Turkey, Potato, Carrot Baby Food

I really enjoy making baby food. There is just something that makes my heart swell with joy knowing that I am making yummy, healthy food for my little baby. 

But my first little Bug moved on to table food when he was 7 1/2 months old!  Way too soon for me and I had a whole freezer full of food! :(

So when Sunshine arrived on the scene, I really wanted him to like baby food better than Bug did!  I decided to make yummy, well seasoned, and interesting baby food so he would stick with it longer! And it did work, Sunshine ate baby food until about 8 1/2 months!  Not, much longer, but I'll take it! ;)

Here is one of Sunshine's favorite recipes I made...

Turkey, Potato, Carrot Baby Food
I had just made a turkey, so I made some into baby food.  This is just what I did. I'm sure you can do this many different ways and it will still taste great!

1/4 pound cooked turkey - I used mostly dark meat so it was juicy
3 potatoes
4 carrots
Onions from the turkey
Enough turkey broth to cook in

Boil and carrots and potatoes and onion in the turkey broth.  I added a little water to it also, but it was mostly broth.

Once the potatoes and carrots are soft, add in the turkey meat and let it simmer for about five minutes.

Then dump it in the food processor or blender and add the water/broth to make it the desired consistency.

Once blended, spoon it into ice cube trays to freeze. Once they are frozen, crack them out of they trays and put into freezer Zip-lock bags and label!

When your baby is ready to enjoy, just take out a cube or two and warm them up!  I just know your baby will love it! :)

Homemade Cream of Chicken

So I have a confession to make... I LOVE CREAM OF CHICKEN!!!

But lately cream of chicken has not been loving me.  Recently, I  have been trying harder and harder to get my home free of heavily processed foods.  So, my body was not used to all the processed junk in cream of chicken, and every time I ate it, I felt awful! 

But getting rid of processed foods is not an easy task!  Processed foods are every where.  And at times it can seem REALLY DAUNTING to get rid of all the processed foods, especially a staple like cream of chicken. :)  

What I decided to do was to take baby steps to making my menus more natural.  The first thing I did was to really look at labels for High Fructose Corn Syrup and eliminate it wherever I could.  Most thing I could find a different brand with no HFCS.  But somethings there is just no alternative... syrup being one of them.  And I am not ready to switch to real maple syrup because I have heard it doesn't taste like "syrup", as ironic as that is!! ;)

The second thing I wanted to cut out was cream of chickens soup.  Have you ever looked at a label of cream of chicken?!  You can hardly pronounce the ingredients, let alone know what they are!  I decided I was going to learn how to make my own cream of chicken.  I searched Pinterest high and low to find a recipe that I liked and sounded good.  But I had no clue where to start.  I was also really looking for simplicity so it wouldn't be too much more work than just opening up a can of cream of chicken.

Looking at recipes and doubting my abilities to make a copy cat type recipe left me going for months without some of my favorite recipes.  And then one day I ran across this recipe, and let me tell you, it is GOOD!  It doesn't taste just like cream of chicken, because it is natural, but I honestly think it tastes even better than cream of chicken. 

I got the original recipe from this website, but I have made a few tweaks to the original recipe and I will explain my recipe below.

Homemade Cream of Chicken

2 1/2 cups chicken broth

1 1/2 cups milk, divided

1/2 cup flour

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp parsley flakes

1/4 tsp black pepper

1 tsp salt

1.  Bring the broth and 1/2 cup milk to a low boil.  (Just a side note, that I do not use chicken broth. I use 2 1/2 cups water and about a tablespoon of chicken broth flavor/bouillon.)

2.  Whisk all the spices and flour together with the remaining 1 cup milk. (Another side note, I have found that using whole milk makes this much thicker.  2% milk is OK, but I wouldn't go any lower than that!)

3.  Once the liquid is at a low boil, slowly whisk in the flour and milk mixture. 

4.  Continue to simmer and whisk for 5 to 10 minutes.  As the sauce cools, it will thicken.  

This will make the equivalent of about 2 cans.  Once you have this base made, just treat it like you would in any recipe you usually use cream of chicken in.  

One thing I have done to make this recipe easier is I make up about 10 packets of the flour and spice mix at a time. 

This way, I just grab one out of the cupboard and get my liquids boiling.  It really is a fast process and the more you do it, the faster it seems to go!  And it is SO much better for you than the processed stuff from the can!

I hope you and your family enjoy! :)