Pumpkin Apple

With Fall in full swing my family is getting geared up for pumpkin season! We love everything pumpkin! Pumpkin pancakes pumpkin muffins, pumpkin eggnog, pumpkin ice cream, just straight pureed pumpkin! It gets a bit pumpkin-y around here in the fall. I wanted share this with our new little one. 

Now you have the option of pureeing your own pumpkin, which would follow the same directions as my Butternut Squash recipe. Or you can take advantage of the low cost canned variety. It's already precooked and has had all the work done for you. We buy LOTS of cans of pumpkin and go for the organic-nothing added-stuff. So you want the can that has nothing additional added. 

After giving her the first tastes of pumpkin (which were a big hit!) I decided it would be fun to start giving her flavor combos. Aside from purees on toast or mixed in plain oatmeal there hasn't been a lot of combos in her world. So I made this! We buy unsweetened applesauce a lot so this saves me a lot of work too! But if you want you can make applesauce yourself on the stove or in a crockpot! 

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Pumpkin Apple Baby Food

1 serving

1 1/2 TBSP Pumpkin Puree

1 1/2 TBSP Unsweetened Applesauce 

Sprinkle of Cinnamon 

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That's it! Super simple. If you do it yourself in a large batch this is what I would consider a Level 1 serving of baby food. You can of course make big batches and put them into containers to save, freeze them in ice cube trays, or whatever system you have in place for keeping your baby food! I love the glass jars and since most people use commercial baby food you can typically get your friends to give you their empty jars! If not they are available for sale on Amazon. Keep in mind that unless you know how to vacuum seal them, the ones in the jars should be kept in the fridge and are good for a few days. So I would recommend freezing in cube trays whatever you're not going to use within the next few days. 

Happy Eating! 

Feeding Clarissa (Almost 7 months old)

When faced with the choices in how to feed our new little one I was doing a lot of research. With my first I had followed all the guidelines with purees, rice cereals to start, and all of that. I was hypervigilent. This time I was feeling more relaxed and was very interested in Baby Led Weaning. Ultimately, we ended up going with a mix of purees and finger foods. I was corrected when saying that I was doing a combo of BLW and Purees (apparently you can't do that). So I'm making purees and offering finger foods. 

Here's what she's had so far: 

• Avocado Slices (this was her first food) 
• Avocado Puree (she loves it on toast -- I simply tossed it in the baby bullet and used formula to thin to desired consistency) 
• Applesauce (Unsweetened, with cinnamon. We buy the organic unsweetened, no gunk added, stuff for Monkey so I just scooped 2-3TBSP out of the big jar we have.) 
• Toast Sticks (with pureed peach. We didn't want her getting the extra sugar from jelly or jam. So we just pureed some fresh fruit for her toast) 
• Butternut Squash
• Whole Slices of Peach
• String Cheese (she mostly sucked on it, but seemed really interested when I was packing Monkey's Lunches and was the appropriate size to hold, so I let her try it)
• Banana (Both whole and pureed) 
• Pancake Pieces
• Smashed Blueberries
• Baked Potato (no skin, plain)
• Steamed Cauliflower
• Steamed Broccoli
• Apple Slices (She didn't get anything off it, but loved chewing it. I think it felt good on her gums)
• Pureed Peas
• Pureed Pumpkin w/ Cinnamon
• Pureed Pumpkin Apple w/ Cinnamon
• Oatmeal w/ Pureed Banana (She LOVED this. I gave her half the banana whole, and pureed the other half and mixed it with some old fashioned oats I had milled down). 
• Oatmeal w/ Applesauce (Just mix a tablespoon or so into your plain old fashioned oats)

So that's where we are at! Clarissa will be seven months on October 6th (just 8 days away!) and we're doing great with food. So far we're keeping her primarily with fruits and veggies. 

Upcoming food?

• Eggs (Hard boiled yolks and scrambled) 
• Plain yogurt (eventually with fruit/veggie purees mixed in)
• Steamed Carrots 

Butternut Squash

Clarissa is now 5 1/2 months and sitting up fairly well with limited assistance. She's also continuously trying to steal our foods from plates, bowls, forks, and even our mouths. We figured it was time to let her start having her own baby foods. Especially since she was getting hungrier and hungrier these days.

Her first food was technically Avocado. Super easy to puree and she loved it. We didn't move on much from there but while doing our grocery shopping this month I decided that we could give a butternut squash a go!

From start to finish the process took about 30-45 minutes. This includes cutting, peeling, boiling, portioning, etc..Not bad in my book!

Stage 1 Butternut Squash
1 Butternut Squash (about 1 lb) -- Mine was 1.28lbs.
4 oz of Formula for thinning and to help the blender puree the squash (you can use breast milk or water. Whichever you prefer).

1. Peel and cut the squash into cubes that are roughly the same size
2. Steam 10-12 minutes. (I poked with a fork an when it easily slid in I knew they were ready).
3. Let cool a bit
4. Add squash to the blender (I use a baby bullet) and use formula as needed to thin and blend.
5. Then portion and freeze

:)

Clarissa gobbled it down! We didn't even lose any baby food to the face or clothes. Butternut Squash was a hit! So that'll be the only baby food we give her until I run out of the portions. Speaking of portions, I would love to give you the cost break down I did out of my own curiousity.


PRICE COMPARISON

3.92 gets me a 4-pack of stage one squash from Gerber at my local store (with Monkey I bought all store bought purees) these packages are each 2 oz servings.

3.76 got me 1 butternut squash that weighed 1.28lbs. I made 23 (1oz) servings of baby food.


I didn't feel like starting out she really needed a full 2 oz serving. She gets the 1oz and then a 4oz bottle instead of a 6-8oz bottle. This seems to fill her up nicely. I can easily add more baby food later, but once you've contaminated the 2oz you can't really do much.

If I were to package it in 2oz portions (like the store bought) I would have gotten about 11-12 servings. So for about the same price I got about 3x the baby food!! 

It blew my mind.

Happy Eating!