiced.
What You'll Need:

1/3 c. butter
1/4 c. sugar
3/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
10 c. popcorn (air popper recommended) can substitute 2 packages microwave, natural flavor popped popcorn

 

What To Do:
Preheat oven to 300 degrees. In a small saucepan, combine butter, sugar, cinnamon and salt, and cook over low heat until mixture forms sugar water. Continue cooking for 3 minutes, and before mixture starts to boil stop cooking, remove from heat. Do not make into candy.

In large bowl, pour cinnamon mixture over popped popcorn, and toss well to evenly coat. Use brown grocery bag for tossing.

 

 

Place popcorn on 2 jelly roll pans, and bake in oven 15 minutes until hot and crisp. Let popcorn cool, and store in an airtight container for best flavor.

Fill keep up to one week.

Found at Cooks.com

PB&J Smoothie

We have taken a break from out standard tropical fruit, spinach, kefir, and yogurt smoothie because I made this once and the kids love it!
Yes, they actually ASK for it!
I found the idea at 100 Days of Real Food. Great site!
I vary from the original a bit but the basics are the same and I want to give credit to the originator of the idea...

My Version:   1/3 c yogurt, 1/3 c kefir or milk, 1/3 c peanut butter, 1 banana, 1 c frozen blueberries

Blend together and serve.

Rainbow Cake

No... this is not an original idea. 

Yes... it's super easy!

Yes... I'll be making it again! 

I found a recipe on MarthaStewart.com.
I was going for the same look as she had but didn't have the time or energy to make it from scratch like she did and I was not comfortable with putting in the amount of food coloring required to get the vibrancy of colors that she did.
So I made it work with what I had and here's what I ended up with...

I used two boxes of white cake mix and two containers of white frosting.

"Gasp! You mean this isn't made from scratch with your own freshly milled grain?!"

Nope.
I work hard to feed my family healthy, nutritional meals regularly so I don't mind a processed splurge every so often. Otherwise, what's the fun?

Anyway...
two boxes of white cake mix
two containers of white frosting {one of ours was FunFetti}
food coloring
as many cake pans as you can gather
butter and flour/PAM/coconut oil or some other means of greasing your pan

I made up both boxes of cake mix and divided the batter evenly into six bowls {approx 2 cups of batter for each bowl}. One by one, I used the food coloring to dye the batter red, orange {red and yellow}, yellow, green, blue, and purple {red and blue}.
The colors didn't look quite right, especially the red and orange but they all intensified during baking. The red was more of a dark pink, the purple was a lavendar, and the yellow looked nearly white before baking.
Grease the pans well... I used butter and flour... and bake each pan for 15 minutes. Test with a knife/toothpick/spaghetti noodle for doneness.

Once done, let cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto a cooling rack and let it cool for another fifteen or more minutes.
Once FULLY COOL, use a long knife, such as a bread knife to cup the tops of the cake level.

{We gave the tops to Mak to eat at her leisure.  What can I say, it was her birthday!}

You may notice that the outside of your cake is slightly browned like mine...

Once the cake is frosted, you will not see these edges, just the great colors you've mixed!
I put a VERY thin layer of frosting in between each color. Just enough to make the pieces stick.
It took me one container of frosting to put between the layers then I loosely covered it in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for 30 minutes. I figured the cake would cut a little easier, be less crumbly, and show the colors better if it was a bit cool.

Then I used one container of frosting for the outside.
I probably could have used one more container but that just sounded CUH-RAZE-EE!
Then I topped it off with some "FunFetti", a quick and cheezy little banner...

really?!...
"Yay Mak!"?
I'm sure I could have come up with better than that!

Anyway... here it is!

or maybe more like "there it went"...

Delicious, fun to look at, and fun to eat!

Green Smoothies

Miss Mak won't eat her greens.

She loves most fruit, dairy, fish, and poultry but won't touch veggies
...until now!
I can't remember where I first heard the idea of sneaking spinach into smoothies but I thought I'd give it a try.
We put over one and a half cups into each batch and can't taste it at all!

I guess you could say this is my "new favorite" and I HIGHLY recommend you throwing a fist-full of greens into your next morning breakfast smoothie, especially if your little ones don't like their veggies either.

Our current favorites...

Strawberry Orange

1 cup Stonyfields Whole Milk French Vanilla Yogurt
1 cup of fresh strawberries {frozen will work}
1 heaping tablespoon of orange juice frozen concentrate
1/2 cup of milk
1 1/2 cups fresh, raw, organic spinach

Apple and Banana

1 banana broken up into pieces

1/2 an apple, with skins on

1 cup fresh or frozen grapes

1 cup Stonyfields Whole Milk French Vanilla Yogurt

1 1/2 cups fresh, raw, organic spinach

1/2 cup milk

I've heard about Jessica Seinfeld's cook Deceptively Delicious which is about sneaking veggies and other healthy stuff into stuff your kids will eat. Do you have it? Have you tried it? Do you have any thoughts on it?

