Simply Eats:: {Shepherds Pie Ole}

I have not had much time to blog lately.. but we are still eating dinner! Thought I would share a couple yummy things I've made lately. We're on a eat healthy but cheap plan at the moment.

Black bean Soup
1 bag black beans
1 can crushed or diced tomatoes
1/2 cup frozen green chilis
1 tbl dried onion
2 tsp garlic powder (to taste)
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp black pepper


Start soaking beans while getting the kids out the door for school. By lunchtime they will be ready to go in the crock pot after a good rinsing. Place beans and other ingredients in your crock pot and fill with enough water to just cover. Cook till supper and enjoy!

Shepherds Pie Ole!
1 lb ground beef or turkey
four cups mashed potatoes
low sodium taco seasoning
leftover black beans
(frozen if preferred) veggies of your choice

make mashed potatoes your favorite way, set aside. (Ours had low cal butter and low fat yogurt instead of sour cream and butter). Make taco meat according to seasoning packet instructions. Add beans and mix. Pour into a casserole dish. Sprinkle no sodium added diced veggies such as peas and carrots or mixed veggies with corn on top of the meat layer. There is one we like with asparagus and white corn that would be super yummy. I had peas and carrots. That's what I used. Then spread your potatoes on top. To make ours feel special I used an icing bag and piped little potato flowers. Bake at 350 until potato starts browning ever so slightly. If you aren't trying to get rid of baby weight throw some yummy cheese on before baking. Let cook and then giggle as your eight year old scarfs down yet another meal packed with vegetables.

Simply Eats:: {Mole}

I have a new love. Once, several years ago, I was working at a day care.  We often had potlucks. ONE TIME a girl brought Mole. ONE STINKIN TIME... and I have craved it ever since. I really thought, probably due to her boasting, that mole was a mexican recipe far beyond my suburban skills. Oh what we have been missing. A friend from high school mentioned it once on facebook. I begged a recipe and she wrote out in awesome detail on her blog a wonderful way to heaven. I only made af few changes, mostly because I decided last minute to have mole for dinner this past saturday. In her recipe she boils her chicken and uses the water after to make the mole. I had made crock pot chicken stock earlier in the week so I used 2 cups stock and 2 cups water. I baked my chicken and my mole was really reallly thick... but oh how good. Now the true  question, which I would love to get your answers on, is what would an authentic way to serve mole be? I'm pretty sure it isnt meant to be eaten with a spoon.  Which may or may not have happened in my kitchen. Thank you  Ronnie! You have blessed me with a skill all four of my boys will appreciate!

Simply Eats:: {baby food part deux}

The Why: Making your own baby food is super easy, fun and economical! I broke it down to about 35$ for 238 (1 ounce) ice cubes. That is approximately 95 (2.5 oz) jars of food. Making the Jars about 36 cents each! My math is a bit funny because I don't remember exactly how many cubes I made but this is close! I picked a Saturday and spent the day making enough food for a month. I had a blast and felt great doing something so good for my sweet boy.

Tools: Good quality blender (you will destroy a cheap blender blending sweet potatoes. Either dont blend sweet potatoes or use a good blender.) I LOVE my Kitchenaid Mr. Simply bought me for our first Christmas. Plastic or metal strainers. Ice cube trays. Zip lock bags. Steamer basket.

The Menu: Buy vegetables and fruits based on your values! Want your baby 100 % organic? go for it.. but it will be more expensive. You can buy all fresh foods, but I find frozen helpful. Here is a list of what I bought for our first menu:
Sweet potatoes (3 large)
butternut squash (1 med)
1 large bag pre washed organic green beans
2 small bags frozen peas
4 avocados
2 large jars no sugar added applesauce
frozen peaches (no sugar added)
frozen blueberries (no sugar added)
4 mangoes (i threw out 2 for being yucky inside)

