Roses in December

Wednesday evening I spent a few hours making baby food. It's a labour of love. I was busy washing and chopping and cooking and steaming and pureeing, before pouring 1-2 tablespoon serving sizes into ice cube trays to freeze. Then yesterday morning I got to fill my ziploc baggies with portions of carrots, courgettes/zucchinis, sweet potato, and pears to add to my supply of mango, banana and peas. Now when it comes to a meal time, all I have to do is pop out a couple of cubes and defrost them and we're ready to go! It's pretty easy, especially when I do batches like this and they're then sitting ready for me, whenever I need them.

I only buy organic produce when my babies are this young and just starting out as it's so hard to know the levels of chemicals or pesticides on our produce and they certainly don't need to be dealing with all of that (I wish I could go organic for all of us, all the time, but it gets too expensive).

Anyway, my sister-in-law bought this book for me when Arran was a baby and I can't say enough good things about it. I had no clue before reading this book that different foods needed to be introduced at different ages. It really spells things out, month by month, with cooking instructions for pretty much every vegetable or fruit out there as well as other ideas for making food fun and creative as your child gets older.

I'm not into books, like so many around me are, and I'm not often excited to receive a book as a gift (I really don't have much time or inclination to read these days) but I would thoroughly recommend this book for any parent, or would-be parent or as a gift for a new mom. My copy is a mess now...the pages are curled up and it is pretty worn, but it's because it is well loved. I've used it for three children and refer to it all the time still and once Asia's past this stage I will probably sadly (at having to let it go) but excitedly (at passing on such a fantastic resource) find a new mom to give it to.