New Mom: Making homemade baby food and loving it

I always said I'd never worry about making my own baby food. That the stuff at the store was just fine. No need to trouble with it. Then, I had a baby.

Posted 7:33 p.m. Dec 11, 2010 — Updated 7:33 p.m. Dec 11, 2010

Kira Kroboth

I always said I'd never worry about making my own baby food. That the stuff at the store was just fine. No need to trouble with it.

Then, I had a baby.

Then, feeding him was an adventure. A fun one. I wanted to test his tastes. Experiment. And Asher became obsessed with the organic, 'good' stuff.

Here's how it started. I sent my mom to Babies R Us for some Ella's Kitchen organic food. I mean, come on people. Look at that packaging. Don't you want to eat it, too? Anyways, it was on sale and I wanted to see if Asher reacted differently.

And, oh he did. He went from 'eh, this is whatever' to 'put that in my mouth now. all of it. pleeeeease' like a little birdie. And thus began our break up with Gerber and Beech Nut and all other things Asher coined 'dull' and 'not yummy.' Also known as cheaper items on the baby food market.

We are now shoppers of Ella's Kitchen (which is available at Target now!) and Earth's Best. I've also had much more luck with stage 2's versus the 1's.

Along the way I decided I wanted to give my smoothie maker a whirl at baby fooding. I started with green beans (fresh) and carrots (frozen). Asher loved them! Then, I moved on to butternut squash (fresh). Big score! I compared the flavor of these to those from the baby food aisle. Much. Better.

Then, I got fancy. My favorite recipe to date is acorn squash and apple cinnamon bake. (Rusty was ready to dive into those when they came out of the oven.) I also added some garlic powder to my next batch of string beans (frozen) and cinnamon to baked carrots (frozen). I've combined green beans, squash, zucchini, potatoes and carrots into a summer veggie mix. (That tasted really good but the consistency when reheating was rather odd.)

All winners in Asher's book. I got the recipes from wholesomebabyfood.com. And, I've stored each item in ice cube portions in the freezer. I felt like quite the proud mama offering Asher green beans, carrots and butternut squash tonight. And he ate all of it.

Yay for baby food adventures!

Baby's Acorn Squash & Apple Bake

6-8 months+

1 acorn squash

2 or 3 Macintosh apples (I used some other unknown tasty variety and it was fine.)

Pinch of cinnamon

1. Peel and dice apples.

2. Cut acorn or butternut squash in half, scoop out seeds.

3. Place halves face up in a pan and add with an inch of water to the pan.

4. Place diced apples in the squash "holes" where the seeds were. Sprinkle with cinnamon if desired.

5. Pour water over the apples so that there is water in the squash holes - cover pan with tinfoil.

6. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 40 minutes or until the “shell/skin” puckers and halves feel soft then scoop squash “meat” and apples out of the shell.

4. Puree as needed, adding water to thin if required. You may also chop or dice and serve as a finger food meal.

Kira is the Raleigh mom to seven-month-old Asher. Find her on her blog Grits, Grins and Gripes.

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