Foodie Baby: Peppery Cottage Cheese With Black Olives

Today I thought I had made a boo-boo while preparing Piper's lunch by accidentally dumping far too much pepper in her cottage cheese, but was relieved when after the first bite came a satisfied "Mmmmm!"  After doing some quick research on World's Heathiest Foods I found that all of the colored peppercorns come from the same pepper plant (Piper nigrum).  Go figure.

On the same website, I found that olives are a good source of iron, vitamin E, fiber, and copper.  Be aware of how many your baby eats as most olives are preserved in brine, which of course is very high in sodium. A little salt is healthy in everyone's diet so just find that happy medium! Not only are they healthy and easy for baby to gum, chew, and swallow, they are also fun to stick on your fingers as puppets (no one said you had to be mature simply because you're a parent). You may want to tear the olives in half so they are no longer perfectly esophagus-shaped....just sayin'.

~Ingredients~

2 Tblsp. 4% milkfat cottage cheese

Splash of whole milk (more or less depending on how thick or thin your baby prefers his/her food)

1/8 tsp. pepper (for freshly ground with a pepper mill, use slightly less as it is more potent)

4-5 black olives

--Puree the cottage cheese with the splash of whole milk.

--Add pepper.

--Serve with the black olives, cut in half