What Aurora's been eating! 5-6mos.

 So I thought it'd be a fun idea to do some photo posts of what Aurora has been eating lately.
We've started to do some new flavors including her first combo (banana & roasted parsnip), finally found a cereal that we can agree on:
<--- Happy Baby Happy Bellies organic oatmeal... love it, it even tastes good!
We also tried our first self feeding with Baby Mum Mum organic rice rusk cookies! I also think this will be an easy way to cheat and keep track of what we have and haven't tried yet... I was going to just keep a little journal but this is much more fun! Enjoy!

Fresh organic green beans with a little oatmeal for texture

Super smooth pureed bananas topped with roasted parsnips

Oatmeal with mango puree

Peaches! Also, have I mentioned that I <3 the Vital Baby food pots?

These were so hard to find in less than a case! Had to go to Drugstore.com

Totally worth it despite the mess. She liked feeding herself and LOVED them!

                            

Yet another store bought baby food beef! (the problem, not the meat)

So I started mixing a little cereal with some of Aura's purees because she's down a bottle during the day since starting solids and I wanted to be sure that she was still getting enough iron.
Problem is, it made her a little constipated. Tried giving her an organic avocado and it helped a little but I thought I should try prunes to help things along... here's a couple pictures of Aurora and the avocado just because they're cute:

Yummy! (mama had to help with the other half!)

Somewhere along the line Aurora as decided fingers are food too...

All gone!

Washing it all down! (the front of her bib) a.k.a practicing with the sippy!

I recently discovered most dried fruit has SULFUR in it so pureeing my own was going to be tough and I was looking for a quicker fix, couldn't find my second choice which would've been Plum organics or another pouch so I broke down and got the Gerber organic which comes in little plastic tubs. The color wasn't grey like in the jars and it had DHA so I figured I'd give it a shot... even though the ingredients were a little bit of a turn off:

Gelatin... really? And is the tuna oil organic? There are other sources of DHA!

I'm also more than a little put off that they used the cheap trick of being 'certified organic' by someone other than the USDA. That doesn't hold much weight with me and I'm bummed I didn't notice before I bought it.
Anyway... the end result was not good either. The ONLY positive thing I have to say is that they did taste better than I thought they would and more like actual food than anything in a jar. But so far (10+ hours later) no evidence that they helped anything.
The worst part? Well, Aurora has always been a heavy spitter up-er if you will, but it's always milky like her formula... today however since the bottle she got after her prunes her spit up was all thick and curdled! It got progressively worse for quite awhile and she ended the night cranky which rarely happens. Now, to be fair we did have a playdate so she might've just been exhausted, but explain the spit up! It gradually got a little better after a few bottles but that first few hours was GROSS.
Soooo.... never again, to say the least.
I'm now on a hunt for un-sulphured prunes...
Home made from here on out!

Trial Expansion?

I knew when I started this business that the fresh baby food market wouldn't be immensely profitable... and definitely not right away. There are other people doing it on a much bigger scale and my goal has never been to compete with them... the idea of packaging and mass marketing something labeled as fresh and natural seems to defeat the purpose. That's just my opinion. Even with the organic foods in pouches, while definitely better than jars (because they don't need to be heated) they are still creating tons of waste! Not to mention how packaging affects the cost for the consumer. Anyway, I digress, that is a subject for a much longer post in the future.

The issue with holding true to the way I've decided to market the brand (FRESH local food, immediately frozen with the bare minimum of packaging) is that I've given myself a very small profit margin... which is fine, I'd rather preserve the integrity of the business. However my goal was to make enough to allow me to stay home full time with Aurora and that doesn't seem to be working out just yet. I wish I would've started this much earlier but I had bigger things to concentrate on.

Where does that leave me? Well, I still have a great background (and talent, if I may brag a little) with food of the adult variety. Soooo.... I'm working on a plan to expand the business to include family meals and a small scale personal chef service. I had honestly considered this all encompassing plan from the start but I didn't want to get in over my head. The expansion may be temporary... it is definitely just a trial basis for now but if I can juggle both and still have plenty of time for the baby I may continue. Having time for my little bean is really the whole point of this endeavor in the first place so everything will have to hinge on that.

I'll give more details as well as edit the Facebook page to reflect the change as soon as I plan it out a little better. Shouldn't be too long, in the meantime here's a few pictures of food for the biggest of kids:

Chickpea, tofu, tomato and fresh spinach Vindaloo over white tea and ginger infused basmati rice

Shrimp scampi with whole wheat fettucini and multigrain baguette garlic bread

Wild mushroom agnolotti and tri-color peppers with rosemary and balsamic brown butter sauce and whole wheat garlic bread

Baked wild salmon w/ lemon-thyme butter sauce, curried white asparagus and pearled barley with crimini mushrooms

Annnd....

Apple Pie with cardamom and lemon peel... Delicious!

Can't wait to get started! Wish me luck!