{Homemade Nutella... he hem... Hazelnut Spread}

Good Morning. Afternoon? ... Evening?

{well, that should about cover it}

To be honest, I've never been a huge lover of Nutella hazelnut spread. When I was in France I had it on crepes made on a street cart on streets Paris and those were acceptable. 

Okay, they were actually delicious! 

Beyond that experience though, I don't really enjoy the stuff. I can't tell you why. Sorry. 

So why am I posting this, you ask? 

Because I have kids. And they like it. And I'm running low on ideas for feeding them.

That's all.

{To be fair to this recipe, it's tastes just like the original. It melts in your mouth. So yes, it's good.}

This is for you Tori...

I found this recipe and adapted it from Smitten Kitchen. I changed it up a tiny bit because I didn't have peanuts but I did have hazelnuts. {Go figure.} I'm pretty sure this would be amazing with peanuts though. 

What You'll Need:

2 cups of hazelnuts {purchased at Whole Foods}

1/2 c unsweetened cocoa powder

1 1/4 c powdered sugar

1/4 tsp salt or more to taste

4 T coconut oil

What To Do:

Set your oven to 350. Spread the hazelnuts out on a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes until the skins begin to crack. Let the nuts cool a little. 

Remove as much of the bitter skin as you are able. I had great success with rubbing handfuls of nuts between my hands.

In a food processor, blend the nuts for 5 minutes until they liquify...

 not there yet... 

still not there... 

You'll actually hear it sound like liquid is sloshing around in there though it will look just like creamy peanut butter. 

Now, add in the cocoa, sugar, salt and 2 tablespoons of oil. Add more as needed to get the consistency you'd like. I ended up using closer to 4 tablespoons for mine. 

Ta Da! 

OH! I meant to add that this was a comparison trial. I also made the recipe found on the Tasty Kitchen's Blog on The Pioneer Woman. 

I don't know if I did something terribly wrong but this is what I got...

It looked like coffee grounds and tastes ... um... not good. 

So, that's that.

Baby Food {finger foods}

This is not an exhaustive list but rather a few ideas that get us out of the rut of chunks of home canned fruits and veggies...

Baby's Acorn Squash & Apple Bake

{WholesomeBabyFood.com}

What You'll Need:
1 acorn squash
2 or 3 Macintosh apples
pinch of cinnamon

What To Do:

1. Peel and dice apples
2. Cut acorn or butternut squash in half, scoop out seeds
3. Place halves face UP in a pan and add with an inch of water to the pan
4. Place diced apples in the squash “holes” where the seeds were
Sprinkle with cinnamon if desired

5. Pour water over the apples so that there is water in the squash holes – cover pan with tinfoil
6. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 40 minutes or until the “shell/skin” puckers and halves feel soft. {It took ours a little longer than 40 minutes.}
7. If you're serving as finger foods, you can peel the skins off once they cool and dice the "meat" into small pieces. If you'd prefer to puree it, scoop squash “meat” and apples out of the shell and puree in a food mill, food processor, or blender.

 Fruit Dutch Baby

 {WholesomeBabyFood.com}

I love the note tagged to this recipe on the Wholesome Baby Food site...

The only difficult thing about making this is trying to remember – DO NOT grab the frying pan out of the oven unless you are wearing oven mits! {I have done this way too many times and leave a pot holder on the handle at all times once it's out of the oven as a reminder!!}

What You'll Need:
1/3 cup butter or margarine
2 medium apples (or try a 1/2 cup peaches, thinly sliced or 1 thinly sliced banana)
2 teaspoons cinnamon
3 Tablespoons sugar
4 eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup flour

What To Do:
Preheat oven to 425°F.
Put butter into a 3 to 4 quart frying pan and place in oven to melt. While butter is melting, prepare fruits
Remove the pan from the oven and add cinnamon and sugar to the melted butter. Stir in the sliced fruit.
Put pan back into oven for about 3 minutes

 Put the eggs and milk into a blender and blend at high speed for about 1 minute.
Set the blender to low speed and slowly add the flour until well blended.
Remove the pan from oven and pour the egg batter over the butter and fruit.
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the pancake is raised and golden brown. The pancake will start off tall in the pan and quickly "fall" as it cools. This is totally normal!
Cut in wedges and dust with powdered sugar.
Serve immediately

This recipe makes enough for 2 adults and 2 very hungry apple loving children.  If you want to make this bigger, then add 1/2 of an apple, 1 Tablespoon sugar, 1 egg, 1/4 cup of milk, 1/4 cup of flour and a little more butter & cinnamon for each additional serving.

