I am dedicated to holding tight to my commitment of staying positive.  But every once in a while I have to vent and let you know about some of my pet peeves.  I’m not judging so please don’t be offended, but I just don’t get the mass consumption of prepackaged baby food; squeeze tubes and jars included.  I’m not going to lie; I did buy some of those jars in the beginning just because “that’s what you did”.  But for a variety of reasons, I changed my ways.  Being a full-time work outside the home mom of three children, I managed to pull off not buying pre-made baby food and I’d like to think that this somehow helped my children have healthy bodies, learn the importance of eating as a family and not to be picky eaters.

Let me start by sharing my story about how I turned my son orange.  Yep, I turned him orange.  My son was born hungry.  In fact all three of my children weighed in at 8lbs, 15 oz. at birth.  I’ve decided that our son’s love of food in bulk came from his father’s side. (More on that later.)  When the pediatrician said that it was time to start him on yellow veggies, I marched off to the grocery store and bought a few of those tiny jars of yellow squash.  They were expensive.  Money was tight, but you have to feed your babies!  I quickly ran through my head some ideas of what my husband and I could cut back on so we could afford these little jars.  I even put a few things from my cart back on the grocery shelves so I could buy those jars.

Before I put that first spoonful of squash in his mouth, I braced myself for the funny faces he would make.  One scoop in and it didn’t seem to phase him!  It was like no big deal; no funny faces, nothing.  He just wanted more.  Very quickly he finished off those little jars and wanted even more.  Since he was still hungry, I fed him some more cereal until I could get back to the store, but not before revisiting our grocery budget.  We were going to have to give up something so we could feed our boy.  This time when I picked up those jars, I paused and decided to read the labels.  My number one reason was that I noticed that the unit prices for the larger jars were significantly lower than those little jars.  Then I saw the ingredients.  I had no clue what half of that stuff was, but there weren’t any other options in my mind for feeding our baby.  The commercials on TV said that it was the wholesome thing to do.  Since the large jars had the same ingredients as the small jars, I bought a bunch of the larger ones to save money.  I also threw in a few of the large jars of carrots too.  I was a bit peeved because I just discovered that since the ingredients of the small “first stage” and large “second stage” jars were the same, this was just a marketing ploy by the manufacturer to persuade parents into thinking that they should only buy the small jars for the younger children.  But back to my orange son.  He ate the squash and carrots without complaining, enjoying every spoonful.  My boy was eating his yellow veggies like a champ!

Then came checkup time with the pediatrician.  The doctor walked into the room and said, “You know your son is orange don’t you?”  What?!  I hadn’t noticed that gradually his skin was literally turning orange because of all the carotene he had been eating.  Oh my gosh!  I felt like such a bad mother!  The doctor laughed at me and then gave me the stamp of approval to start introducing green veggies.  “Let’s see if we can get his color back to normal.”  However, this time I was determined to do things differently.  The cost of this baby food was expensive and I knew that if this boy was going to be an eater, I had to find a better way to feed him without going broke.  So here was my solution; when hubby and I sat down for dinner, our dear son was always right beside us having his dinner too.  If we had green beans, our son had green beans.  I would put the cooked veggies that we ere eating in a little electric food chopper I had, added a bit of water and there I had it; instant healthy veggies for my son without all the added crap and a huge savings to boot!  When our son graduated to other foods, I did the same thing.  Meatloaf, chicken, fruits, etc…right into my mini food chopper with a bit of water.  On weekends, I would prepare some of his baby food in batches and freeze portions into ice cube trays.  Once frozen, I’d pop them into labeled freezer bags for later.  If we traveled, went out for dinner, or if I was pressed for time, his meals were ready to go.  We saved tons of money, I knew exactly what he was eating and it was so easy!

I repeated this with our girls.  If I could do this being a full-time outside of the home working mom of three, you can too!  It started teaching my children from an early age that Mom is not a short order cook.  I simply did not have the time to cook multiple dinners each night and it certainly wasn’t a habit I wanted to start.  You eat what we are having.  I never forced my kids to eat something they didn’t like.  If they didn’t like something served, they just ate more of something else.  There were rarely food issues or tears at the table.  For the most part, we enjoyed peaceful dinners together each and every night.  I was saving tons of money and it certainly was a healthier option.

If there are any young moms out there, please try it and let me know how it goes.  It was many moons ago when I did this, so I may have missed a few tricks.  My mini food chopper is long since gone, but a few years back I invested in a Ninja and love it.  More posts coming on how I use my Ninja so stay tuned!

Our son is all grown up now and celebrating a birthday this month.  He’s married to a beautiful girl that we all adore and will be blessing us with our first grand baby in June.  But I must tell you; to this day Squash Soup is one of his favorites…even after all that or maybe in spite of the carotene overload.  I don’t know.  Either way, it’s healthy and definitely family approved.

Help Us Be Nice, Amen!

Squash Soup

1 Butternut squash
1-2 Tb butter
1 garlic clove, minced
1 onion, chopped
4 cups chicken broth
2 tsp dried rosemary
1/2 cup cream, half n half, milk or evaporated milk
salt and pepper

Peel squash, remove seeds and cut into cubes. You may also be able to purchase pre-cut squash in the produce section of your market or find packages in the frozen section. Add squash to about 4 cups of salted boiling water. Keep at a slight boil until squash is fork tender. Drain out most of the water. In a large soup pot, melt butter. Add onion and garlic. Saute until onions are translucent. Add chicken broth, rosemary and cooked squash with a bit of the squash water. Heat through, about 15 minutes. Use an emersion blender or potato masher until soup is smooth. Add cream and stir. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with crusty bread or croutons. Serves 4.

Warning: eating too much will make your skin turn orange (ha).