What to do with all that WIC? - Page 2

[matey]

If I cant use something, i dont get it. My son and I combined are getting like 10 half gallons of soy milk a month. It's insane. So, I dont actually get it. I usually get three to four and barely make it through those.

Maybe I'll start taking soy milk baths. HA Just kidding. Wowsers, I cant believe someone is actually doing that!

[K-Mom3]

You can DEFINITELY choose to not buy everything on a check and it doesn't affect what you get next month at all! I never got the baby cereal, for example, and they just kept giving me the baby cereal checks. And I never get all of the whole milk on my one-year-old's checks. If you can't use the products for your own family, please don't buy it! This will help the program save money so that more families can be on WIC.

Baby food
My baby only ate babyfood for about one month so I figured out a few ways to use it and stocked up on the few kinds I could use. I bake with the banana and squash (substituting for pumpkin) and make great muffins, breads, cakes, pancakes, etc. Also, if you get the book Deceptively Delicious there are jillions of ways to use squash.

I put the pureed meats in sauces and casseroles occasionally.

I put the pureed peaches in my homemade yogurt, along with some unflavored gelatin to make peach yogurt and yogurt pops.

Milk
I told the lady at the WIC office that my one yr old doesn't drink milk (she's still bfing) and she gave me checks with part cheese. She said that they don't advertise it as an option but if they see a nutritional need, they can still give a cheese package. Don't know how this differs from state to state.

I use the milk to make yogurt, in sauces (my kids are big fans of tuna casserole lately), hot chocolate, and pudding, to name a few. I also cook breakfast most days and use the milk in pancakes, waffles and German pancakes.

Beans

I almost always get black beans and I can now choose to get canned or dried. I still have tons of dried left from the old WIC packages and have made up my own recipe for refried beans, using a food processor. It is a big hit with my family and I also use to make a layer chip dip for potlucks and it is always a crowd pleaser.

[annettemarie]

Please stick to discussing issues and not people. It's fine to disagree with something or even say you find the action to be unethical, but please keep the User Agreememt in mind when posting.

Do not post in a disrespectful, defamatory, adversarial, baiting, harassing, offensive, insultingly sarcastic or otherwise improper manner, toward a member or other individual, including casting of suspicion upon a person, invasion of privacy, humiliation, demeaning criticism, name-calling, personal attack or in any way which violates the law.

Feel free to PM me with any questions or concerns.

[springbride]

Regarding using the baby food in recipes, how do you judge how much to use? We get 90 jars of baby food a month, but dd only goes through maybe 20...

I have seen it posted that you can use them in recipes but can't figure out the ratios. Can someone post a guideline? or a recipe?
TIA!

Regarding the cheese package, can you do that in CA? We get WAY too much milk. We have 3 broke single college students living with us and still the 5 adults can't go through all the milk!

[BetsyS]

Before I had kids, I use to struggle to finish a gallon of milk. Now, the two of them drink 2 gallons a week. It's crazy.

But, some of the ways we use to use up a lot of milk--cook with it. If we wanted dessert, it was pudding or flan or custard. Craving something sweet? Pudding it is!! The milk based treats just took the place of all other desserts/sweet snacks.

Drink lattes instead of other hot drinks.

Some soups use a lot of milk. Potato soup, cream of vegetable soup, chicken and wild rice soup, broccoli cheddar soup.

Anything with a creamy base. Alfredo, chicken pot pie, lots of casseroles, macaroni and cheese, tuna casserole, etc, etc.

If you are getting that much milk, you'll never have to buy a cream soup in a can again. You can also make yogurt with the milk (that's what I do when I find a deal on short dated milk) or ricotta.

[K-Mom3]

Originally Posted by springbride

Regarding using the baby food in recipes, how do you judge how much to use? We get 90 jars of baby food a month, but dd only goes through maybe 20...

I have seen it posted that you can use them in recipes but can't figure out the ratios. Can someone post a guideline? or a recipe?
TIA!

I think that the 4 oz jars are about a half cup. For baking, I just substitute outright--one jar of squash for every half cup of pumpkin called for in a pumpkin muffin recipe, for example.

For sauces and casseroles, I count the baby food as liquid. So, for example, my enchilada sauce recipe is:

1/4 cup fat, 1/2 cup flour, 1/4 cup chili powder, 4 cups liquid, salt as needed.

So I'll put in one jar of carrots and one jar of meat and the rest water or broth to make up my 4 cups of liquid.

Before I started experimenting on my own, I got the books "Deceptively Delicious" and "Sneaky Chef" from my library. Those two books have lots of ideas for using purees in recipes for the whole family to eat. I don't have the books anymore but those recipes helped me get started with making my own substitutions.

