When a friend suggested that I make my son's baby food, she might as well have suggested that I shear a few sheep, process the wool and knit him a bunting.

In hindsight, her timing was all wrong. My firstborn was a few weeks old, and my sleep-deprived brain distorted the magnitude of those kinds of child-rearing decisions.

Nonetheless, making baby food, with its steaming, blending and freezing, seemed complicated and time-consuming. It had to be easier to buy a few jars from the store.

		Take a class Sandra Woncheck will conduct a baby suppers cooking demonstration from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. March 15 at Crate, 1960 Greentree Road, Scott (412-341-5700). Cost is $35. She also will give a free noncooking class from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, March 29 at Whole Foods in East Liberty (412-441-7960, ext. 215). And she'll teach Baby Suppers classes at Magee-Womens Hospital, Oakland, as part of its "Life with Baby" series of five weekly classes. One series started March 6; the next starts May 8 ($40; register at 412-802-8299 or at www.magee.upmc.com).

But five months later, once I had strung five hours of sleep together on a regular basis, I gave this baby-food-making idea another thought. I did have a food processor that didn't see much action, I thought, so why not try to make a batch of sweet potatoes?

But my foray into infant fare was a boring tour of runny peas and apples. I played it safe with generic fruit and vegetable blends, never even daring to mix two fruits together.

Little did I know, I was cheating my son out of a great culinary experience.

The way Sandra Woncheck sees it, you shouldn't be deprived the pleasure of eating organic ingredients, including herbs and spices, just because you don't yet have teeth. The marketing executive-turned-baby food connoisseur is teaching parents how to make baby food with a kick -- whether it's from a pinch of dill, a bit of cinnamon or a dash of ginger.

The Fox Chapel woman recently launched Baby Suppers (babysuppers.com), a business that offers cooking classes, in-home consultations and personal chef services to new parents or parents-to-be.

Her recipes and advice come from her own experiences. She decided to make her now-10-year-old daughter's baby food after she estimated that many jarred foods had been processed before her baby was born.

"The heating process depletes the nutritional value of the ingredients in jarred food. They use thickeners, like tapioca, that are really unnecessary," she said.

As a longtime member of an organic food cooperative, she used the freshest ingredients and ditched salt and sugar until her daughter was 2. She also isn't afraid to add ingredients that aren't typically found in homemade or jarred foods, such as yogurt, curry and fennel.

But tasting is believing. She persuades skeptics to have a bite of jarred sweet potatoes before trying her homemade batch. The store-bought food has a tangy aftertaste, while Mrs. Woncheck's food is smooth and sweet with a subtle zing, thanks to the ginger she adds.

She believes her approach to baby food will produce less-picky eaters and more expanded palates. Her daughter was eating steamed mussels by the time she was in preschool.

But talk of organic produce and adventurous spices shouldn't intimidate new parents and prevent them from giving homemade food a try. Most seasoned baby chefs will tell you that the basic approach to making infant cuisine is easy.

A class in baby food basics would be helpful, but advice from other mothers and a few good cookbooks can kick-start most puree productions. An online browse turned up dozens of baby and toddler cookbooks.

Reference materials have different views on when to introduce infants to solid foods -- although many settle on the 4- to 6-month age range -- so parents should consult their pediatricians before their babies' first meals. Parents should also talk to their doctor about foods to avoid because of their babies' development, allergies or other special dietary needs.

Most cookbooks agree on a basic approach to making baby food. Fruits, vegetables and meats should be washed before they're steamed in a multilayer steamer pot or a steamer basket placed inside a lidded pot. The food should not touch the water and the pot's lid should tightly fit in order to retain as much of the nutrients as possible.

Some kiddie cooks prefer food mills, while others like to use blenders or food processors, but they all use their equipment to puree the fruits, veggies and meat, using reserved cooking liquid to adjust the batch's consistency. The general consensus is it's best to introduce novices to finely pureed foods.

Most baby food recipes make large batches, so many how-to guides suggest distributing the leftovers into an ice cube tray and freezing it. The cubes can be bagged and stored in the freezer for up to three months.

A modest time and cash investment can produce at least a week's worth of meals. Mrs. Woncheck recently bought $34 worth of organic ingredients and spent two to three hours in the kitchen. The result was 34 containers of steamed chicken, fish, carrots, peas, figs and sweet potatoes. Jarred baby foods can cost 75 cents to $1 each.

Most new chefs will encounter their share of defeats. It's pretty disappointing to make a large batch of peach or pea puree, only to discover that the baby doesn't care for it. On the bright side, the fruit sauce tastes great on vanilla ice cream and the peas can be used in a future pot of split pea soup.