Easy upcycling - jars of all sizes

I'm a little bit of a pack rat, but for once, it seems to be a good thing.

I've been saving jars lately. Large jars, small jars... doesn't matter. I figure that I'll eventually find a use for them.

I started saving baby food jars because of my mom. And before we go any further, yes, we've been getting jarred baby food, but fear not! I'm still a homemade baby food-making machine! We're able to get a certain allotment of baby food every couple of months through the WIC program, and I'd hate to let it go to waste. We leave the jarred stuff with the grandparents and sitter and use the homemade stuff at home... but anyway...

My mom used to sew a lot when I was little, and she kept her extra buttons, pins, and other sewing notions in old baby food jars. When we started getting jarred baby food, I instantly remembered playing with the little jars and rattling them around and whatnot. So, I decided to hang on to all of our jars. I don't sew, but I knew I'd find a use for them eventually. I also have a bunch of small 4 oz canning jars that were left over from my baby shower. (They were filled with M&Ms and used as party favors.) I also began to keep the big jars that Wyatt's applesauce comes in. At this point, Kenny's rolling his eyes and sighing as he lines up the jars next to the sink to wash them. But trust me, jars - no matter the size - are one of the easiest things to upcycle!

Small jars are great for holding a vast array of little items that tend to get lost. Paper clips, stamps, thumbtacks, bobby pins, small nails, washers, nuts and bolts, and hair ties can all be kept nice and neat and in one place. Dried herbs and spices can also be kept in smaller labeled jars. I've been using small jars as a sidecar to hold small pieces of fruit or sauce in my bento lunches.

Large jars can hold flour, rice, and other grains in your kitchen pantry. Pack a jar with plastic silverware and napkins to take on a picnic, then use the jars as drinking glasses. Pour used cooking oil into a large jar instead of down the drain (which is a no-no anyway.) Keep it until it's full and take it out with the rest of your household garbage. A large jar full of potpourri with a doily tied to opening in place of the lid makes a pretty addition to a coffee table. Layer dry ingredients for homemade cookies in a jar and give as a gift. And of course, large mason jars make great glasses for sweet tea down here in the South. =)

It's easy to acquire jars even if you're not purchasing baby food. Hang on to your spaghetti sauce and pickle jars. You never know what use you'll find for them!

-Mother Nature Mom

PS - Feel free to leave your ideas in the comments section. I have more jars than I do ideas!

Not-So-Homemade Baby Food - Applesauce, and more about Squash!

Just wanted to update that I actually did manage to find all natural applesauce at Kroger!

A huge 46 oz jar of Mott's Natural Applesauce cost $2.39 today with my Kroger card. A little math will tell you that that equals out to 5 cents an ounce - much better than the 14 cents an ounce from my homemade organic applesauce! Although I was unable to find organic applesauce for sale (I probably should have looked in the Natural Foods section), WholesomeBabyFood.com says that all natural applesauce is a perfectly fine substitute. It's important to note that "natural" means just that - ALL NATURAL. The Mott's applesauce that I bought today has three ingredients - apples, water, and ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) - no high fructose corn syrup or preservatives that my baby doesn't need!

In this case, I think I'm going to stick with the jarred stuff. It's cheaper, more convenient, and virtually no work at all. I still plan on dividing the entire jar into ice cube trays to make easy serving portions.

In veggie land, I was lucky enough to get some homegrown butternut squash (two of them, yay!), cabbage, and cucumber from my friend Kat. Still trying to figure out what I'm going to do with the cabbage (I've never had cabbage before!), but I already have plans for the squash! One is going to be made into more awesome deliciousness for my child, and the other is mine to do with as I please! Soup? Muffins? This amazing sounding bread? I can't decide. Butternut squash is such an autumn-esque food, and I'm a big fan of autumn. I'm ready for this summer heat to be over with. Such is the plight of living in Georgia...

Until next time!

-Mother Nature Mom

PS - I found the squash bread recipe on AllRecipes.com, a fantastic sight if you're a new cook who needs direction, or if you're just tired of the same ol' dinners every week! I usually wind up trying a recipe a week from the site; most are a hit, some are a miss. I guess that's the chance you take, though. I love to use the ingredients tool - you can enter ingredients you want to include (such as things you already have around your kitchen) and those you want to leave out (foods you don't like, or maybe something you're allergic to). This is a great tool if you need to get started on dinner but have no idea what to make! Users can also leave comments about changes they made to the recipe that might fit better with your tastes.

