One of my clever “homemade” baby food cheats is to open a can of organic pumpkin and feed it to a baby. Baby food can also be made with canned pumpkin Adding pumpkin to rice cereal or oatmeal makes a fancy fall breakfast, like something you could order at Starbucks, but without whipped cream. Experiment with cinnamon, nutmeg, and or ginger to help your baby embrace flavors.

A parent with mad kitchen skills may be harvesting pumpkin meat out of actual pumpkins this season to make pies, breads, roasted pumpkin stews, and more. But I won’t. I love that pumpkin comes pureed in a can. It’s a bright orange vegetable full of beta-carotenes and Vitamin C.

And it’s so easy to use.  A cup of cooked, mashed pumpkin contains more than 200 percent of your recommended daily intake of vitamin A, which aids vision, particularly in dim light, according to the National Institutes of Health.

- And guys? Make sure to buy canned pumpkin, not canned pumpkin pie mix.Bonus Pumpkin fun: Turn it into a smoothie.