Sweet potato that is!!! So far we have given Koji avocados and bananas. Both foods are great and VERY easy to prepare, basically just peel and eat. No need to cook, it’s been perfect!! Today, after filling the dehydrator, I decided to make Koji some sweet potatoes! I have to say making baby food this time around is SOOO much easier then it was for Noby. If you remember 3 years ago I made all his food with the Magic Bullet! What a pain in the ass that was!!! Don’t get me wrong, I got it done, but I could only do small amounts of food at a time. It would take me three or four rounds to do sweet potatoes because the Magic Bullet only held about 3/4s of a potato! It was so messy too!! There was sweet potato everywhere! Well now that I have an AWESOME food processor, it made the job SOO much easier! Check it out…
Baked sweet potatoes…
The skin just peels right off…
YEAH THE NEW FOOD PROCESSOR…
Next, I freeze the food in ice cube trays. Once they are frozen I transfer to a ziplock bag.
After two trays of fruit roll ups not cooking evenly in the oven, Ichiro said if I could find a cheap dehydrator I could buy it! That sounded like a challenge and off to the store I went! I found one and couldn’t be more happy with my new toy!
I googled and searched and couldn’t wait to get started! Our first attempt and I have to say went great!
The before….
AND AFTER….
Everything came out perfect!! I can’t wait to experiment some more!
This past week the boys and I headed over for a play date with the Brasco boys! It’s sad, but we haven’t seen them in a while. It’s hard to set up times to get together because Noby has school on the opposite days Lizzy’s boys do. We finally found a day that worked for us and we were blessed that the weather was nice enough to go out to play.
Noby did great on the Big Boy Swing!!
Koji loved crawling all over the grass, every time we moved him back on the blanket, he crawled right back to the grass!
BUT what Koji loved even more was his first trip on the swing!! He couldn’t get enough!! Look how happy he is!!
He loved it so much that he eventually fell asleep in it!!! We allowed him to just hang out in the swing while the other boys played!
Look how much fun the Brasco’s house is!! They still had a BIG pile of snow to play in!
Believe it or not but The Pioneer Woman‘s website is not the only one I follow. I get craft, home and recipe ideas from MANY other sites. One site that I find healthy kid friendly recipes on is called Weelicious. The writer, Catherine, is a mother of two. When her son was born she struggled, like many of us, with what was the best possible foods to feed her child. She started sharing her recipes with friends and other moms out there and soon she became the go to person in the neighborhood. Soon she realized she could reach, and help a larger audience if she started a website. You should really go and check out her site. She has some wonderful ideas on there!
I remember loving fruit roll ups as a kid. YUMMM. But as a parent, its not something I want my son eating all the time. Sure once in a while, maybe, it could be a fine treat but it’s not something I’ll be buying for him. Well Weelicious highlighted a recipe for Fruit Leather. A homemade fruit roll up!! It intrigued and this week Noby and I set out to make them!
Noby loves to help in the kitchen, so I figured a perfect job was washing the strawberries. He also took the leaves off of each one, one by one…
“That’s a keeper,” he kept saying…
He loved the job of honey spoon licker…
He was also in charge of running the food processor…
And smoothing out the liquid…
As you can see after baking it for several hours the outside was burning while the middle wasn’t cooked enough. We ended up cutting the cooked parts off and baking the center some more…
In the end it was all eaten!! These fruit roll ups have two ingredients, strawberries and honey! I would let my son eat these all day long!
It’s so hard to believe that our little man has his first tooth! I guess that would explain all the drooling lately! I can’t believe how fast he’s growing!
I decided to change up Taco Tuesday! There was a steak sandwich in the Pioneer Cookbook that I thought would be perfect for the guys. Ree simply calls the sandwich “Marlboro Man’s (that’s what she calls her husband) Favorite Sandwich.” With a name like that I thought it would be perfect for my favorite guys.
Overall I thought it was ok. Next time I make it, I think I would teak the recipe a little. Maybe I would add some cheese or some mushrooms. I might not add so much worcestershire sauce, I’m not really sure. I had already cut the amount of butter in the sandwich. Don’t get me wrong, it was good, however it’s definitely a man’s sandwich. Ichiro and Keith gave it a thumbs up so I guess that’s all that matters.
