how to make "baby food" from "family food"

We're all pretty sick and tire of being sick and tired...But, here's a quick product mention. Though the days of grinding or making baby food are behind me, this is one gadget I think would have been nice to have.In my variuous home visits, I've seen several different kinds of gadgets, from small pink or blue blenders to hand held immersion units to things that looked like a giant garlic presses with plastic mesh.This is the unit that our pediatric nutrtionist Hydee Becker used to grind her family's food when she was doing a combination of finger feeding and spoon feeding.  (See recent post review of book Baby Led Weaning, iron concerns, and Hydee's description of how she fed her little one.) Hydee has put every meat imaginable in here, from ground beef to pork chops. So many parents tell me they worry about protein, and the texture of most meats is so tough that many children won't eat them reliably until they have molars (M was at least 2 before she reliably ate most meats.) For many parents, the protein worry in particular leads to the chicken nuggets that become the staple because it's the only "protein my kid will eat." Here's an alternative.Feeding your baby the same foods you eat is the best way to teach them to learn to like the foods you eat. Prepare your squash, chicken breast, rice, or casserole, or whatever you are eating. Sit at the table together, pull your little one up to the table, put some of your chicken through the grinder (add a little broth or water if it's too dry,) mash up some squash, have a little iron fortified cereal to go with it in the first months and enjoy! (This is not a comprehensive how to feed solids, but a typical way a meal with the older infant might look.)Allow your little one to play with the food, touch it, lick it, spit it out, put it in their hair. Help her pull the spoon to her open mouth, or skip the spoon altogether. This little gadget can help introduce the variety of flavors she will be eating growing up.What are your favorite feeding gadgets?