Ashley,
I never bought one bottle of babyfood! At my baby shower I received the book "Super Baby Food", by Ruth Yaron. It is a must read. Basically, for every food group, Ms. Yaron teaches individual and bulk preparation with lots of information for each group, eg, under cook broccolli to prevent too much gas in the child.
Her "food leather" (dried fruit formed on a cookie sheet) recipe is fantastic, my daughter ate tons of it. And she will make the ice cube tray your best friend! She teaches how prepare a large variety of vegatables, freeze them to ice cube trays, and then portion them out into individual small zip lock bags.
She also has "butter" alternative ideas, like an avocado spread. From her I learned how to sneak in very nutritous foods in the most surprising places: like a simple square of toasted whole-wheat bread spread with a peach and sesame seed mixture.
With regard to silverware, I actually never really considered it. My daughter had enough trouble just sitting upright in her high chair. When my daughter was tiny there were lots of aspects of her life and recreation where I needed to encourage her adaptive abilities, but her nutrition and general eating practices wasn't one of them. I either always feed her, or let her eat with her hands from the sterilize eating surface of her high chair. Later I started to offer her toasted bread for dipping into some easily gathered food.
All the best.
dunloe