Pioneer Woman’s The Marlboro Man Steak Sandwich
Ingredients
1 whole Large (or 2 Small) Onions
2 sticks Butter (lots And Lots Of Butter)
2 pounds (to 3 Pounds) Cube Steak (tenderized Round Steak That’s Been Extra Tenderized)
Lawry’s Seasoned Salt (or Similar Seasoned Salt)
½ cups (approximately) Worcestershire Sauce
Tabasco Sauce, To Taste
4 whole French/deli Rolls (earthgrains Are Best!)
Preparation Instructions
Slice onions and cook in 1/4 stick butter until soft and light brown. Remove and set aside.
Slice cube steak against the grain. Season with Lawry’s.
Heat 2 tablespoons butter over high heat (in same skillet) until melted and beginning to brown. Add meat in single layer. Cook one side until brown, then flip and cook until brown, about a minute on both sides.
Add 1/2 cup (at least) Worcestershire sauce, 5 to 6 shakes Tabasco, and 2 tablespoons butter. Add cooked onions. Stir to combine.
Butter halved French rolls and brown in skillet.
To assemble, lay bottom half of French roll on plate. Place meat mixture, followed by a spoonful of juice from the pan. Top with other half of roll, cut in half, and devour!
Ichiro and I weren’t the only ones getting a new food this week. We decided it was time to start Koji on solid foods! Even though I’ve done this before, I’ve been reading online to see what they recommend is the best first foods for babies. Avocados keep coming up as a super food. Apparently they are said to contain everything a person needs to survive. “A wonderful “good fat” food for baby’s brain and physical development.” Tonight we decided to let Koji try some. We wanted to have Noby be involved but it only lasted about a minute or two. Just enough time to snap a couple of pictures. I guess he didn’t think it was as exciting as I did! haha
I’m tired of making the same meals week, after week, after week. Growing up I remember my mom complaining that she didn’t mind making dinner every night but she hated coming up with different foods to cook. I totally feel the same way!! I don’t mind cooking but I’m tired of cooking the same stuff! So this week is New Recipe Week!!! I decided that I was going to make several new meals, maybe even some snacks, and hopefully they will make it into our rotation!
As everyone knows I LOVE the Pioneer Woman. One day I hope to live on a cattle ranch, have a beautiful lodge to entertain in and have an endless amount of amazing recipes to share with everyone. For Christmas I received her cookbook and so far I’ve only used it twice. Both recipes were amazing so I knew I wanted to pick a few new recipes from her book.
Tonight I started with her Linguine with Clam Sauce. Ever since Glenn cooked it down at the beach a few weeks ago, I’ve been wanting to try it. And although it wasn’t exactly like Glenn’s, it was still AWESOME!! The only problem was that Ree’s recipe calls for a cup of heavy cream and we all know how Ichiro and I do with cream! haha We decided that we were going to cook it anyway and give it a try. After one bite Ichiro said that it was so good that he was going to run to the store to get Lactaid pills, and he did! I plan on making this recipe again, it made the rotation!! Maybe next time I’ll try omitting the heavy cream.
• 2 – 10 oz cans of clams, drained, juice reserved
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• Chopped parsley
• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• ¾ c. white wine
• ¾ c. heavy cream
• Juice of ½ lemon
• Linguine or spaghetti
• Salt and pepper to taste
DIRECTIONS
· Cook pasta according to package directions
· Melt 1 tbsp of the butter with the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat
· Add the clams and garlic, cook about 3 minutes
· Add the wine and stir. Let cook for 3-4 minutes, until wine has reduced a bit and it doesn’t smell so “alcohol-y”
· Lower heat. Add lemon juice and the remaining butter, stir through and cook a few more minutes
· Add cream, parsley, salt and pepper (you don’t need too much salt because the clams are fairly salty). Cook until heated through
Ichiro moved the Corrado today so this afternoon Noby and I headed out back to do a little raking. Hopefully we’ll be able to get the beautiful grass to grow back. Well the grass we had at the beginning of last summer, as you remember by the end of the summer is was all brown burnt grass. Of course I did most of the work, while Noby played. Ohhhh to be 3 again!
