When I was pregnant I received several cookbooks on cooking for baby. Just like anything new, you really need to educate yourself. So I’ve been learning about what you can and can’t feed your baby. So I’ve been reading up on food schedules, the possible allergy foods and how to prepare and store your own food. Will was out on a walk with Stella and I told him to grab some organic vegetables so I could make Stella baby food. Somewhere along the line, he lost the message of me making the food and he came home with organic jarred baby food. Not that anything is wrong with jarred baby food, I guess I just feel that I have no excuses. I know how to cook and I have all the gadgets-and then some, to prepare homemade baby food. So I went to the store myself and came home with an organic sweet potato. See my post on organic food here. I actually had to unpack from the box, a blender I received as a gift in 2008. As you can tell we haven’t had a lot of margaritas in the last year. I found making my own baby food to be very easy and very fast and the best of all, I knew what was in it and Stella loved it. The picture here is of her eating her rice cereal. Grandpa thought it was funny to put a bowl on her head, as you can tell, she didn’t.
Ingredients
1 Organic Sweet Potato
5 ounces of breast milk or prepared formula(if using breast milk-use fresh milk not frozen)
Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Wash the sweet potato and slice down the middle with a knife. Place on a cookie
sheet and bake in the oven for 60 minutes.
Once cooked, peel the skin from the sweet potato and dice.
In your blender, add the breast milk or prepared formula first and then add sweet potato.
Using the puree setting, puree 10 seconds, scrape sides and then puree again for 10 additional seconds.
Makes between 8-10 ounces of baby food (depending on the size of the sweet potato).
Baby Food Storage
I store my baby food in 2 ounce plastic containers that I purchased from Babies R Us. Peapods also has containers for sale. You can also fill ice cube trays and once they are frozen, you can pop them out and store them in a feezer bag. Defrost food containers when ready to use by letting them soak in a container of hot water. Baby food can be safely frozen for 3 months. Use defrosted baby food within 24 hours of defrosting. Fresh purees can be safely refridgerated for 2 days.