Broccoli Nuggets 

{Slight Adaptation from WholesomeBabyFoods.com}

What You'll Need:

1 16-oz Package frozen broccoli, cooked, drained, and chopped {I use a potato mashed... you can use a food processor too}

1 cup Seasoned bread crumbs 

1 ½ cups Shredded cheddar cheese

3 Large eggs or 5 egg yolks

What To Do:

Pre-Heat oven to 375
Lightly coat a baking sheet with olive oil or cover with parchment paper and set aside.
Combine all remaining ingredients and mix well. *Add seasonings if you like - garlic powder, pepper, extra basil & oregano for example. Add a fruit or veggie puree to substitute for the eggs if desired.
Shape mixture into nuggets or fun shapes such as squares or squigglies etc..and place on baking tray. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, turn nuggets over after 15 minutes.

Serve warm - Chop or mash these broccoli nuggets if your baby isn't able to handle bigger finger foods.

 Black Bean & Sweet Potato Hash

{WholesomeBabyFood.com}

 
What You'll Need:
1 large onion, chopped
3 teaspoons dried thyme leaves
3 to 4 tablespoons olive oil
1 sweet red pepper, chopped (optional)
4 cups peeled, cubed sweet potatoes (1/2 inch cubes)
2 15-ounce cans black beans, drained and rinsed or 4 cups dried black beans that have been cooked
Pepper

What To Do:
In large skillet, saute onion and thyme in oil until onion is tender, about 5 minutes. Add red pepper and sweet potatoes; saute until potatoes begin to soften, about 8 minutes. Stir in beans and cook until potatoes are tender, about 5 minutes. Season to taste with pepper. Serve with Baby Omlettes or as a great finger food "meal" full of protein and iron. Recipe Adapted from the American Dry Bean Board

There are more great recipes on the Wholesome Baby Food site

Baby Food {6+ months}

Food Mill food started at 6 months: 

{click here for more info}

apricots

apples

avocados

bananas

blueberries
green beans

nectarines

peaches

pears

peas
plums
prunes

sweet potatoes

One thing I have to say about the food mill is that if Miss Mak can eat it at this age, I can puree it in the food mill. She's had bits of our dinner, meats, pastas, etc. right along with us at dinner time. I also prefer to give her raw fruits and veggies if I can. The more you cook or process a food the more nutrients you take out of it. I also leave the skins on for the same reason.

Puree is too thick? 

Miss Mak doesn't like thick foods. She is a super picky eater has a delicate palette and  I usually end up thinning out her pureed foods. If you find yourself in this predicament, try adding pumped breast milk, formula, fruit juice left over from steaming, or just plain ol' water. {I'm a big fan of the breast milk or fruit water from steaming but I often use water}

To buy or not to buy organic fruits and veggies. {First, my stance on organic... buying organic produce is a preference, not a must.Our family happens to prefer it but if you read on, you'll see that we aren't die-hard about it... we just implement little changes that can go a long way over time. With that being said...} I have heard from a couple of different places that you can buy non-organic fruits and veggies and just wash them because the pesticides don't seep into the skin. Then I found this article from the Canadian Living website and it got me thinking. Our family can't afford to buy all organic produce so we are careful to buy local or grow it ourselves. And yes, I do buy pre-made baby food on occasion for convenience's sake from time to time {specifically prunes which I don't care to make at home} but when I do, I buy organic baby food. 

Something to think about... a lot of the chemicals put on produce are for preservation for long trips, i.e. grown in California, shipped to Connecticut. By simply buying local you can drastically cut down on your pesticide exposure.

Grains: 

We have steered away from too many grains with Mak. For one thing, I recently read that little babes can't properly digest grains under one year of age. Miss Mak, specifically, has a easily disrupted digestive system and has a hard time pooing no matter what we feed her. CJ, who has a digestive system of steel, always bound up when we gave him rice cereal so we moved to oatmeal and that helped tremendously. So if Mak has any grain, it's almost always oatmeal.

Foods that can bind:
applesauce {who'da thought?}
bananas
potatoes {white and sweet}
rice cereal 

Foods that help baby"go":apple juice
avocado
breastmilk
grapes
peas
prunes
prune juice
lots of liquids
* Benefiber - we were given the okay to use this by our pediatrician. We started by adding 1/2 tsp to two meals per day and were told that if it didn't help, make it 1 tsp two meals per day and keep adding 1/2 tsp until she was going regularly. Mak is somewhere between 1 tsp and 1 1/2 tsp 2 meals per day.

** This is not a full repertoire of all things baby food. This is my experience. For more info and wonderful recipes, I highly recommend the site wholesomebabyfood.com.

DIY Baby Food

Miss Mak is ready for solids. 

Sigh. 

My little babe now sits in the highchair and eats big people food. 

Sigh. 

I'm not ready for this...

emotionally or physically.

Food prep for CJ was a pain

Lots of blending. 

Lots of freezing. 

Lots of thawing. 

This time around it will be different.

I found this. 

 

It has saved my time/my energy/my mood. 

Fresh, nutritious foods for baby.
Peaches.
Plums.
Pears.
Pasta.
Pork.
Steam it and mill it or

mill it right off the dinner table. 

I'm loving this.