Butternut Squash Baby Food

[Gardening with Rabbits]

The squash ripened. I sent 4 home with DD and she is going to cook them in the morning. I cooked 2 tonight to see how this will work. I started around 4:30 and, with cutting, cooking, getting jars ready, blending, cleaning up, I was done around 7:30, but I had a little stop when I went to vote, only a couple of blocks away. I have 12 8 oz. jars but I put only about 6 oz. in each and going to freeze. DD can add other things like pears. I see butternut squash/pears in the store . I never liked winter squash, but I tasted both of these and very sweet good taste. Only problem, I do not have room to grow this really, unless I put a box somewhere outside of the garden. They took over the garden. Lots to think about. I have 5 squash and DD 4, and she is bringing over here after cooking tomorrow. I got 12 jars out of 2, so 9 squash x about 6 jars each, so about 54 more jars, plus the 12, 66 jars of baby food. Not sure how many a baby eats a day or month. I guess it would be smart to blend food they are cooking for themselves for supper when possible and things I do not grow, just buy a few and maybe make food for a month?

 

[ninnymary]

I plan to grow my Honeynut butternut squash on a trellis next year because I too don't have room for it. We'll see how it does but I think it will be fine.

I love those jars. What kind are they? Did they come with those lids are did you buy them separently?

Mary

 

[digitS']

As a baby, my DD liked:

• winter squash
• sweet potatoes
• carrots

I had to wonder if color played a role.

Steve

 

[thistlebloom]

Those are also all sweet vegetables.
My kids preferred the sweet ones to the green ones too. You couldn't disguise green beans for Kid#1.
He still doesn't like them, and he has expanded his palate tremendously, he eats vegetables that I won't.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

I love those jars. What kind are they? Did they come with those lids are did you buy them separently?

Mary

A friend of DD's gave her some and I liked them too and needed more and went to Walmart to get jars and they had the same ones. You can see the box in the picture, Anchor Hocking. I was worried the first ones were not canning jars, but the lady said they were, so I was glad to see them in the store to know for sure. They came with new rings and flats, but I will save those for making jelly or applesauce and canning. I bought the lids at Walmart. They come in sack of 8 for $2 something. We ended up with 51 jars from 10 butternut squash and I am keeping one to eat and I have 2 Thelma squash left to try and see if I want to grow again.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

Those are also all sweet vegetables.
My kids preferred the sweet ones to the green ones too. You couldn't disguise green beans for Kid#1.
He still doesn't like them, and he has expanded his palate tremendously, he eats vegetables that I won't.

My 2 kids love green beans. DD just took a gallon sack home. She had a dinner for friends the other day and I got a message from this girl wanting to come pick green beans and buy. I said the garden is done for the winter and never enough green beans for this family to ever sell them. I hope the baby likes them.

 

[digitS']

My two favorite vegetables: green beans and baby beets.

DD didn't like anything green. She is much better about that now that she is out of her twenties .

DW has her preference on bean varieties and objects to the purple of beets ..! Fortunately, she has become okay with preparing even these foods and no longer objects to beet juice on the plates .

Babied Stevie

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

DS likes green beans and peas. He kind of likes collards and kale. He will eat carrots and he just started liking broccoli and kind of maybe sweet potatoes. I like beets and asparagus and nobody else does. I like sauerkraut and coleslaw and DD does too, but the one thing I can serve everybody likes is green beans and apparently now broccoli.

 

[Nyboy]

I love broccoli as a kid my mother made it swimming in either butter or cheese. I found there is no middle ground with broccoli people love it or hate it

 

[digitS']

Yes. We buy more broccoli through the winter months than any other vegetable. It's an easy transition from all the spring and summer greens. I have always been very willing to eat it raw. DW seems to think that this is a little barbaric but otherwise, has no broccoli prejudice.

Broccoli is not easy for me to have over a long harvest period. A somewhat late start and HEAT messed up the early summer harvest this year. Some of the tiniest plants bolted -- I pruned off those buds and left the plants.

It didn't work very well. The plants grew large but the buds were so random that it was difficult to stay up with them.

It's funny that the better late broccoli experiences were when rabbits pruned off the leaves in the spring. The plants hadn't had time to make much growth, at all. Those plants, and this has happened more than once, all went through a normal growth cycle, albeit, suppressed by midsummer HEAT.

Aphids, cabbage caterpillars, rabbits, etc. will also conspire against me as a broccoli gardener. Gailon (Chinese broccoli) isn't quite a good substitute because of the same vulnerabilities. However, it's quicker. In itself, that trait helps.

It's easier for me to have to have choy sum and easier yet to recognize that bok choy is tender and tasty in its flowering stage. Winter broccoli awaits me on the produce aisle anyway.

Steve
a stalwart on growing broccoli