Tag Archives: food

Remember the Leftovers!

Going through the fridge is one of those chores I don’t particularly look forward to. While I try to use everything up, some things get tucked away just wrong and are missed, wasted.

That’s particularly true with leftovers.

I’ve found a few things that help our family actually use up leftovers a little more often. It doesn’t work all the time, but it helps.

1. Don’t cook so much extra.

This can be a little hard to predict, especially if you aren’t sure if the kids are going to like what you made. But the better you can predict what will really be eaten in one meal the fewer leftovers you’ll have to deal with.

On the flip side, if you have something your family will love, sometimes leftovers are a good idea. This is especially true if you have the freezer space to store the excess and the food freezes well. Makes a great alternative to prepackaged frozen dinners on those nights that you just don’t feel like cooking.

2. Leftovers for lunch.

I use leftovers for my lunch. For my daughter’s school lunch. I try to get my husband to take them to work for lunch, but that almost never works.

For school lunches you want foods that either go well in a thermos or still taste good cold.

3. Stir-fry!

Chop up leftover meat into bite-size pieces, add a sauce and some vegetables, and last night’s meat tastes new.

4. Leftover dinner night

When all else fails, skip making dinner one night and just reheat a bunch of leftovers. You have to watch the age of your leftovers, of course, but when you have enough that are good take advantage.

Frozen Homemade Baby Food vs. the Dead Microwave

I’ve posted a few times about making homemade baby food. It’s a process I’ve been enjoying.

Serving it, on the other hand, has been a bit more challenging of late. You see, my microwave died.

Well, not so much died as started sparking. Not a good thing, especially since it’s quite new.

Good thing it’s still within the return period.

But that does mean I have to plan a bit more ahead for when Selene wants her meals. It takes rather longer to reheat her food without a microwave.

How I handle it depends on what I’m doing. Fastest is popping it in a small pot and stirring the baby food until it’s about a safe temperature.

But sometimes I’ll put it in an oven safe bowl and put it in the oven to warm up. This is effective if I’m already using the oven for something else. Takes about 10-15 minutes or so, and if there’s a touch of ice still in the food when I take it out, that’s a good thing. Helps to cool off the parts that are already melted and too hot.

Reheating her food this way means that it often has to spend a few minutes cooling back down to a baby safe temperature. That’s no fun if she’s hollering for her meal now! You know how patient babies aren’t, especially when they’re hungry.

I’ll be glad when I get that microwave brought back to the store and get a replacement. It’s just so much faster and I know better how long to heat the baby food to keep it at a safe temperature so I don’t have to cool it back off.

Still, it’s nice to know how easy it is to cope without.

What Equipment Do You Need to Make Baby Food?

I’ve been having a lot of fun making baby food for Selene. She loves it too. She hasn’t minded jarred food when I have to give it to her, but she seems more enthusiastic about the homemade stuff.

If you’ve ever tasted jarred baby food then homemade, you’d know why.

It’s really easy to make baby food. You probably even own much of the equipment you absolutely need, although to avoid BPA and such you may choose to buy newer products.

I bake or steam most of her fruits and vegetables, so that’s just products I already use for regular cooking. Nothing special needed there. You can buy a special food steamer or get a stainless steel vegetable steamer insert for a pan if you don’t have anything along those lines yet.

Then you need a good blender. I like my VitaMix, and I understand the newer ones are BPA free for if that’s a concern. But if you don’t want to spend that kind of money, find something within your budget. But remember that a good blender also works for smoothies, which are fun for any age.

If you’re making baby food in any sort of quantity, you’ll need to freeze it next. Ice cube trays do the job, but you can buy baby food storage trays that may do a somewhat better job, as well as give you more choices as to what it’s made out of. You can buy ones without phthalates, BPA and PVC.

I also consider my crockpot to be a baby food maker. It’s a great way to make meat tender, which makes pureeing it much simpler. Also nice when you don’t want to be fussing with the exact time that everything is done cooking.

As baby gets older and doesn’t need pureed food, a food mill becomes a much better choice. I’ve had mine since my oldest was a baby, and it’s still in great condition. Just pop the food in and start cranking.

There’s one more piece of equipment that’s really nice to have if you can afford the space and time it takes… a garden! What better way to really know what goes into baby’s food. We can’t all have gardens, of course. But if you can, it’s a good way to make food for baby and the entire family.

With any luck, you have at least some of this on hand before you start wanting to make baby food.

Let’s Share School Lunch Ideas

One of the challenges I’ve always had is preparing a good lunch for my daughter. She pretty much won’t eat sandwiches (aside from once in a long while wanting a grilled cheese), won’t touch tortillas in her lunch (despite loving them at home) and is just generally picky about what she will eat for lunch at school. She particularly hates peanut butter or anything at all to do with nuts.

Here’s one of her favorites, which we call Sand and Shells:

2 tbsp olive oil
1 diced onion
1 cup cracked wheat
1 egg, beaten
2 cups water
12 oz. seashell pasta, cooked according to package directions
2 tbsp butter
salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil in large frying pan. Saute onions, then remove and set onions aside.

Mix cracked wheat into beaten egg and mix until coated. Pour into frying pan and cook until egg is done. Pour in water, add onions, salt and pepper and allow to simmer on low heat.

It’s a really easy recipe and one of the few things I can make for her lunches that she will be excited about. Unless you want to count those awful canned raviolis, which she adores and I only keep on hand for when there are no other choices. Can’t always get to the store in time.

When the water has been absorbed, add in the sea shell pasta and butter. Mix and serve.

I always include some fresh vegetables and some fruit in her lunches. Some crackers or a bread roll and she’s pretty happy.

Once in a while there will be a dinner leftover that she will like well enough to want to take to school. Not as often as I’d like, but it happens. Mostly with one sort or another of pasta. Put a little pesto sauce on pasta, and she’ll wolf it down!

What about your family? What school lunch recipes really go over well. Let’s share ideas.

Checked Out the Local Produce Stand

Since we now lack a garden, finding a good source of fresh produce has been pretty important to me. The Stater Bros here is adequate (the company started here in Yucaipa!), but I like having smaller and hopefully more local sources for my fruits and vegetables when I can.

There’s a fruit stand… small store, really, just down Yucaipa Blvd a ways. Their prices on their signs always looked promising, so I took a look the other day.

Not bad at all. A smallish selection but definitely cheaper than the grocery store. And the selection was far from inadequate.

I’m not certain as to where the farms they buy from are located, but there are quite a number of local farms, so I have my hopes on that score.