Go ahead call me a hippie, earth mother. I've been called worse. That's right I'm making my own baby food.
Now here is the deal: I like to cook and quite honestly the idea of making my own baby food actually sounded like fun. I have friends who have done it and claim its not all that much work, if you make bigger batches and freeze it so I thought I'd take a stab at it.
Today was our first attempt: sweet potatoes.
Because it seems to be my approach to all things parenting I went to the library and got out every book on the subject that I could find. After sifting through the stack I ultimately bought this book and this book. Mostly I liked the nutritional information in the Yaron book (the purple cover) and I liked the menus in the Young book. Everything that I did today was a result of something I read in one of those two books.
I started the experiment out with a trip to the supermarket - boy in tow. We bought two sweet potatoes (he picked them out), two ice cube trays, some freezer bags, and a frozen bag of organic sweet peas for our next meal in a few days (sweet peas were surprisingly hard to find without salt added.)
I got home washed my hands, washed the counter surfaces, the ice cube trays and tried to be as clean as possible in general. I peeled the sweet potatoes and decided that if I'm going to keep this up I DEFINITELY need a better vegetable peeler- because honestly, is there anything worse?
I boiled the potatoes until they were tender - about 15 minutes, and then spooned the cooked veggies into my (WICKED AWESOME) Cuisinart Food Processor. I can't find a link for the exact model I have, but I swear this thing could drive you to work its so powerful. If I could only remember what wonderful person(s) picked it off our wedding registry a million years ago I would make them something incredible using it.
Anyways, back to the task at hand: I pureed the crap out the veggies until it looked well, like baby food. I was surprised at how easy this was to achieve. My potatoes were velvety smooth and tasted pretty damn good (yes, I tasted them!) I spooned my orange puree into my ice cube trays and before it cooled I wrapped it in tin foil to freeze. (I think the reason for this is it reduces the possibility of bad bacteria infiltrating my orange colored goodness.)
I didn't freeze all of it though, I left one serving out and let that cool down to slightly warmer than room temperature. Tentatively I approached the boy with baby spoon and orange goo in hand fearing the worst.
Dear God, he likes it! AND, he didn't get sick! Amazing!
Once I scrounge up the receipt from today's venture to the market I can tell you exactly how much I spent per serving. I'm expecting it to be pretty freaking affordable because those two potatoes are going to yield us 14 quarter cup servings. Heck, I might start feeding the whole family this way.
Edited to add:
I found the receipt! I'm including the price of the sweet potatoes as well as our recent adventures.
This is of course using my supermarket and adding a touch of water to get the right consistency for a baby just starting on solids.
Each serving is 1/4 cup, or 4 tablespoons, or 2 ounces
Sweet potatoes: $.11
Peas: $.13
Pears: $.29
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4 comments:
I'm a Gerber mom but I have been thinking a lot about becoming a hippie like you considering how much it costs. It sounds like it was easy for you. Jackson eats about 6-7 ounces of baby food a meal (1/2 of 2 jars) plus rice cereal. I'm wondering a) if it works out to be less expensive considering how much he eats and b) how it tastes when you unfreeze it. Keep me posted!
I am so impressed! Sadly, I am weak and have sold my soul to Gerber since I'd rather shoot myself than make baby food. You rock the party!
How much is 1 serving?
Tricia, I've worked up to the amounts I posted on the blog. Each ice cube is 2 tablespoons. I started out Henry with 1/2 a cube (I filled some half way before freezing)
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