Does that help?

And I would really suggest that you not buy ALL the baby food if your baby is eating so little of it. It will quickly become a storage problem!

[onlygirls]

I love these ideas for using the new WIC foods. We have had a lot of positive responses from our clients. When I was on WIC I didn't like the tuna/carrots BF package so I just did't buy them.

I agree, it is a TON of baby food, especially for a BF baby. But if you can use the baby food to make stuff for the whole family, why not? My friends mom used the jarred carrots to make her famous carrot cake.

[steffanie3]

I agree with just don't get it all, I don't know why they don't tell people that is an option. At least they didn't me several years ago now, until I asked. We didn't use the baby cereal, some of the milk (even with the extra cheese option), and lots of the juice. If they still use checks, at that time you could still get some of the items, but not have to get them all on that check, they just get a total amount on the check not what you didn't purchase so they wouldn't reduce it. I also shopped sales, I felt like if I was saving money for the state then someone else could get help too.

[Ianthe]

we are vegan and utah doesnt get soy products, so we skip on milk, eggs and cheese. I have one recipe that is about mostly WIC:

Bean Tacos:
White corn tortillas (whole grain)
Canned bean of choice (if you get canned, cooked dry beans work too)- black, pinto, etc..
veggies: onion, bell pepper, avocado, tomato, etc (fresh fruit/veggie)
cheese (if you eat it)
taco seasoning (about 25¢)

[Ianthe]

Originally Posted by onlygirls

I love these ideas for using the new WIC foods. We have had a lot of positive responses from our clients. When I was on WIC I didn't like the tuna/carrots BF package so I just did't buy them.

I agree, it is a TON of baby food, especially for a BF baby. But if you can use the baby food to make stuff for the whole family, why not? My friends mom used the jarred carrots to make her famous carrot cake.

I guess you could also make baked goods with the applesauce? Sub oil for applesauce. I've never done that with babyfood applesauce, but I'm sure it would work!

[lilyka]

i made a ton of pudding. probably ice cream as well. I always got all the milk just in case we needed it but often ended up spreading the love around to the neighbors.

I often used the peanutbutter and cheerios/rice krispees to make sereal bars. you could always guess which moms were on wic by what they brought for snacks and pot lucks at the LLL meetings if there was ever a pot luck and someone could sign up with drinks I was right there with the juice.

we were on the low milk lots of cheese package so we added cheese to EVERYTHING. same with eggs. man it sucked when they cut us off from our cheesey omletts!

baby cereal can be used to make some good teething biscuits and crackers.

and of course we just stocked up on everything that was shelf stable. it lasted us over a year after we stopped recieving WIC. and what a blessing it was.

before I was on WIC I did daycare and one of my moms paid me in WIC food. not gonna lie, we needed it just as much as she did. it was a nioce way to get paid and helped her diversify her childs diet by having cash to buy something beside milk and cheerios. (there is nothing nutritious about cereal and peanutbutter sandwhiches for every meal!)

[AngelBee]

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[frugalmama]

One more tip I was told - by my WIC clerk!

6 months to a year BEFORE your child goes off WIC ask to be swapped to DRY milk. It's shelf-stable for up to 3 years.

This works great if you are like us - we rarely use milk and have to plan to use it in cooking just to use it up.

[happyhats]

the fruit baby food goes into oatmeal for breakfast-my daughter won't eat it plain.

Baby cereal can be made into a cream of wheat type substitute. I also made a facial scrub, but only because I had an open container dd stopped eating. Just throwing it out there-even on your own dime, it's cheap exfoliation you can get on fs!

Now that the whole grains and fruit/veggies are part of the checks, I think I'm less overwhelmed with milk and juice. I will still make some grape jelly from juice occasionally, and my sister used to get tomato juice to use it in a dump soup. Also, popsicles in the summer are great!

One thing I tend to have a lot of is evaporated milk. I do use it when we run low on milk-which isn't really happening since me and dd are both on wic but my being on it is temporary of course. Its great when you make a big batch of mashed potatoes, etc. And of course fudge at Christmastime, lol. They give us a can of evaporated milk to go with the pound of cheese they allow-for some reason it "makes" a gallon of milk, lol.

[MangoMommy]

WIC is not use or lose. I regularly give back the babyfood checks and still get new ones LOL. You can also just not get the stuff at the store too. Might confuse the cashier (I've had them ask where the meats were when I was using my baby food check, which is 21 veggies/fruit and 11 meats) but they figure it out. They just total it up without it.

My DD just turned 12 months...so we are getting ready to switch from me (as EBF mom) to her (1 yr old)...how does our program change? And can you get whole milk? That is what my ped suggested for her.