Homemade Sweet Potatoes

I told you on a post a few days ago that I was planning on making Aidyn's baby food. Ben's uncles' sister (haha...can you follow that) emailed me with tips and advice on how she made her son, Will's, babyfood when he was little.

Today, I started with sweet potatoes and butternut squash. These are the two veggies that we have already introduced to Aidyn through the Gerber babyfoods. I started with the butternut squash. I've never eaten this myself, so I really have no idea how it tastes. I had some trouble getting it to cook, so I'll tell you about it later.

Next, onto the sweet potatoes. Before I started the squash or cooking dinner, I washed 3 large sweet potatoes and put them in a baking dish. I placed them in the oven on 450' for about an hour. Aidyn and I went for a walk, so it may have been just a little longer. Once the potatoes were good and soft, I took them out of the oven. Since the "meat" of the potato pulls away from the skin, it was VERY EASY to scoop that out with a spoon, even while hot. I scooped it straight into our blender. Forgetting about the amount of water I would need to add in a few minutes, I "accidently" added ALL of the potatoes.


*Side Note: Here is a picture of a set of containers I bought (Gerber squash) last week. I washed and saved these containers to use for when I made Aidyn's food. Thanks for the helpful tip, Jeannie! This 2-pack of squash, or any Gerber food, costs about $2. For Aidyn, that'd be 4 servings...about 1 day depending on how/when he eats. That comes to roughly $0.50 per serving. In this picture, they are filled with the sweet potatoes I made today.

Needless to say, as the blending and mixing went on, I eventually had to pour some into a bowl and then finish it during a 2nd round. I kept adding a little warm water at a time and just blending or pulsing the blender until the sweet potatoes were as close to the same consistency of the Stage 1 Gerber foods. I DID NOT add salt, pepper, sugars, etc...nothing to "change" the taste of the food. I don't even add salt, pepper, or other things to my food when I eat.

When all was said and done, and mixed to the right consistency, I poured the food into ice cube trays...and a few other things, haha. I told you I went a little over board. :) I had no idea how much 3 potatoes would make. Once the cubes are nice and hard, I'll pop them out and into a ziplock freezer bag that I've already labeled Sweet Potatoes 7/09.

Here are ALLLLLLL my sweet potato servings...out of 3 potatoes! Who would've ever thought, haha. Jeannie said to count one "cube" as 1oz, roughly. Sometimes Aidyn will eat about 2-3 oz of cereal. So, I'm counting 1oz as 1 serving (for now) so that we can compare this to the Gerber containers I just showed you up above.

In this picture, with 3 sweet potatoes for a total cost of $1.87...I made 63 servings! That averages out to $0.03 per serving. Do the math...I got all of this for less than $2.00 and if I bought it all by Gerber, I would've spent $31.00. Wow. Now, I am SO THANKFUL for the helpful advice from Ben's uncle's sister, haha. (I think that sounds funnier than just saying Jeannie, ha).

So, next time that Aidyn needs some sweet potatoes, I'll pull a few cubes out of the bag from the freezer and either let them thaw in the fridge or place them in the microwave until they are thawed and at room temperature. Something else that Jeannie suggested was that once her son, Will, was eating several veggies, she sometimes would thaw 1 peas, 1 squash, 1 carrots, etc.

I LOVE this idea because now I don't have to worry about Aidyn not eating the Gerber food within 2-3 days and having to throw it out. Now, I can thaw 1-2 cubes at a time and if he doesn't eat that...well, it's definately better than throwing away $1.