Saturday, April 2, 2011

Easy Homemade Baby Food (vegetables)

Buying baby food adds up so fast.  It can be a huge damper on your budget.  Although it's nice to have, I enjoy making my own when I can. It's so easy too. And healthier.  The best way to store it is to pour it into ice trays and freeze them as ice cubes.  Then once they are frozen, just dump them into a freezer bag and pull from them as you need. I like to just take a day and do a huge variety to stock up on different ones.  We got some sweet potatoes in our basket from Bountiful Baskets so I figured I would make up some for my daughter. This one is a lot thicker because she is so much older.  If you have a younger one, just add a little more of the juices into the blender. That will make it an easier consistancy for baby to swallow. 

Easy Homemade Baby Food 

1-2 cups water
3-4 cups chopped sweet potatoes

Clean and peal sweet potatoes and cut into cubes. In a pot, add water and sweet potatoes. Steam at medium heat, covered until tender.  Make sure to keep an eye on it. If the stove is up too high, the water will boil out and burn the potatoes. When tender, put sweet potatoes into a blender. (Reserve the liquid.)  As you blend, add leftover liquid from your pot (this has a lot of good nutrients in it). Be sure to add just a little at a time, so that you can get the consistancy that you want.  Pour into ice cube trays and freeze. When frozen, dump into a freezer bag that is labled with the type of food and the date. When ready to serve, thaw as many cubes as you need in a sandwich bag under warm running water and pour into a bowl. You can also add rice cereal if you need to thicken it up.

Some vegetables have a little bit higher water content than others. The water you use to steam with will depend on that.

You can do, carrots, sweet potatoes, green beans, peas, butternut squash etc with this recipe. 

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