Acorn Squash

Looks yummy right?  Acorn squash are actually a pretty bland food sometimes.  They can be found almost year round at the grocery store though!  When I eat them I like to bakethem with cinnamon and eat it, but for baby, we'll do it a little differently.

First, cut the acorn squash in half and then spoon out the seeds.  This is really easy, unlike pumpkins where it takes forever!

Voila! 

Nice cleaned out squash half!

Now, it's summer.  I don't want to turn on my oven and heat up my house if I don't have to.  So I'm going to use the microwave method.  Just put a little bit of water (like 2 tbspns) into each half and set them on a microwavable dish.

Microwave on high for 10 minutes.  Let stand in microwave for 5 minutes.  The squash will be really hot and you have to touch them for the next step so don't rush the 5 minute wait or you'll be sorry. (I'm speaking from experience.  My poor fingers!)

Spoon the guts out of each acorn squash half.  It should come out really easily with a spoon.  Think of it like scooping the fruit out of an avocado.  You should be able to get right down to the skin.  You can scoop this directly into the blender!

Now, add 1/2 cup of water ot the squash and puree!  Acorn squash comes out close to the consistancy of apple sauce instead of a paste like other baby foods tend to.  Now, you can pour into your ice cube trays, freeze, and store!

Tip:  If you are making two baby foods and don't have enough trays to freeze them all, you can often just pour the food into a container and put it in the fridge.  When you remove one food from the trays, you can freeze what you stored in the fridge.  Note that some foods change colors to an icky brown color if they are not frozen immediately so think about that when chosing which one to freeze first!