More Than Steaming

I prepared some farmer's market green beans for Sprout a couple of weeks ago. I was being lazy, so I steamed all of the beans I had and after two minutes pulled out half of them and dunked them in cold water to freeze for the bigger eaters to eat later. Then I continued to steam the beans. It was awful what I felt I had to do to those beautiful green pods. By the end they were nasty, soggy, grayish-green goo. There had to be a better way.

My understanding is that cooking the vegetables is necessary for a couple of reasons. The most obvious reason is that cooking them makes them mushy and easier to gum and tongue into smaller pieces or to puree to a smoother consistency. On a cellular level, it breaks down the cell walls all plants have, which makes the plant easier to digest. Cows are really good at breaking down cell walls, humans not so much. Babies even less than that.

So, how could I possibly cook beans and other veggies to softness without steaming or boiling the heck out of them? Because this wasn't just my problem, Sprout found these boiled veggies disgusting, too.

By pure chance I happened to hear Veronica Rueckert on Wisconsin Public Radio interview Emily Franklin. Franklin has a book out called Too Many Cooks (which I have on order now). One of the things she discussed was roasting broccoli to make the natural sweetness come out. I thought this was brilliant. I already liked roasted green beans and roasted cauliflower (not to mention so many other veggies), so why not try broccoli and make it into baby food?

This is not the least labor-intensive process, I soon discovered. I tossed carrots, cauliflower, and broccoli with a bit of olive oil and put it in a roasting pan. I set the oven to 425 and the timer to 10 minutes. I figured I'd have to stir it and put it back in, I just didn't realize quite how many times. I also didn't realize that the veggies would cook at different times. The cauliflower was finished first. It was nice and mushy, although it didn't puree as smoothly as it would if I had steamed it. The broccoli didn't get as soft as I'd hoped it would and the carrots took about 70 minutes to be done, although I've discovered I'll eat carrots cooked this way.

Bug really enjoyed the carrots she stole off of Sprout's plate. The adults thought the broccoli was delicious (I put it on top of our ravioli with pesto because it was a little too charred for Sprout's palate). And Sprout, well, after all of that work, Sprout decided that her little teeth were hurting too much to eat much of anything. She had a long drink of milk and went to sleep. I saw little top tooth buds after lunch today (which was food I know she's eaten in the past and liked, but refused today), so hopefully once those big, evil incisors are through she'll be up to experimenting again.

In the meantime, I think I'll try this again, but I will lightly steam the veggies first and then roast them to bring out the sweetness. It is more work than just steaming them, but since I make enough for the big eaters to eat for at least two meals, it's not so bad. I'm also going to puree the carrots and broccoli together to see if that makes it more palatable. I plan to use the food mill because I took the stems from the broccoli after I cut the tops for eating raw and I should have peeled them before cooking. I hope the mill will do that for me. Otherwise broccoli stems are going back to getting steamed - I'm not peeling AND roasting them. I'm not completely crazy.