Squish the Squash and Some IG Love

So here’s the deal.

I love being able to feed my babes their first baby food purees. Seriously, love. It’s a milestone I very much looked forward to reaching with Lilly and now with Gracie Bean. Grace and I are taking it very slow as she is a little bit different at seven months, developmentally, than Lilly was even at five months which is totally cool with me. None the less, it is still so exciting to see how she reacts to different tastes and textures. (Not to mention I’m pretty sure she’s sleeping through the night now because her little belly is full of a few more satisfying calories- double YES!)

I can’t lie, it’s also pretty nice to extend the periods of time I am able to go without having to nurse my little barnacle- breastfeeding Momma’s know what I’m talking about. I could theoretically leave Grace for more than 3 hours now without fear of impending, mommy induced, starvation. Hooray!

With Lilly, I was so excited to see Gerber’s plastic (BPA free) baby food containers. They were so convenient with no risk of spilling, and left me with the perfect little lidded snack containers to pop into my bag for Lilly’s cheerios and puffs and other finger food snacks. I made a few homemade baby food purees but never really got into that (I think I was still adjusting to having one baby haha).

This time around, I am obsessed with finding the tiny glass baby food jars (sometimes I can find stage 1 Earth’s Best organic baby food in glass jars) because i want to save the jars for an art project I’m dying to do with my littles. Unfortunately they are a little harder to come by in stage 1’s… not sure why. But anyway. And, yes, it does seem like I’ve finally adjusted to having a baby- ha!

I’m also so inspired to start making some of my own purees for Grace! One of her therapists and I think she may have some tummy-troubles goin’ on and I really wanted to make her some baby food with fresh ginger added in. There is no medical evidence to prove to me that this could work- but ginger settles stomaches so I’m gonna go with it. Plus I’d like to introduce her to some more exotic flavors earlier on than we did with Lilly. We had a hard time getting Lilly to eat some of the foods we put in front of her, but once we let her try things with GARLIC, OREGANO, HOT SAUCE, PEPPER and various other herb/spice combinations- the kid likes everything! Duh.

Insert fabulous cookbook. My (only older) brother, Eric, got me this great book for Christmas a few years ago that I am in love with.

Beyond the early baby food “recipes” (if you can even call them that) it has some great first recipe ideas in it (think meal ideas for the older baby) and is a great resource for how exactly to go about preparing the foods I want to puree. I know the gist of it all- but being able to look up the oven temp and cooking time for certain veggies is pretty convenient. And above all else- the book is just a beautiful addition to my cookbook ~~obsession~~ collection.

Based on the (snail pace) speed that Grace is learning to eat, I think I’ll be able to try a whole lot of homemade baby food recipes while she’s learning all bout eating from a spoon. Most of it ends up on her little bibby or smeared all over her helmet (poor kid) but that’s ok- she’s learning.

If you want to give the homemade babyfood thing a try, my only real advice to you is this: get yourself an immersion (or stick) blender. It’s the easiest and most convenient way to puree baby food and is also a space saving, handy kitchen tool for soups and smoothies. But the best part? It’s about $20.00 which is a hellofalot better than the $300+ you could spend on a baby-specific processing machine that will be used for all of 9 months.

Slice your beautiful squash in half lengthwise.

Gather your recipe, ice cube trays, and baking dish all together. Add an inch of water to the dish and flip your squash upside down. Bake at 375 for 1 hour.

Recipe says to discard water after you have finished roasting the squash but I STRAIN IT and use it to water down the puree to a consistency perfect for Grace. It probably absorbed some kind of nutrient value from the squash itself during roasting so I figured I better use it.

Scoop out all of the seeds and stringy parts and discard. Gently scoop out the remaining flesh (it should be extremely soft) and toss it all in a big bowl. Grab that handy stick blender and give it a whirl.

This is why a stick blender is so awesome- it just rinses clean! At this point I added a little bit of fresh grated ginger and some nutmeg (like a pinch or two).

That’s all there is to it! Pour the puree into the ice cube trays, freeze, then transfer to ziplock freezer bags. Give it a date and store it in your freezer. To thaw, just remove a few cubes and let them thaw in the fridge OR pop a cube into a microwave safe bowl and microwave for a few minutes to defrost. (Please don’t burn your little beans mouth, test this first with your own mouth and make sure it’s not hot!)

Just to be clear, there is nothing wrong with store bought baby food and I’ve read articles about how perfectly made/sterilized this baby food is. It’s apparently cheaper, too, than making your own (though I may beg to differ on that one). Legally, the only ingredients in it can be the food item itself and sterilized water (usually the fruit or veggie is organic too). Hence no hesitation from me in buying, using, and feeding this to my daughters.

But sometimes it’s just more fun to make homemade. Especially when your green-thumb Aunt Linda supplies you with free, fresh from the garden squash. Right? Who’s with me? Anyone have any fun baby food recipes I should try?

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And because I have an instagram addiction…