This weekend we drove down to Mobile, Alabama to celebrate our niece, Katie’s, 3rd birthday as well as my mother-in-law’s birthday. The party was decorated for a princess including the cake. My sister-in-law, Stephanie,  made a chocolate and strawberry castle cake. There were three layers of chocolate and one layer of strawberry with the pink icing. 

Stephanie used cupcakes and sugar cones to create four turrets and one with a chocolate tip that all the kids fought over. Strawberry whoppers, strawberry wafers and chocolate icing were used as the door, drawbridge and overall decor. Stephanie had said that she had been watching the Food Network’s great cake challenge and thought “I can do that, no problem”. A few hours into the cake making and she couldn’t figure out how the chefs decorated cakes for hours on end. All on all, the cake was absolutely beautiful and her little girl loved it more than her little mind could articulate. When it came to carve the cake, I had a little tear in my eye knowing how much time and energy went into making this little girl’s birthday wishes come true. When the kids had devoured the cake and ice cream heading off to open gifts, I asked Stephanie where she had gotten the idea.  She said the recipe had come from a cookbook I had given her last year that she made a few adjustment to for her purposes. For some reason I had a moment of pride and gratitude feeling that I in some way had helped although I know that wasn’t the case. Needless to say, the party was extraordinary as all Stephanie and Alex Pate’s parties are. I am just glad Zoey is only one so she won’t think her mommy will be able to create a cake like her Aunt Stephanie.

I love to cook and to collect cookbooks. When I was pregnant with Zoey, my sweet husband bought me a collection of cookbooks featuring recipes for babies and young children.  Now Zoey is almost six months old and loving life.  She has been eating the different Stage One baby foods for almost six weeks now.  I thought that since I am always in the kitchen anyway, I might try my hand at baby food. I used one of the books Adam gifted to me to research the foods that are healthy for a child eating Stage One foods.  The store offers a variety of stage one foods, but there is a limit. 

In the book “Naturally Delicious Meals for Baby”, I found that there are a variety of foods that are healthy for babies, but not provided by local supermarkets.  Some of the options listed in the book are the typical sweet potatoes, carrots and peas, but they also have recipes for broccoli, cauliflower, rutabaga, parsnip, fennel and beet purees and that is just the vegetables. My particular favorite is the avocado puree since I have been obsessed with them since pregnancy.  My daughter suffers from eczema and avocado is not only known for being packed full of monounsaturated fat, a good fat that provides energy, but they help with wound healing and a good complexion.

That being said, though I was excited that there were more options to explore when offering my little one — more than the typical 10 items sold commercially, I still wanted to take things slow.  Tonight, I made the carrot puree.  I purchased a bag of organic carrots for about two dollars.  After shredding, simmering for 10 minutes, pureeing and finally pushing through a fine strainer, I had a smooth dark orange perfection.  I offered it to Zoey for dinner and she loved it.  I used small plastic containers to freeze the remaining carrots.   I can just pull them out and defrost them as needed.  My recipe yielded about 15 ounces for the two dollars I spent.  That same quantity would cost about $3.50 for the organic brand at the supermarket. It isn’t really a cost savings but I did it more for the joy of feeding her something that Mommy made.