I mentioned in an earlier blog that I decided to make my own baby food. Mia is 5 months old now so I decided to make my first round of purees and freeze it until she's ready in a month or so. I decided on Butternut Squash because it's super good for you and it's yummy. 

I bought a butternut squash in the produce section at Trigs for under $2. I knew that I'd be saving money by making my own baby food and it ended up saving me around $6 or $7 over the store bought purees. One squash made 11 1/2 servings!

It was pretty easy so totally worth the savings. All I did was cut the butternut squash into four chunks with the skin on it. I scooped the seeds out with a spoon then placed the four pieces meat side down into a baking pan with enough water to cover the bottom. I baked it for 45 at 375 degrees. When it was done I let it cool for about 15 minutes meat side up. When it was cool I simply scooped the meat out of the skin into the blender.

Once all the squash was scooped into the blender I added water 1/4 cup at a time pureeing in between until it was smooth and to the consistency I wanted.

Obviously since this will be one of Mia's first meals I wanted to make sure that it was nice and smooth. 

Once it's time to feed this to her I may add a little formula or breastmilk to it to thin it out even more and to add a familiar flavor to it for her. 

I didn't make it quite thin enough for it to pour easily out of the blender. I needed to use a spoon to scrape it out into my freezer container. It was about the consistency of yogurt.

I found this container at Walmart, the cubes are perfect
2oz serving sizes and it has a lid which prevents freezer burn. After the food freezes solid (overnight) simply pop the cubes out and store them in freezer safe ziplock bags, label and date them. When you're ready to use it take out the cubes to equal the servings you want put them in a bowl and thaw them in the refigerator.

The frozen portions are good for 3-4 months. You should use fresh fruits and vegetables. If you can't use fresh then use frozen because they are flash frozen minutes after picking so they're as close to fresh as you can buy without going to the farmer's market.

So easy! I'm going to make avacado puree tonight for Mia's first fruit.