Making Baby Sweet Potatoes

I want to make all of my baby's food at home for two main reasons, 1) save money 2) more control over what is in his food.

My little man is just shy of six months now so I am trying to stock up my freezer. I know if its not ready to eat, I will end up buying jars from the store and I would rather not.

Today I made baby food sweet potatoes. I went to a moms group last week and we made lots of food together and you can see that here, in my original blog. In addition to getting advice from friends, I used a few on-line resources:

Wholesome baby food is my fav:
http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/sweetpotatobabyfoodrecipes.htm

This video on You Tube was also helpful.

Step 1: Bake Sweet Potatoes

I washed them



then poked holes with a fork



and washed them a second time



wrapped them in foil



I put them in the preheated oven at 400 degrees and baked them for 40 minutes. I checked on them and they weren't soft enough, so I baked them another 30 minutes (total of 1 hour 10 min), and they were just right.


Step 2: Puree

Scoop out all the "meat" into a food processor





Add a little breast milk, formula, or water until you reach your desired consistency. I just added a little water to thin it out a little since it will be a first food for my little man.



Step 3: Store

First I put them into my containers.



Later when they are solid, I pop them out into baggies (I use old breast milk storage bags because I have so many leftover) to store in 1, 2, 3 or 4 ounce portions. I vary it because I don't know how much he will eat at a time in the coming weeks.




COST PER OUNCE:

I threw away my receipt so I had to measure the weight to make my calculation. I put my chemistry teacher skills to good use:

I used 1 sweet potatoes for my calculation. I measured it's weight to be 0.5 lb.



Next, I measured its volume using water displacement: 8 liquid ounces
(Note - the skins throw off the measurement a teeny bit but nothing significant)



Now I have the weight & the volume in liquid ounces, so I can I can convert the cost to liquid ounces (which is how baby food is measured):

My sweet potatoes cost me $.99/lb.

$.99/lb. * .5 lb. = ~$.5

~$.5 / 8 oz. = ~$.06/oz.

My baby food sweet potatoes cost six cents per ounce!! Whoop whoop :-)

Gerber's Sweet Potatoes are $.53/4oz. or $.13/oz.

>50% savings!