Squishy, Squashy!

Hold on to your butts!  We're about to embark upon our most exciting blog post yet!  Today I began my foray into the world of homemade baby food and prepared (successfully, if I do say so myself) homemade squash.  I used a pretty simple recipe from Wholesome Baby Food that called for me to split the squash, scoop out their guts, bake, and puree.  Simple doesn't even begin to describe this process.

Split...

Scoop...

and Bake!

Despite my fears of having pureed squash all over the kitchen ceiling, things went pretty well.  Mina interrupted the process a couple times by (1) making squash of her own and then (2) refusing to go down for a nap (Mommy won that battle!), but even with a couple stumbles, it only took me about an hour and fifteen minutes start to finish.  Mind you, that includes about 25 minutes of baking.  Not bad, not bad at all.

Some lessons I learned:

1. There are many, many different kinds of squash.  The long, yellow ones seen here are banana squash, and while my experience tells me they puree nicely and make something very similar (if not a little sweeter) to what Gerber sells, I guess this is not the "ideal" type of squash to use when making baby food.  Next time, I'll try the acorn or butternut variety as they've been heralded as having excellent flavor, and my guess is they will also yield a higher ratio of usable food (i.e. have less waste and, therefore, be more economical).  
2. A pound and a half of raw produce does not equal anything even remotely close to a pound and a half of baby food.  I knew there would be waste, but I had no idea how much waste there would be.  I was thinking I'd get somewhere around seven 2 oz. servings, but, alas, I only ended up with three.  So basically, my $1.49 worth of fresh squash yielded three servings, which would have cost $1.49.  Add the time and energy spent to make the squash, and I'm actually losing money on this one.  Eep!  My hope is that Mina will devour this homemade stuff and provide some vindication for the effort here.  Next time, I'll definitely make a bigger batch.
3. Know when to tell when squash is done baking.  The recipe called for me to bake the squash 40 minutes, but I was also using squash that is not as meaty as the squash this recipe called for.  I accounted for that, but when I peeked in the oven after 25 minutes, I was probably met with overcooked squash.  Does it really matter?  Well, maybe.  The edges were turning brown, and when I scooped them out, I did have a little trouble getting the squash around the rim.  If I'd cooked these any longer, my guess is they would have dried out a lot more and made the process of scooping them out pretty tedious.  
4. Even homemade squash tastes like wet toilet paper.  The fact that my daughter loves squash proves she was switched at birth.  Still, she's pretty awesome.

No clue on how Mina will receive this stuff.  She's in the middle of being introduced to sweet potatoes now, so she won't be able to try this until Sunday.  I'll be sure to update once she tries it.

Next up:  Bananas!