Homemade Baby Food - Applesauce

After a long weekend at work, I came home to discover that I needed to make some more baby food - Wyatt absolutely loves his squash, sweet potatoes, and (?!@#$%) carrots! This time around, I tackled something slightly less orange than my previous endeavors, and since I had yet to make a fruit, I decided that the best one to start with would be apples.

I don't know of a single baby who doesn't love applesauce. There is plenty of home movie footage of me as a baby attacking spoonfuls of the stuff. (I honestly think I had too much of it when I was little; I'm definitely not an applesauce fan anymore!) Applesauce makes for a great first food, is easy to puree, and pairs well with just about anything - we've mixed it into cereal, and combined it with squash and other veggies. (A recent lunch is pictured below - applesauce and carrots!)

Combining foods is a fun way to introduce your baby to new tastes, so long as your child has already had the foods in question before and has not had an allergic reaction. Always introduce new foods one at a time and wait 3-4 days before introducing another food. That way if an allergic reaction occurs, you know which food is the culprit!

I probably would have made applesauce sooner, but Kroger didn't have any organic apples in stock until last week. Apples are one of the EWG's Dirty Dozen, meaning they are one of the twelve fruits and veggies that retain the highest amounts of pesticide residue. (It seems as if these fruits and vegetables have thinner skins than those on the EWG's Clean Fifteen List, which seem to have thicker skins.) Because of this, I decided to wait it out until I could purchase organic apples. While I might not buy organic for myself every time , I'm definitely buying organic for my son, unless the fruit or veggie in question isn't available in organic AND is one of the EWG's Clean Fifteen.

I bought three organic red delicious apples. (Why three? I don't know. I just like the number, I guess.) I removed the stickers, peeled them, removed the cores, and cut them into cubes. And, as always, I had issues with the peeling process. Oh well. I placed the apple pieces into my steamer basket (which I love oh so dearly...) and poured in enough water to barely cover the apples. Once the water started to boil, I turned it down a touch and put the lid on it. While the apples steamed/boiled, I fed Wyatt homemade sweet potatoes. =)

The apples were "cooked until tender" in no time flat. In fact, if Wyatt were a little bit older, cooking them wouldn't even be necessary. Cooking fruits is recommended until your baby reaches 8 months of age; cooking them breaks down the fibers and sugars of raw fruit and eases digestion. After 8 months, baby's tummy is better equipped to handle raw fruits and veggies. Exceptions to this rule are bananas and avocados, which simply need to be mashed very well with a fork and can be given to babies as young as 4 months. No cooking required. (And while Wyatt hasn't tried avocado yet, he loves banana!)

Once the apples cooled, I carefully placed the pieces into my food processor/blender in small batches. (Carefully so as not to cut myself, and in small batches because I learned the hard way with the sweet potatoes that putting everything in the blender at once is not the way to go.) I reserved the water the apples had cooked in and added it as needed to the puree. Since the pieces were very soft, they created a smooth puree in just a few minutes.

Three organic red delicious apples yielded 19 oz, which is a full tray and five more cubes from another. I paid $2.73 for the three apples, so each ounce costs roughly 14 cents. This is by far the least bang for my buck of anything I've made so far, but it is still 11 cents less per ounce than Gerber applesauce that is on sale.

There are a few ways that I could increase my savings - only buy organic apples on sale, buy from farmer's markets, and buy in bulk when I do find a sale. I could also purchase ready made natural applesauce, which has no added anything. However, I don't know if I can find this locally, or if I would actually save money by doing this; I expect it to cost more, though it might be more convenient.

Either way, I still saved money, and I will definitely be making more applesauce in the future. Wyatt likes it way too much for me to ignore it altogether, and it's probably the easiest and least time consuming puree I've made yet.

Next, I believe it's time for me to venture into the land of green veggies. Wyatt's had a couple of encounters with green beans, which resulted in a pretty hilarious face.

Can't wait to see how that turns out!

-Mother Nature Mom

Homemade Baby Food - Butternut Squash and Sweet Potatoes

That's right, I tackled TWO different foods at the same time. I am Mother, hear me roar!

