No, I’m not kidding. Yes, I’m talking strained carrots. See, with the economy tanking the way it is, I’ve been thinking about ways we can save money to make sure we have enough for the essentials (that is books, movies and beer). You know, stuff I need. Anyway, that and a recent trip to the grocery store got me thinking about how we saved a lot of money when the little dudes were much, much littler. What we did was that we made our own baby food.
And, really? It was probably the most horrible stuff I’ve ever made. And I’m including the infamous pineapple chicken in that. However, the little dudes loved it.
Here’s the deal. Baby food comes prepackaged in little (supposedly) single-serving containers. And, dude, that stuff is expensive. But you’ve got to have it when the little dude or little dudette gets too old for the milk diet. The problem is that, if you want to buy the good stuff, the stuff without preservatives and fillers and junk, it’s going to cost you. A lot. And you don’t want to serve the little dude the cheap stuff if you can help it.
We found that making our own baby food saved us a lot of money and it wasn’t all that bad. Gross and disgusting, but not all that bad.
What we did was go to the grocery store and look at the different kinds of baby foods available. We wrote down the ingredients, loosely. That is, we looked at ham and peas, carrots, sweet potatoes, all the rest of that sort of stuff. Whatever the baby-food makers thought would be good for the little dudes. Then we went around the grocery store and started buying the raw ingredients for the food.
We bought good meats, fresh carrots and sweet potatoes and corn. Basically we stocked up on whatever we thought the little dudes would want to eat or what we wanted to make them eat. Then we went home and cooked the stuff. But we didn’t cook it like we’d have wanted it. We cooked it English-style. That is, we boiled it to within an inch of its life and made it all mushy. Then we hauled out the food processor and started grinding.
When we had enough smooth pap, we scooped the resultant mess into ice cube trays and popped them into the freezer. That way, we had individual servings ready to heat and eat. Mostly we did this on a weekend and then had enough food for a couple of weeks. Sure it was a bit harder to do than buying bottles off the store shelves, but it was much cheaper and a lot more healthy for the little dudes.
Next Dude Food I’ll be back with a recipe for people who have actual teeth and working taste buds.
– Richard
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