You Can Call Me Martha...

As many of you know we recently started Max on some solid foods. Of course the basic rice and oatmeal cereal, which he does wonderful with and just this past week or so we started on some squash. I bought a couple of little packets of Gerber food because I wanted to see how he would do with it first before I broke the bank on food.

Then one of the Mom's from The Little Yellow Duck Club (that is the Mom's Group I go to) suggested that I make my own. I was of course immediately intimidated by this because I am not the worlds greatest cook. Learning but nowhere near great. But she tells me that it's super easy and there is this great website called WholesomeBabyFood.com and it tells you exactly how to make food, what to mix together, what babies can and cannot have in each stage. In the back of my mind I was like yeah it sounds great and easy but really me...I just don't know. But curiosity got the better of me and I took a look at the site. It was fantastic!

It had all kinds of information, different products, suggestions for food, etc. Soooo.....I went to the grocery store yesterday grabbed a couple butternut squash and headed home to whip up some homemade baby food. First I put a call into my cooking guru a.k.a my Mom. One because she knows how to make everything and two because I don't know how to make anything, especially squash. Which I happen to like but have never made....go figure! After getting a few key points on how to bake and or steam the squash I am actually excited to try this homemade thing.

I decided that I would bake this first batch just because it seemed a little less daunting than trying to steam it. I set the oven for 375', cut up the squash, tossed them in the oven for about 35-40 minutes an wallah they were ready to puree. And boy did my house smell yummy! Karl came home and asked if that was what we were having for dinner. I told him no - it was for Max...he looked a little disappointed and then realized what it was and said he didn't like squash anyway.

Next I scooped out all the yummy smelling goodness out and dumped it all in my handy-dandy blender and pureed away. Added a touch of water just to get the right texture and wallah I had a bowl full of homemade, ready to eat, no preservatives, full of nutrients, good food for Max. I divided it up into some little freezer bags that I have and tossed it in the freezer. Now for those of you out there that don't know about baby food let me give you the rundown. Gerber sells baby food in packets of 2 2.5 oz containers. They typically run anywhere from .89 to about .95 depending on where you shop. Max can eat 1 container in one day. Some for lunch and the rest for dinner....soooo that is 5 for the week, equalling 12.5 ozs and costing anywhere from $4.50 to $5.00 again depending on where you go. I spent $2.74 on 2 squash and made 15 ozs. Hmmm what should I do....spend more money on food that might not be great or spend less money and know exactly what he is eating. A no brainer! GO ME!