But seriously, things went much more smoothly this time around. Perhaps it's because I had better equipment. Maybe I was simply more careful (make that much more.) It could have been luck. Regardless, my second foray into making homemade baby food was a complete and utter success! And I did most of the work while Wyatt took his afternoon nap. Crazy.

Let's start with the squash.

I wound up buying a decent sized organic butternut squash instead of a regular butternut for a couple of reasons. One, organic is better. Two, when I got to the register at Kroger, the regular squash (which was only slightly bigger than the organic) rang up at $5.35. The organic rang up at $1.95. Yeah, confused the hell out of me, too. Apparently, the regular ol' squash is charged by the pound. The organic isn't. So, while the regular butternut squash might have been on sale for $1.70 a pound, it definitely wasn't the better deal! Add in the fact that my Kroger card shaved off 20 cents from the organic's price, and you can clearly see why I put the regular squash back.

Isn't she beautiful?

By the way, almost all of these pictures will show me doing prep work, etc on top of my stove. My kitchen has no counter space whatsoever, and the counter space we do have is completely taken up by our microwave, toaster oven, bottle drying rack, espresso machine, and dish drying rack. I have all the cabinet space a woman could ever need (and then some) but no counter space. So, until we invest in a kitchen island, on top of the stove it is!

Before I did anything else, I preheated the oven to 400 degrees. I made a huge mental note to do this beforehand because otherwise, I would absolutely forget until it was time to bake the damn thing. Then, I removed the stickers and cut the squash in half lengthwise using a really big knife whilst sustaining no injuries. Thumbs up for me. It took about ten minutes. Squash skin is tough, and my right arm is a total wimp. Need to find a better way for next time...

You guys are going to think I'm crazy, but I think that if a watermelon and a pumpkin had a baby, it would be a butternut squash. All I could think about while I cut the squash was, "Wow! It smells like a watermelon!" And the seeds on the inside resemble what my dad refers to as "pumpkin guts." Call me crazy, I don't care.

Anyway, I scooped out the squash "guts" and made sure no little stringy bits were left. Then I took my biggest glass baking dish and poured in about an inch and a half of water. I put the squash halves into the dish, face down.

My baking dish was almost not big enough. I lucked out. Note to self, big squash need not apply.

After coercing the squash halves into coexistence (it was kind of like doing a jigsaw puzzle with two really awkward pieces), I put them into the oven for 40 minutes. While they baked, I moved on to the sweet potatoes.

I am not a fan of sweet potatoes. Never have been. But, my child likes them, so there you go. Don't really need another reason to make them, right?

Kroger didn't have any organic sweet potatoes when I went, but that's okay as sweet potatoes are one of the EWG's Cleanest 15 fruits and veggies with the lowest amount of pesticides. So, I don't feel so bad for not buying organic this time.

I had two sweet potatoes handy, so I decided to use both of them. (I considered only using one, but I knew the other would just sit in the fridge.) I scrubbed them both very well and started peeling them.

Remember when I had issues peeling the organic carrots? Well, the sweet potatoes were even worse. Pretty sure I wanted to throw the peeler out the window a couple of times. I finally gave up and use a paring knife to finish the job. Way easier.

When the potatoes were completely peeled, I chopped them both into little chunks. (Have you ever tried to "cube" a sweet potato? You can't do it. There is nothing remotely cube-like about the pieces you wind up with. They are asymmetrical chunks.) I then placed them into my NEW STEAMER BASKET THAT A WONDERFUL CO-WORKER GAVE ME.

That's right, no more ghetto steamer!

My co-worker, Sarah, was nice enough to give me her steamer basket. It helped a lot, since I'm pretty sure the Tupperware lid trick would not have worked with two good-sized sweet potatoes.

After I added the sweet potato, I poured in just enough water to cover the pieces. Once the water started to boil, I turned the heat down a bit and put the lid on.

Wanna know how I know I'm good at this? The squash and the potatoes finished at the same time. Yeah, I've got this down to an art. (I'm completely not serious.)

