WFMW - Baby Food Storage

I'm probably a bit late coming to the party with this idea, but I had it tonight, and it was a TOTAL a-ha moment for me.  For me, this is a new, and fabulous, way to store baby food I've made.

Mookie has been eating solid foods since, uh, November. And I've been making some and buying some of her meals since then. When I first started making her meals, I bought the KidCo plastic-tray-with-lid combo for freezing baby food. I also, periodically, use a regular ice-cube tray...which is GREAT for storing pureed blueberries to put into Mookie's rice each morning. :o) 

The KidCo tray works. Okay. But, I didn't like the portion size, quite frankly. And as Mookie has gotten older, and is eating more, I have liked the portion size even less. See, two little "cubes" isn't quite enough, and three is too many. And, by the way, the tray makes seven cubes. SEVEN. I don't like prime numbers when I'm making food. I like portions that are divisible by two. Or three. :o)  But, idiosyncrasies aside, I used them anyway.

Tonight, I made red beans and rice for Mookie, and even though I've done it before, somehow the volume was much, much greater this time. So I filled my two KidCo trays, and was stuck with about 2 cups of beans-n-rice left. What to do, what to do...it didn't taste that great, but that's a lot of food to waste...

I was wishing I had some other, freezable, correct-portion-sized container to store the rest in. But, alas, I couldn't think of anything. So, I opened the door to my 'plastics' cupboard to pull out a large container for the remainder, and I found the stash of approximately 932 plastic Gerber baby food containers that I use for crackers and snacks and such. You know the ones. (I think they multiply when the cupboard door is closed.) Mookie love, love, loves to take each, and every one of these out of the cupboard and scatter them all over the house. Oh, she's fun.

Anyway, I thought those might be the solution to my problem! And, as of right now, I'm thinking I was right!!

I know the portion will be just right for her, and I just labelled the lid with the date and contents. I figure when it's time to heat up the red beans and rice, I'll just pop out the big cube into a microwavable dish, and go to town!

Yay for good ideas! Next, it's zucchini. And minced pork and pear. And whatever else I can think of! :o)  Any good suggestions?

Check out the other great Works For Me Wednesdays at We Are THAT Family.

WFMW - Cable Labels

(hosted by Rocks In My Dryer)



So I've never been quite organized enough to do a Works For Me Wednesday post...but I've wanted to share a little trick with you for a while.


Between Dave and me, we have lots of little black (or white, or grey) cables running around homeless in our house. This one came with the radio, that one came with the phone charger (for a phone that broke 2 years ago), the other one is for the digital camera, etc. Do you have homeless cables, too?

I also know that when I've got my desk put together, I've got a black cable for the monitor, for the computer, for the scanner, for the speakers, for the printer, for the lamp, and so on. But if I ever have to unplug one of them, it's a might-bit tricky knowing the right one to unplug. I said to myself "Self, I sure wish these cables came with labels."

So a couple of years ago, I started to label the black cords with a white-out pen. That worked. Pretty well. For a few months. Then it seemed to wear off, and I was back where I started from.

Then, a few years ago, my good friends over at Sanford pens introduced Silver Sharpies. Woohoo! Not that I needed another Sharpie, mind you. I'm pretty sure I own more Sharpies than some small countries. But...this one has an additional feature that I love! It writes on black cables!

Now I write on the cable what it's purpose in life is! This has come in handy more than twice, lemme tell ya.

Try it! Give your nameless, and confused cables a label!

Happy "Works For Me Wednesday"!