Squash and more squash

I missed blogging yesterday since my mom was visiting (I will write about that in the next post) so I'm trying to catch up now.

First of all I've been trying to add some new foods to our diets. I enjoy cooking and we usually eat fairly healthy around here (well hubby and the kids do, I do have to watch myself on skipping meals), but recently our menu has gotten into a routine and I haven't tried as many new things as I have in the months past. So while at the store the other night I saw a couple nice looking squash. One was butternut (which I've used before but it's been awhile) and the other was spaghetti squash (I had no clue what this meant but figured it looked good).

Now I wouldn't normally recommend buying foods without a recipe in mind but this time it did work out well. My ICAN ladies gave me lots of suggestions what to make. I also learned that spaghetti squash actually looks like spaghetti when cooked! And it can be used as a healthy alternative for pasta.

So yesterday I used this simple recipe for the Spaghetti squash from one friend (the link takes you to her blog post of it and we left out the olives too) and then this whole foods Butternut Squash Soup recipe from Whole foods, shared by another friend. We ate the Spaghetti squash for dinner last night and had the Squash soup today (so the flavors could "marry" overnight.

The spaghetti squash looked odd and hubby made a few comments and was completely amazed it was squash when I was making it, but come dinner time even he wanted seconds. This has become a favorite in our house now. The kids were even asking for thirds and it was a tough call between that and dessert! And I felt awesome knowing it's so good for us. I can't wait to make it again and use it in other recipes.

The squash soup turned out great too and gave me an excuse to use my new immersion blender I got for Christmas (which I love). It was hearty and the right combination or salty and sweet. And it was perfect in this chilly weather.

Next cooking adventure planned is going to involve pumpkins and making something NOT sweet from them. I loved the pumpkin muffins and pies etc. from last month but definitely excited about trying something new. Also making all these squash varieties (yes pumpkin is technically a squash too) has gotten me excited about E trying real food in a couple months (or more depending on her). As I've mentioned before we're going to wait to 6 months on giving her anything other than breast milk and we are currently researching possibly doing baby led food introduction. The spaghetti squash and butternut soup would fit perfectly into this plan when the time comes. I wish I'd heard about all this with C and J but am glad they're both such good eaters now and so excited about new foods as well (hopefully knock on wood this will continue).

C and J also love to cook (as they showed with Ami today) so maybe I can have them help me making dinner in the future weeks (my babies are getting so big).

I'll try and keep the blog updated as we go on more new food adventures in the weeks and months to come