LittleMissSunshine
Puree #2: Since I'm Eating Babyfood...
Jun 16, 2011
...I might as well go all out with the pint-sized palate theme.
Earlier today I was debating about what to make for dinner tonight. I had picked up a few canned things that I could puree -- chili, baked beans, corned beef hash (which is mushy enough on its own to not need pureeing) -- but none of them sounded all that appealing. I put the thought of out my mind at the time, but now that it was getting close to dinner time, I was getting hungry.
Having still not decided on what I was going to have, I asked my son what he'd like for dinner tonight.... he wanted hot dogs. Easy enough. I went into the kitchen and as I was cutting one up for him, it dawned on me that I could try doing a pureed version of franks and beans for myself. I used to love that combo when I was a kid, but it's been forever since I had it.
After I got my son his dinner, I opened up the can of B&M Baked Beans (I remember that brand from when I was a kid back in Boston where the baked beans bar is set pretty high), dumped it into the sauce pan, added 3 cut up hot dogs (Hebrew National Beef Franks, if you're interested) and set it to medium heat. I wasn't sure if that would be enough hot dog to balance out with the beans, but I figured it was a good number to start with.
Once it was warm enough, I dumped the whole thing into my food processor and whizzed it into babyfood. When I first opened it, I thought it might be too liquidy... perhaps I should have strained some of the bean juice out first? Once I stuck a spoon in it though, I was pleasantly surprised to find the texture was perfect. Now was the moment of truth... how did it taste?
I'm not gonna lie; it looks like something my dog would leave in the yard after getting into something he shouldn't have, though thankfully the smell is enough to keep your brain from latching on to that nasty thought. Despite how it looks, the taste was better than I thought it would be. If you liked franks and beans as a kid, I highly recommend giving this a try.
Let's Do the Math
For those of you keeping tabs on your protein intake (you should be!), there are 7 grams of protein per serving of the beans and there were 3.5 servings in a full can, so that's 24.5g in the beans alone. The hot dogs each have 6 grams of protein and I used 3 of them, so 18g, which gives us a combined total for the entire thing of 42.5g.
I had 2oz for dinner and put the leftovers into ice cube trays (each cube = 1oz), so I know the entire batch was 18oz. 42.5g of protein divided by 18oz = 2.36g of protein per 1oz serving. 4.72g of protein isn't a ton, but it's not like I can eat a lot of anything, so it'll have to do!
For any of you using MyFitnessPal.com, I worked out the calories as well (56 per oz) and added it to the database... just search for "Franks & Beans Puree" and it should come up with "Generic" in front of it.