I took the butternut squash out of the oven at about the same time the sweet potatoes had been "cooked until tender." (Which I still think is just a way of saying, "I was too lazy to time this, but they're done now!") The squash skin looked puckered and had sunken in where I had scooped out the squash guts, and had started to turn a darker tan color. (Both signs of "done-ness" according to WholesomeBabyFood.com.) I took the pot with the sweet potatoes off the heat and let them cool along with the squash.

Just a side note, but when I opened the oven door to check on the squash a couple of times towards the end, the water in the bottom of the baking dish had created this really strange whirlpool effect. It would bubble up from under the hollows in the squash halves and rotate around the dish until it created a whirlpool. REALLY WEIRD.

I waited about an hour before I blended both the squash and sweet potatoes, and they were still a bit warm. The great thing about my new food processor/blender is that I can blend two different things without having to wash anything in between. So that's exactly what I did. (And when I did wash them, I managed to not cut myself. Hooray!) I forgot to do this with the sweet potatoes, but to thin out the squash, I used the water that the squash had been baked in to get back a few of those nutrients. I used a little nursery water with the sweet potatoes. (Side note - I didn't do this with the carrots because they're very high in nitrates! Never use the same water to thin out carrots that you used to cook them in!)

I wound up with one cube short of two full trays of sweet potatoes. I probably could have managed to fill that last cube, as some of them turned out to be quite full and the puree was a bit on the "chunky" side.

Unfortunately, I tossed the receipt that had the price for the sweet potatoes, so I don't know exactly how much I saved. My expert guesstimation would be that making the sweet potatoes at home cost between 5-7 cents per ounce, depending if they were on sale or not. I can't remember.

One organic butternut squash yielded three full trays! (It was almost one and a half trays. When the squash finished baking, it smelled and tasted so delicious -and not like watermelon - that I almost saved half to make into soup. Oh well, guess I'll have the buy another squash for myself!)

Math time! One organic squash was $1.75 and yielded 42 oz/cubes. So how much per ounce, my mathematically inclined friends? 4 cents! I would have spent $10.50 for 42 oz of Gerber squash.

Lessons Learned:
- Since sweet potatoes have a shelf life of 2 weeks in the freezer, I'll only use one next time. I guess my intuition was right!
- Butternut squash is great to make in bulk! (And considering the size of one squash, you pretty much have to make it in bulk.) But that's okay, because while sweet potatoes have a relatively short freezer life, butternut squash (and any type of winter squash) will keep for up to 4 months in the freezer!
- The sweet potatoes came out kind of thick, while the squash came out much thinner. I think I might have added too much water to the squash and not enough to the sweet potatoes. This is easily fixed, though. When thawed, if a puree is too runny, add a little rice cereal or oatmeal. Too thick? Stir in formula or breast milk. (By the way, when I took out a couple of cubes of squash for Wyatt's lunch today, the consistency was just right when it thawed. No biggie!)

Of course, it's always important to label and date your baby food when placed in the freezer. From left to right - squash, sweet potatoes, and (*?$@!) carrots.

Maybe next time I'll make something not quite so... orange. =)

- Mother Nature Mom

My First Attempt at Homemade Baby Food

Before I even start, I just want you guys to know that I am damn proud of myself. Because really, who would have thought a year ago that I would willingly be slaving away (ok, not exactly "slaving") in my kitchen making homemade baby food for my child? Nodamnbody, that's who.

Anyway.

There are a couple of reasons why I decided to try out this homemade baby food business:
1. It's cheap. 4 oz of Gerber's Stage 1 carrots cost 97 cents on sale at Kroger. An entire bag of whole organic carrots costs $2.50. (And hey, on WIC, it's free!)
2. I wanted to know what it would feel like to make food for my child and know that everything he's eating is good for him and fresh and wonderful and awesome.

And there's also a tiny part of me that did it because some people thought it was a stupid idea. But that's not important.

So! I decided to start with carrots, since Wyatt loves them so. (See my profile pic.)

If not for WholesomeBabyFood.com, I would have been completely lost. I would have been left standing in my kitchen with a bag of carrots in my hand, willing it to puree itself into something my son can manage. Lucky for me, I did happen to find this site (thanks to MoneySavingMom.com), which has tons of information ranging from what types of equipment to use, age ranges for certain foods, recipes, and how to cook the damn stuff. (Well, they didn't call it that, but that was the question on my mind at the time.) Apparently, the best way to cook most fruits and veggies (carrots included) is to steam them. Steaming retains the most nutrients. This is where I ran into my first problem: I don't own a steamer.