The How: I make baby food in three ways, roasted and pureed, steamed and pureed and thawed and pureed
Roasting~ Foods with a skin like sweet potatoes and butternut squash I  cook in the oven completely and then after they have cooled a bit I scoop out the flesh and blend it with filtered water to the right consistency.
Fresh or frozen vegetables get steamed just until they get soft and then pureed. If too thin I'll pre add some grain cereal to thicken it up. Or leave it runny and add the cereal when you serve it. Up to you.
Fruits~ most of the fruits I give Silas are blended with applesauce. Regular natural or no sugar added applesauce gets a turn in the blender and then its ready to blend with any fruit I happen to have. It helps the texture and makes them go further. Some fruits, like mangoes and blueberries I'll blend and freeze by themselves to use with oatmeal.
Avocados~ quite possibly my favorite baby food. Avocados have a tendency like bananas to oxidize quickly and turn brown. To counter this I cut them in half, take out the pit and then scoop the inside into a plastic baggie. I squeeze out the air and then use a rolling pin to squash it up. When mashed well I snip off a corner of the bag, squeeze it into an ice cube tray and immediately cover it with saran wrap before freezing. Warning: if you keep these in your freezer guard them from husbands who love to grab one to thaw and smear on their sandwich :-).
All purees get poured into ice cube trays and frozen. Then get stored in gallon size zip locks I label with the date and type of food. I'm looking for a better storage container, like a Tupperware box, that I can keep this south Texas humidity out of better!
*first foods~ to make a consistency similar to a jar food stage 1 I'll put the puree through a mesh strainer. My babies have never needed more than a couple weeks worth of this.

** My favorite new toy. The Boon feeder spoon. Amazing. It holds almost four ounces and you can completely feed the baby with only one hand! I take this filled with goodies to baseball games or restraunts. Then I don't have an extra bowl to mess with and dirty spoon to clean. Simply wipe the spoon off and put the cap back on and toss it in your bag! I can buy them at my H.E.B for about 7$. Worth every penny and then some!

In a few weeks I'll post part three:: stage 3 foods and introducing table food

Simply Eats:: {baby food part 1}

Almost a month ago Silas started solid foods. We started with very fine purees and he has quickly progressed to thicker textures and even can mash baby puffs and other soft foods with his gums. I started making my own baby food when Ayden was a baby. I found it fun and money saving! Not to mention I did not have to feed him nasty smelling stuff from jars. Here is a little lo down on my baby food thinking.

When to start:  This is completely between you and your Dr. We started rice cereal at 4 1/2 months. He only got a couple of very watery tablespoons a few times a week. Once that was easy for him and he was moving food to the back of his mouth with his tongue and not just sucking it we started brown rice. At about 5 months two weeks we decided he was ready for something more substantial. He was nursing further and further apart and was very curious about what we were doing at the table! Silas is breast fed so nutritionally at this point food is not necessary! This is all for experience sake. Different foods provide great opportunities for stimulation. We also love being together at the table. There is never a too early to bring baby into this sweet family time.

What to start with: again, always check with your Dr. There is lots of debate about this. A Dr from Stanford recently came out blaming white rice cereal for obesity in America. Whatever. I think he is a bit off his rocker and desperate for funding or something. White rice cereal is a perfect first food because {A} it is hypoallergenic. Almost every baby can eat rice without a reaction. This way you can teach them to swallow correctly without risking an allergic response to say wheat or gluten. Rice is perfect because it is perfectly bland {B} and can be flavored with breast milk or formula, again allowing them to learn to swallow without flavor complications. Rice is also super easy {C} to make to whatever texture you want which will help train baby to swallow. Remember, starting a baby on rice is a short term event. They are not eating cups of rice a day. This is to teach their little tongue to work correctly and introduce them to swallowing something thicker than milk. Silas could swallow well fairly quickly so other foods and brown rice were not very far far behind.  When choosing fruits and vegetables to start with I usually go with bland before sweet. They've been drinking only milk for months. Silas completely gagged when we offered him bananas. He likes them now, but the flavor was way too sweet for several weeks.

What to avoid: Never feed your baby honey. Delay and watch carefully foods that contain wheat or gluten and strawberries. Wait till after their first birthday for shellfish or nuts. There is a great list HERE that gives a more extensive list.

Watch for baby food part 2. I'll tell you how I made a months worth of food at around 32 cents a jar!

Recipe time!

I've been lurking this adoption blog for a while now and loved this post and had to share. I love lots of her posts, but this one is so very useful for those of us with growing families! Enjoy! I'm headed for the white Chicken chili first!