A Weekend Away and an Afternoon of Apples

Ben, Aaron (the baby) and I spent the weekend up at Lake Tahoe with 30 middle school and high schoolers for our winter youth retreat.  It was a blast (though the lack of sleep is something I could do without).  The girls spent the weekend with their grandparents, which has resulted in my name now being, "hey gramma, I mean mom".  My girls always seem so much bigger to me when I haven't seen them for a few days. 

I arrived home this afternoon with Ben and Aaron.  Ben left quickly to go play soccer, and since the girls were still at their grandparents and Aaron went down for a nap, I thought I'd get as much done as possible.  The bed sheets were all quickly changed and thrown in the wash.  Two more loads were lined up and ready to be washed.  An abundance of apples in my house resulted in a quick and easy Apple Crisp (with extra apples) being thrown in the oven.  It was super yummy and it never even made it to dinner time.

Next was applesauce-both for my girls and for baby food.  I used my handy-dandy Apple Corer to peel, slice, and core all of the apples.  I threw them in to my Beaba babycook.  Note: I bought my Beaba with my 1st baby.  It is a bit pricey, but if you are going to have multiple children and are looking for an easy, frugal (over time), and super healthy way of making your own baby food, this is the way to go!  I have compared my baby food to store-bought baby food (both regular AND organic), and have found that there is a pretty big difference in taste.  Making your own baby food will also allow you to preserve many of the nutrients that are lost when mass-produced baby food is heated up to high temps to create a shelf-stable product.  Anyway, back to my afternoon.  I put the apples in my Beaba and let them cook.  When done, I put the apples back in to their own juice, added a bit of purified water, and blended it in the Beaba until it was super smooth.  Then, I poured the mixture into an ice cube tray and placed it in the freezer.  For the applesauce for my girls, I just added a little less water and poured the whole batch into a container to store in the fridge. 

 

With the help of an Apple Corer and my Beaba, I was able to whip up three (3) ice cube trays of baby food (about 48 ounces), 2 cups of regular apple sauce, and one apple crisp in less than 30 minutes.  Pretty productive if you ask me ;)