How My Baby Learned to Love Broccoli
March 22, 2011, By Andy Brooks 1 comment
My wife and I love good food. She’s a great cook, and I’m coming up the learning curve. And so when we had kids we really wanted to get them to be adventurous eaters, to try new things and basically eat the way we do – to love the experience of a great, shared meal. That, and we really couldn’t bear the thought of dealing with kids who only eat cheese sandwiches and applesauce or hot dogs and chicken nuggets.
To start, we bought the Super Baby Food book. I’m told it’s kind of the Bible for making your own baby food. We wanted to feed our twins natural foods that we made ourselves rather than the jarred, processed stuff. But when I started reading the book, I felt a little like I’d taken one giant step toward leaving the material world behind and joining a commune dedicated to self-sustained living. I’m not a masochist. I don’t make my own yogurt or do half of things the book suggests, but it is a useful guide for what to introduce when, understanding proportions, and so on. It turns out you don’t need much to make baby food and certainly nothing special. I use a standard food processor to puree a large quantity of food, freeze it in these awesome ice-cube trays with lids and transfer the cubes to freezer bags for easy storage. At mealtime, I simply defrost a few cubes, and we’re set. I swear it has to be easier than dealing with a bunch of tiny jars.
Making baby food was a team effort, but since my wife works 80 hours a week and I’m a stay-at-home dad, the adventure quickly evolved into direction from my wife and reluctant execution by me. At first, I was less than thrilled with the task. Just keeping up with bottle feedings, naptimes, diaper changes and generally feeling good that everyone was still alive were enough for me. In time, however, I got more on board, and it’s worked.
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