Does it "pay" to make baby food?

According to Consumer Reports, certain fruits and vegetables have been found to retain pesticides even after cleaning and washing. These fruits and veggies are important to buy organic.

At the regular grocery, Gerber or Earth's Best Organic fruits and veggies run 1.29-1.79 per 2 4 oz containers.

I made organic sweet potatoes, squash, carrots and portioned out some canned organic pumpkin puree - in total I got 25 4 oz containers.

If you do the math, this results in at least 5 dollars savings over Gerber Organic at the lowest sale price. This savings might be even better if I hadn't bought the vegetables at Whole Foods - they are notoriously expensive!

Sunday - cooking day!

I purposely planned a light pre-prep week for myself and it sure did pay off. After only an hour or two in the kitchen, the husband and I had made 1 and a half Chicken Tamale Casseroles and 1 and a half Canadian Living's Macaroni and Cheese with Ham and Cauliflower (recipes below). I am making the lasagnas tonight, one to freeze and one to cook in a few days. The chili will be put together in the crockpot the morning that we plan to eat it.

Using Sunday as cooking/prep day works out REALLY WELL for our family because the baby crawls around getting into things (this time it was the poor dog who was chased around the kitchen nonstop) and making trouble (I left a bag of cans from the grocery store on the floor, nuff said!). She tires herself out completely and then gets a bath, bottle and bed by 7:00PM. Mommy and Daddy are able to collapse on the couch by 7:30PM. Ahhhh, that relaxation time is so important! We are watching Willy Wonka right now.

Chicken Tamale Casserole
This is a Cooking Light recipe, image borrowed from the linked site. Yields 8 servings, my modifications are in [ ]. We made 1 as the recipe suggests, and another 1/2 recipe in an 8x8 pan.
*****This was excellent. It will go on regular rotation. The sweetness of the corn, the spiciness of the chicken with salsa and taco seasoning, everything about it was good. The only "problem" was that we wanted to eat more of it than we should have.

Ingredients:
1 cup pre-shredded 4 cheese mexican blend
1/3 cup skim milk
1/4 cup egg substitute [I used 1 real egg, didn't have substitute on hand]
1 tsp cumin [we love cumin, I added a tbl]
1/8 tsp ground red pepper [I added a tbl of smoked paprika]
1 can creamed corn
1 (8.5 oz) package corn bread mix [I used JIFFY]

1 (4 oz) can green chilies
1 can red enchilada sauce
2 cups shredded chicken breast
1/2 cup FF sour cream [we omitted this because we forgot and it was still great]
[I added 1/2 cup medium salsa, 2 tbl taco seasoning and 1/2 sauteed onion to the chicken because I've found plain shredded chicken to be bland in the past!]

Instructions:
Preheat Oven to 400 degrees.

Combine 1/4 cup of the cheese and the first 7 ingredients in a medium bowl, whisk to combine. Pour mixture into a 9x13 pan coated with cooking spray.

Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes until set.

Pierce the cake surface with a fork repeatedly and pour over the can of enchilada sauce.

Top with the chicken mixture, sprinkle with the remaining cheese.

Bake for 15-20 mins or until brown and bubbly.


Canadian Living's Macaroni and Cheese with Ham and Cauliflower
Taken from Recipe Zaar (recipe # 92795)
Yields a large casserole dish with 4 big servings and another smaller side-dish portion for freezing.
*****We have made this twice now and both times it was awesome! Freezes and thaws well, too. Freeze without the bread crumbs.

2 tablespoons butter
1 onion, chopped
1 cup diced cooked ham
1 head cauliflower, cut into small florets
1/3 cup flour
3 cups milk
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/16 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 1/2 cups shredded old cheddar cheese
3 cups uncooked macaroni
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

• 
  

In a saucepan, melt butter over medium heat; saute onion and ham until onion is soft. Simultaneously, steam the cauliflower until fork tender. Add flour and cook, stirring until well mixed. Slowly add milk, whisking constantly, until mixture starts to thicken. Add mustard, salt, pepper and cayenne. Stir in cheddar cheese until just melted. While making sauce, cook macaroni in a separate pot, until tender but firm. Drain and put back into pot. Combine with sauce, then pour into a 2 litre baking dish or casserole dish. In a small bowl combine parmesan and bread crumbs. Sprinkle over macaroni mixture. Broil for about 3 minutes, until brown.

Planning and Lists Day!

We are all out of homemade baby food. And the fridge and freezer are empty (we ate the last frozen "Deep Dish Pizza Casserole" on Thursday)! MAYDAY! MAYDAY!

This weekend I will make:

Sweet potato and raisin muffins using the nice organic steamed sweet potatoes that I made for the baby - she hated them! They are a special variety of WHITE sweet potatoes and are a bit more starchy than the orange sweet potatoes and I guess that was not acceptable to her!

Orange-colored sweet potato puree (I did 2 large sweet potatoes and got an absolute TON of food!)
Butternut squash and carrot Puree
Carrot puree
Mango puree (already have cubed frozen mangoes, just need to puree)

Traditional Italian Lasagna with spinach (with an extra to freeze)
Ham and Cauliflower Mac and Cheese
Tofu Stir Fry
Hard Times Cincinnati Chili
Chicken Tamale Casserole