Little City Kitchen Co. Blog

I switched gears this week and looked at making baby food in a whole new, and much simpler, light…  My food processor got a rest as I went back to basics with the goal of developing easy, healthy, and inexpensive baby foods with minimal equipment.

Why this new quest?  A new friend of mine, who is a parenting coach and teaches parenting classes at Crossroads High School in Concord, invited me to speak to her classroom.  On Thursday, I led a baby food cooking demonstration for a group of 15 awesome high-school women who have kids between 4 and 12 months old.

The Core Requirements

As I was designing the class outline, I decided on a few core requirements…

1. My definition of “minimal equipment” is a microwave & a potato masher, so I threw out any baby food recipe idea that needed more than those two items.
2. Most babies don’t get enough vegetables these days (and you all know that I’m a die-hard veggie-aholic anyway), so the recipes were primarily focused on fresh vegetables.
3. I wanted to keep the prep time to a minimal, under an hour a week, so I stuck to single items that could be prepared quickly.

After a brief discussion about introducing solids and common food allergies, we got to cooking.  There were several class volunteers that mashed their way to becoming really good baby food makers!

Our recipes included:

Steamed sweet potato puree
Butternut squash puree with coconut milk
Baby hummus (chickpeas with olive oil and water)
Zucchini steamed with butter
Avocado and banana mash with coconut milk

And the best part: The total cost for all those recipes was only $12.75.

I had a lot of helpers in the classroom, so a special shout out to the girls at Crossroads High School…and their adorable little ones.  Thanks to everyone for your participation during the class, and good luck making some of your own baby food!  Click here to see the pictures from the day.

Larissa & Cecelia, 1 yr
Griselda & Francisco, 4 mo.
Jazmin & Adrian, 4 mo.
Lauren & Dominic, 5 mo.
Jessica & Mireya, 5 mo.
Sara & Amy, 1 yr.
Veronica & Kyle, 6 mo.
Lucero & Israel, 11 mo.
Teresita & Lillie, 6 mo.
Crystal & Adianna, 5 mo.
Jasmine & Giovanni, 7 mo.
Felisa & Desire, 8 months

*Special thanks to Torie Henderson, life & parenting coach, who lent me her class for the hour!

Bring on the Samples…

Next week is going to be a little crazy.  The Winter Fancy Food Show is in town, so I plan to spend Sunday – Tuesday wandering the tradeshow floor in search of packaging, ingredient, and marketing ideas.  Heck, it’s a three-day show featuring some of the best specialty foods from around the world…do you think I would miss that???

I’ll be updating my Little City Kitchen Co. Facebook page throughout the Fancy Food Show, so make sure you click “Like” on my page for the most recent news.  I’m on a plane next Thursday for a family event, so the next blog will probably be coming out Friday, January 28.  Hope everyone has a great week until then!