Making Homemade Baby Food- Sweet Potatoes

We are getting close to starting Georgie on solids and I decided awhile ago that I wanted to make his baby food. It's cheaper and I know the freshness and quality of the ingredients. And I was told by other moms that making baby food is pretty easy.

First, I really like this book. It tells you step-by-step how to make each food and when to introduce it to your baby.

I decided to make and freeze sweet potatoes because the book recommends them as one of the first foods to introduce. I will probably introduce them as Georgie's second or third food. They are good in the freezer for 2-3 months.

So here we go...

1. Get ice cube trays and wash them well.

 2. Get some sweet potatoes and wash and scrub them. Pierce with a fork.

3. Line a baking pan with foil (lazy clean up) and heat your oven to 400.

4. Bake potatoes for 45ish minutes. While you are waiting, take your little one on a walk to enjoy the nice spring day. (See how bundled up he is, it's 50 degrees. I'm still a Florida girl at heart.)

Sorry for bad picture, very sunny! 

5. After your potatoes are finished baking, cut them half to let them cool enough that you can handle them. Then scoop out the potato into whatever you are going to use to puree them. I'm using a magic bullet. But the book says that a blender would work too.

6. Puree until very smooth. Check a few times to make sure it's all getting pureed. I had clumps sticking to the top.

7. Mush potatoes through a fine strainer to catch any bits of skin or fibrous bits. I didn't catch anything, but better safe than sorry for a very young baby.

8. Scoop into ice cube trays, cover with foil, and freeze for several hours. It took overnight for my potatoes to completely freeze.

9. Put in a freezer bag. The book recommends that you use quart size bags. By the time you get to the bottom of a gallon size bag, the food is no longer fresh from so much opening and closing of the bag. It also recommends you take a straw to suck out the air from the bag to keep it from getting freezer burned. Make sure to label and mark with the date. Pureed sweet potatoes look a lot like pureed carrots!


Tada!

Special thanks to a cooperative peanut!