I own a lot of kitchen gadgets; I have a crock pot, a toaster oven, a hand mixer, and about 20 or so little scoops and spoons to measure things out with. No steamer. So I got crafty. I put one of my many coffee mugs in the bottom of my biggest pot, upside down. Then I found the biggest tupperware lid that I had that would fit inside the pot while still leaving enough room for the steam to rise. Voila, Ghetto Steamer. Poured in some water, started heating it to a boil. Then I began peeling the carrots.

I realized almost immediately that they sell already-peeled carrots for a reason... convenience! Who has time to stand around peeling carrots all day? No one! Hence the prebagged baby carrots - already peeled and cut up into manageable pieces. Hooray 21st century! I made it through six carrots before my arm began to scream at me (thanks for the tendinitis and nerve damage, Starbucks!) I cut the carrots into little chunks and put them on top of the tupperware lid. Once the water started to boil, I turned the temperature down a bit and put the lid on it.

The recommended cook time was "until carrots are tender," which is helpfully specific. I let them steam for about 20 minutes, which was probably a little longer than necessary. But hey, they were cooked. And now this is the part where I put on my Momma pants and tell you what you guys already know - steam can burn you! Lift the lid away from you! Use a friggin' pot holder! Your hands will thank you. (Mine currently hate me, both for this reason and because of a previous injury involving a very hot sandwich oven at work.)

After hopping up and down and cursing, I took the lid o' carrots out of the pot and let them cool. And here is where I ran into my second problem.

My parents had given me a food processor/blender combo that had been given to them umpteen years ago by my nana, who is notorious for giving people gifts they don't want. This is one of those gifts. It sat in the attic, still in the box, for years. When Kenny and I moved in together, my parents gave us a bunch of stuff - vacuum cleaner, kitchen table and chairs, and a bunch of other awesome, useful things. They also gave us this blender which, granted, they have never used. I'm sure if they had, it would have been in appliance heaven by now. This thing has one setting. One. It has a lever that you push down on to make it go. That's it. No crush ice button, no puree button. Nothing. I burned up the motor in five minutes. I then spent another five minutes trying to mash up the carrots with a fork before putting them in a bowl, covering it with Saran wrap, and sticking it in the fridge.

At this point, carrots were my least favorite food ever.

So today, I ventured to Walmart and purchased a new food processor/blender combo that has all the things the last food processor/blender combo did not. Granted, it could have had two settings and it would have been more, but no, I bought a nice food processor/blender with lots of settings. I was very happy. So happy in fact that while washing my new food processor/blender, I got a little overzealous and cut open the palm of my hand with the very, very, very sharp blade.

Did you know that I am squeamish about blood? You do now.

After not passing out while hunting for the Band-Aids, I managed to reassemble my sharp, shiny new appliance and puree the most beautiful carrots I have ever seen. It was so wonderful. I pushed the puree button which - guess what! - purees! I simply added a little nursery water as needed to achieve the right consistency. Once everything was blended, I scooped my masterpiece into an ice cube tray. As it turns out, six carrots is exactly the right amount to fill one whole tray. I totally knew that. (No I didn't.)

Here's the part where I do a little math. (I heard your gasp from here!)
As I said before, 4 oz of Gerber carrots is 97 cents on sale. For the sake of ease, we'll say that's 25 cents per ounce.
The bag of carrots that I bought had about 20 whole carrots. At $2.50 a bag, each carrot cost 13 cents, so six carrots cost 78 cents.
Six carrots filled up one ice cube tray, which has 14 individual cubes. Each cube is one ounce. (I measured this beforehand.) So, one tray is 14 ounces. That equals out to 6 cents an ounce.

6 CENTS AN OUNCE!

And since Wyatt typically eats 2 oz at a time, one tray is seven servings.

So yes. Making your own baby food is extremely easy on the pocket. And I'm sure next time I'll be much more prepared and careful. While it was kind of a pain in the butt this time, it really is so simple and easy. I swear!

Lessons Learned:
Buy carrots that are already peeled next time!!!
Test equipment before use to ensure it's worth a damn.
Wear leather gloves at all times. (Kidding, sort of.)
Don't listen to the haters.