Sweet Potatoes

As I mentioned earlier, I'm trying my hand at making my own baby food.  For those of you who don't know me well, I don't cook.  The extent of my food preparation are peanut butter sandwiches, brownies, and burritoes when I get adventurous.  However, in my own mind, I'm like Julia Child...a non-practicing Julia Child.  Cooking is basically just following directions.  I'm awesome at following directions. My husband would say that I sometimes stray from direction following due to laziness (i.e. not reading the recipe and winging it from memory or just dumping random ingredients into a pot when I realize we don't have something in the house that the recipe calls for).

Besides all of that, I've decided I wanted to give making my own baby food a shot.  Why you may ask?  There are no specific reasons, but I think it would be fun.  Various websites say that is it tastier, more nutritious, and cheaper.  That's all good, but I just want to challenge myself and see if I can actually do it on my own.  I know someday I will actually need to learn some recipes so we can have respectable meals as a family.  Currently Drew and I get a lot of takeout, or we make entrees with no sides.  Growing up, I always had a meat, some vegetables, and a bread on my plate for dinner.  I would hope that someday I could do the same for Chase, but that just seems like a long way off based on my skillset!  I think making the baby food will help build my confidence in the kitchen.  Also, hopefully the introduction of fresh vegetables in our fridge will rub off on Drew and I's diets.

So, after we introduced Chase to the rice cereal (which he eventually warmed up to, but still doesn't love), I made him sweet potatoes.  Here are the pictures of my process.  For those "experienced" cooks who are reading this, don't make fun of me for getting excited that I baked a potato!  A first for me!!

Baked the pototoes for approximately 1 hour.  I think that may have been too much time.  I got lazy and didn't check to see if it was 30 minutes or an hour.  Also, I forgot to set the oven timer.  After they were done, I scooped out all the insides and put them in my Kitchenaid thingie.

Pureed til smooth.  I also added a little water to thin.

I think each sweet potato cube is approximately 2/3 of an ounce.

I put them in the freezer for about 24 hours and put them in a freezer bag.  When it's time for him to eat, I take 2 out of the bag and defrost them in the microwave for about 45 seconds.  It's been very easy so far.

So far I haven't given him food poisoning, so SUCCESS!!

 Next on the menu I think will be carrots (organic...how hippie of me!), avocado, peas, squash, applesauce, and pears.  Note that when it comes time to give him pureed meats, I WILL NOT be making those myself.  That's just too advanced for me.