Raegan LOVES sweet potatoes.
Love. She'd eat them for every meal if I let her.
I'm pretty sure the day care staff has caught on, too. Her daily info sheets say she eats them at least once a day at day care.
It's so much easier to get a stubborn baby to open her mouth for a
My mother-in-law bought us a few cases of baby food (THANK YOU!) and each case only has a few servings of sweet potatoes. So, we went through them really fast.
Don't get me wrong -- we haven't found a food that she won't eat. But, she doesn't putz around quite as much when it's something yummy. She's gets right down to business and shovels it in.
Problem: We need more sweet potatoes.
Solution: Home-made baby food!!
This was so much easier than I thought it would be! I just threw the sweet potatoes into the blender with a little water, and viola!! Mushy food!!
Bake Potatoes, Remove Skin: I was blessed enough to waitress on a night that sweet potatoes weren't terribly popular. So, I brought home a grocery bag full of sweet potatoes that had been baked so long the skin was falling off. Step one, easy.
You might not be so lucky, but don't worry! Steam-bake your sweet potatoes, and the skin will fall right off!
Mush: I broke the sweet potatoes into smaller chunks so they fit better in the blender. I added less than 1 cup of water for each sweet potato. Depending on the age of your baby, you will want to adjust the consistency. You can always add more water and mix again, so start small and add more as you go.
Freeze: For easy storage, I froze the sweet potato mush into icecube trays. I get out one cube at a time and thaw it in the fridge for tomorrow's meal. Tip-- I flipped the trays over and ran some hot water on them to loosen the cubes. Then I put the cubes in a gallon freezer bag.
I made an assembly line, since I only have two icecube trays. I peeled all of the sweet potatoes at once, had two or three sweet potatoes in the blender, and two tray-fulls in the freezer. Then I would rotate -- move the frozen cubes to a bag, move the blended mush to the trays, and move some peeled sweet potatoes into the blender.
Honestly, I had so many sweet potatoes that it took me a whole week to get this done. But, we won't ever need to buy sweet potatoes.
One day, this guy was in the kitchen waiting to help me. Let's here it for seven-year-old boys!
Owen LOVED sweet potatoes when he was an infant, still does. He also really likes broccoli. Which I thought was a little harder to make until he was a little older. It is nice to make your own baby food because then you know exactly what is in it.
ReplyDeleteGreat how-to post! We did this with ALL our baby food for our little one (no meats, as little one is vegetarian) - a few years back. Except I used a 2 cup food processor. The only time she ever tried store bought was on a flight as a toddler (they had forgotten her meal!) and at a relative's house once. It's SOOO much cheaper & healthier - and so easy to do : )
ReplyDeleteI was so surprised at how easy it was!! :) Thanks for stopping by :)
ReplyDeleteFoodI made my own baby food, too - a few tips:
ReplyDelete1) Add a little cinnamon and (if baby is old enough) a small tab of butter - baby will love it!
2) Let the cube trays cool before covering them and freezing them - otherwise you will get really bad condensation on the cubes when freezing them and they become hard to separate.
3) Thin with breastmilk or formula instead of water.
Good luck with making your own food - it is rewarding for mommy AND baby!
I never thought to use milk in place of water!! That's a great idea :)
ReplyDeleteMy kids all loved sweet potatoes as babies, as well! :-) What a great idea to make it yourself. Thanks so much for sharing at "Try a New Recipe Tuesday." Hope to see you again next week! :-)
ReplyDelete