Sweet peas

[Photos to follow]


Peas have been JB's fav food since the beginning. When he was still not sure how to control his jaw and eschewing fruit, he'd go all open-mouth-baby-bird-in-the-nest for the peas.

Katy and I briefly considered making his food... but fresh peas are especially hard to come by. We decided that in this day and age, homemade baby food is overrated. I mean yeah, once you are tempted to offer those "meat-smash" stage 3 dinner "combos," DO SOMETHING. Do something, quickly: Blend up table food, call a grandma, just try for god's sake to offer something tastier and more aesthetically pleasing!

But considering that most stage 1 and 2 baby food in a jar:
1) Has no sugar added
2) Is preservative free, and
3) Can be found in an organic variety,

It just seems silly to go the extra mile.

But here at Granny and Granna's house, they have fresh peas growing in the back yard. They are the kind we used to shuck at my gram's house. The kind that you can eat without shucking because the pod is just as tasty as the inner pea. The kind that you can just imagine a carnivorous, cave-person noticing on a vine; bursting in ripe green, too luscious to ignore. And then when his/her "hunting buddies" weren't looking, pop one in his mouth, just to see what it would taste like...

So, yesterday, I picked some mint out of the garden with about 100 pea pods. I shucked them, washed them, and boiled them up. I blended them in the food processor shredding the mint leaves right in as well, and strained the mixture by hand.

Time it takes to procure and prepare a serving of store-bought, organic strained peas:
20 minutes.
4 minutes, if the jar is already in your cabinet...

Time it takes to procure and prepare a serving of home-grown, organic strained peas:
Several hours a day for several months.
60 minutes, if the peas have already been grown for you...

The experience of feeding your baby something that tastes like the personification of sunlight,
that was literally on the vine an hour earlier:
PRICELESS.