Biter Biscuits!

My 4 month old is going through an oral stage - everything must be gnawed on, sometimes with great ferocity. It's his way of saying, "Hey". He's not really teething yet, but I'm sure it will be happening soon. In order to gear up for the Great Teething Event of 2011, I've been trying out recipes for homemade biter biscuits (or teething biscuits) for him to try. Here are two recipes to try - one has shortening and salt in it, and the other is more straightforward. Please note that no biter biscuit is guaranteed NOT to crumble. The bottom recipe is quite sticky, so instead of rolling it out, try loading the goo into a pastry bag and piping the dough onto a baking sheet. The first recipe is somewhat sticky, but not nearly as bad.

Teething Biscuits

Ingredients:
2 T shortening
1/2 c sugar (I used TruVia)
1 egg
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon water
1-1/2 cup baby cereal (I used HappyBaby rice cereal with DHA)

Directions:
Heat oven to 300 degrees. Cream shortening and sugar. Add eggs, baking soda, salt, vanilla, and water. Mix until well blended. Gradually stir in cereal. Knead until smooth. Pat into rectangle. Cut into 12 1-inch bars, smooth edges so they will not be sharp. Place on ungreased sheet. Bake 20-30 min or until dry. Store in uncovered container overnight.

Cereal Cookies

1 cup flour (I made these with both cake flour & wheat flour)

1 cup dry infant rice cereal (I used HappyBaby organic Rice with DHA - you can add bananas or apples if you like)

3 tablespoons cooking oil

ice water

Directions:

Preheat oven 425F

Mix flour and cereal. Gradually stir in oil. Mix a little ice water at a time (start with 1/4 cup) until dough begins to form a ball and pull away from the bowl. Roll out to the thickness of a cracker on a floured surface and cut into desired shapes. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet 10-12 min. or until lightly brown. Cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

**as with any self-feeding baby foods, do not leave baby unsupervised while eating

**recipes adapted from those found at www.wholesomebabyfood.com**

The time has come...

...the Lestlie said, to...start...blogging...again?

The first blog post is always the hardest. It's the worst post ever on every blog! Why? There's all this pressure to be awesome from the get-go, isn't there?

I guess I can settle for mediocre.

Here I sit, a completely different person than I was when I started my first blog at 17, a blog that netted 150 page views a day. I know that's not much in this world of blog craziness, but back then, for someone who was mostly blogging about nothing, 150 page views was a big deal. I met quite a few people, people that I still talk to, and no blogging venture since then has been as successful or as rewarding.

Well. This time, ladies and gents, I've got something to talk about. I have my 4 month old son, Archer (aka McStinky), who is my current favorite topic of conversation. I have food, particularly baby food, which is sort of my new passion. And I have other things, surely. I can't talk about work because of the social networking policy (even though that would provide fodder for many anger and frustration fueled posts, I'm sure), but that's probably for the best. I work two days a week and try to keep all work-related talk to those two days only. Why let my job get in the way of my 5 day weekends?

I've got big things in the works. Big things...and maybe some small things, too. Read on if you want, pass on by if you don't.

Until then...