Asparagus - A First Food

I love asparagus. But it is so easy to make it gross. I prefer my asparagus crunchy, it doesn't matter how it is prepared as long as it is not limp and soft. Brandon had never had asparagus until he had met me. Crazy, that he had not even tried it. But I guess it is like brussel sprouts. Most people don't even want to try it because it is a bitter vegetable. When Brandon tried the asparagus, I had made it with pasta and a ricotta cheese sauce. It was so good! Brandon was surprised that he liked the asparagus. I am still working with the brussel sprouts. I keep telling him they are so much better raw than cooked, I prefer those in my salads...

But because Brandon liked the asparagus from when we were dating, he decided that is what he wants Nikolai's first food to be. I told people this, and the responses were "What?!?" Yup, you heard me, asparagus...

I had been trying to figure out what I wanted to feed Nikolai after the week of rice cereal. I want him to try everything, so it is a matter of what and when. Brandon made that decision for me and I am thankful for it, my indecisiveness gets in the way sometimes...

I had posed the question "What first food did you feed your baby?" to my mom friends and to my family members via facebook. I got mostly, sweet potatoes, bananas, carrots.... Your typical first food choices, mostly from the Gerber jarred selection at the grocery store. People said to go with fruit first because fruit is sweet. Breastmilk is sweet and baby will like it more if it is sweet like breastmilk. But then people said to go with veges first; they wont like the bitter ones because they prefer the sweetness of fruit...

All in all, it does not matter is what I had derived from the responses. People who fed their babies fruit, their babies ate veges (some preferred even peas!), and people who fed veges first still liked both fruit and veges. So my decision was not why I want to feed my baby something certain first, but just what. A baby is going to eat what a baby is going to eat. You can mix it in with another thing later once you have determined the non allergenic foods. So asparagus it was going to be...

Asparagus. It is expensive! $3 per pound! And, there is not a lot of spears in a pound! Not to mention, the bunches at the grocery store have been all picked over. I guess we just passed the season for harvesting asparagus by one week! Hopefully there may be some late bloomers this next week, but I doubt it...

So... Asparagus... We steamed. the whole spear. chopped off the tips and have enough for 4 days. Brandon and I had the remaining parts with our dinner. Cooked too long for my tastes, but not long enough to process. Either that, or the blades on Brandon's magic bullet are going.  We fed it to Nikolai before we ate dinner. I think he is still deciding, but he ate all of it!

"I guess I will try some..."

"Um, I don't know..."

Still deciding...