Have I mentioned how much I love community? Especially the mommy community! I met today’s guest blogger in line at the local bakery. She was holding a baby E’s age, so I introduced myself and invited her to a Facebook group with other moms I had met from the neighborhood. Today that group is a thriving moms group with monthly get-togethers….some with babies and some without.

Lauren posted the following recipe on our Facebook group page claiming that it is both easy to make and something her daughter loved to eat. I asked if I could come over and photograph her preparing it. I can attest to the fact that it is simple and tastes amazing. I hope you have a chance to try it. If you do, tell us about it!

Before I hand this post over to Lauren, I wanted to give her new website a shout-out. She will be collecting and adapting her favorite recipes on her new site, The Pinecone Kitchen: Wholesome food for the Whole family.

Braised White Beans & Leeks

(adapted from The Sprouted Kitchen: A Tastier Take on Whole Foods)

I kind of always knew my daughter, Caitlyn, would grow to enjoy a great relationship with food. After only two minutes of being born, she took to feeding like a pro, and throughout her first months, she loved watching – make that staring – as my husband and I ate our own meals. It’s no wonder that I was really excited to finally start feeding her solid food around six months, and from the look on her face after her first bite, so was she!

During those first few weeks of feeding her solids, I made an effort to cook as much of her food from scratch as possible. But ‘cooking from scratch’ mostly meant nothing more than hitting the ‘purée’ button of our food processor. Sure, I made it a habit to let her experiment with as many new flavors and textures as possible, but, from a culinary standpoint, it was just a bunch of mushy fruits and vegetables (we decided to skip grains). Nonetheless, I was happy providing her with home-cooked meals every day, and Caitlyn was happy to be eating them…until she wasn’t.

After about a month of happily devouring puréed cauliflower, peas, sweet potatoes, mangoes, and anything else I could mash up with a fork, Caitlyn suddenly became very uninterested in anything on her spoon. I started to worry that perhaps the food I was giving her was causing her tummy troubles, and I was going to call our family doctor for advice when I happened to stumble upon a post from Jordann on baby-lead weaning, which proudly featured a video of her daughter Edie successfully eating an array of whole solid food. It immediately got me wondering: if Edie was enjoying real solids this much, would Caitlyn too?

It turns out, she did. That same evening after watching Jordann’s video, I took out Caitlyn’s favorite vegetable at the time, cauliflower, and instead of the usual ‘steam then puree’ routine, I simply handed her a perfectly steamed floret. Her whole interest in food was renewed with her first bite. She loved the tactile experience of the cauliflower between her gums and in her hands, and she very much enjoyed controlling what she put into her mouth. We quickly steamed up broccoli and sweet potatoes, and the results were the same: our daughter wasn’t bored with food, rather just the way we were serving her food. After that meal, we never went back to mushy purées again.

Now that Caitlyn is enjoying whole solids, the process of cooking homemade meals for my daughter has become much more fun. And most of the time, cooking a meal for her actually means cooking one for the whole family as we try to eat the same meals as much as possible. Not only does making one meal for all of us cut down on the time and cost involved to feed us all, but there is definitely a sense of connection when we all sit down together and eat the same thing. Not to mention, I think Caitlyn is filled with pride when she eats “grownup food” – and perhaps even more so when she gets to feed it to us!

Caitlyn’s culinary adventures have also given me a renewed drive to cook simple, seasonal meals. I’ve added a bunch of new dishes to my repertoire, but perhaps none has been as loved as this White Bean and Leek Stew. The dish is hearty and healthy, and costs about $2.00 a bowl to make. I originally found the recipe in The Sprouted Kitchen cookbook, and have since adapted it to stand alone as a meal, which meant adding a few more veggies, including dark leafy greens. I’ve also shared the recipe with a handful of my mommy friends, and everyone agrees: it’s a hit among grownups and little ones alike. OK…and maybe the occasional hungry dog, too!

Braised White Beans & Leeks

1 pound dried white runner or cannellini or Great Northern beans, rinsed and picked over

3 large leeks

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2 celery stalks, diced

2 carrots, diced

4 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped

2 tbsp fresh thyme leaves

2 tsp herbes de Provence

1/2 to 1 tsp red pepper flakes

sea salt and fresh ground pepper

4 cup low sodium vegetable broth

4 ounces baby spinach, roughly chopped

1 cup shredded mozzarella

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Soak the beans, uncovered, in a large bowl of cold water on the counter for at least 4 hours or up to overnight. Drain and set aside.

Arrange a rack in the lower third of your oven and preheat to 225*F

Trim the leeks, discarding the tough green tops, halve vertically and rinse well in cold water, making sure to clean out any dirt trapped between the layers. Slice into thin half circles.

In a large Dutch oven, or ovenproof casserole over medium heat, warm the olive oil. Add the celery, carrots, garlic, and leeks and cook until the vegetables are softened, 3-5 minutes.

Add the beans, thyme, herbes de Provence, red pepper flakes to taste, 1/4 tsp salt and a generous amount of black pepper. Stir in the vegetable broth and 1/2 cup water and bring the mixture back up to a gentle boil.

Cover the pot with an oven-proof lid or cover it tightly with foil. Place in the oven and cook, checking occasionally to make sure the pot is never dry, until the beans are soft throughout but not falling apart, 3 to 3 1/2 hours. If the pot seems dry, add water in 1/2 cup increments and stir once or twice more. Taste and adjust the salt and pepper if necessary.

Remove pot from oven and turn the heat up to 450*F. Add spinach, mozzarella, Parmesan, stir, and put back in oven, leaving the lid off. Cook until cheese is completely melted and brown in spots, 8 to 10 minutes. Serve hot. Serves 6-8.