recipe wednesday - sweet potato baby food

Yams/Sweet Potato (4)6 months+

Vitamins: A (24,877 mg ), C, Folate

Minerals: Potassium, Sodium, Selenium, Phosphorous, Magnesium, Calcium

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Directions:

1. Wash and poke holes in sweet potato with fork then wrap sweet potatoes in tin foil - do not peel for baking/microwaving. (you can also do this in the microwave - only use plastic wrap and cook for 8 minutes on high or until tender)

2. Place in a 400 degree oven and bake for 30 minutes or until soft

3. OR

4. Peel sweet potatoes and cut into small chunks

5. Place chunks into a pan with just enough water to slightly cover potato

6. "Steam" boil until tender, be sure to check on the water level.

7. Reserve any left over water to use for thinning out the sweet potatoes

8. If you have baked your sweet potato, remove skins and use liquid from your preferred source

9. Place sweet potato into your choice of appliance for pureeing and begin pureeing.

10. Add the reserved water or other liquid as necessary to achieve a smooth, thin consistency

Freezing Homemade Baby Food - The Ice Cube Tray/Freezer Bag Method:
Using this method, you spoon or pour your purees into regular ice cube trays and then cover with plastic wrap. Prior to using your ice cube trays, you want to thoroughly cleanse them with warm soapy water and/or run them through the dishwasher on the sanitize setting.

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The ice cube tray method offers you many advantages.
-- Each cube is approximately 1+ ounces, allowing you to have an idea of the amount of food your baby is consuming.
-- There is minimal waste as you use only 1 cube at a time and will not have to toss away much food; such as you toss away when using commercial foods.

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You may transfer the baby food cubes into freezer bags, freeing up your trays for the next batch of food as well as freeing up some freezer space. If using the freezer bag method for your food cubes, be sure to label the bags with the type of food and also date the bags. This will help you to quickly grab a cube from a bag of veggie and a bag of fruit without having to guess what you have in the bags. It also allows you to keep track of the length of time the food cubes have been in the freezer.

happy anniversary, recipe: sweet potatoes

this past week held my anniversary (july 5th -- four years!!!!) and you'll just have to wait on the edge of your seats to see what robby bought me (because i'm still waiting, but it's supposed to arrive next week) and i'll do a separate post about his gift as well, until then some pictures and recipes to tide you over.

aidan has taken up sticking his tongue out constantly, which has brought much laughter to the Baird household, and has provided for great pictures. below is a picture of the flowers that robby picked for me for our anniversary -- from our backyard, aren't they pretty? he even arranged them himself.

i made robby dinner butter chicken , steamed broccoli and sweet potatoes.
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Boston Market's Sweet Potatoes
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Ingredients:
3 large sweet potatoes, 1 cup sugar, 2 eggs, 1 stick butter - softened, 1 tsp vanilla
topping: 1/3 cup melted butter, 1/3 flour, 1 cup brown sugar, 1 cup pecans - chopped, 1 tbsp cinnamon
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Directions:
1. boil potatoes until tender. cool, remove skins. put in large bowl and whip until fluffy. add remaining ingredients.
2. pour into greased casserole and top with topping (combine ingredients).
3. bake at 350 degrees for 45 mins.
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the potatoes were good, but i don't think i would put that much brown sugar again. robby said he doesn't like sweet potatoes but he liked these because they didn't taste like sweet potatoes. i really liked to potato part, but there was just too much brown sugar.

be careful when you whip the sweet potatoes, or your kitchen just may end up looking like this!!