Making Stage One (Stage 1) Baby Food - Sweet Potatoes (Oven)

A long time ago, in a restaurant far, far away...I was a waitress (and I shouldn't have been because I'm a meanie) someone asked me what a sweet potato was and I said, "An orange potato that's sweet." followed by an unintentional eye roll. I did not get a good tip from that table and you know...good for them. Apparently, I have the customer service skills of a Russian grocery store clerk. If you've ever seen Everything is Illuminated (starring Elijah Wood) you will see all that is wrong with Russian customer service (or well, lack thereof) amongst a 'few' other differences. Here's an example: Being Vegetarian in Ukraine.

Anyway, my point is that a sweet potato IS orange and IS super sweet, perfect for baby! Max's first veggie ever was sweet potato and it seems like it is still his favorite food. You do not have to buy these organic, as they are not part of the 'dirty dozen', but it's all up to you! 

I used four sweet potatoes and they yielded A LOT (about 28oz) of food. When picking out these pommes of deliciousness, you want to avoid weird bumps and discoloration. 

1. Preheat your oven to 400°.

2. Wash and scrub your taters. Even though you will not be using the skin, I like to make sure all the dirt and the filth it may have accumulated during transport is washed off. 

3. Very Important! Poke holes about a quarter of an inch around the potato. FYI: They MAY/WILL explode if you don't poke holes.

4. Wrap your sweet tots in foil, arrange on a cookie sheet, and bake at 400° for 45min. to an hour. 

5. Peel the skins off the potatoes. They will come very off easily. Note: Once the sweet potatoes have cooked, the skin will look a bit wrinkly and the potato itself will be soft to the touch and quite sticky from all the excreted sugars. Yum!

6. Blend with a liquid of your choice. I used breastmilk, it just mixes so well with sweet potatoes. Just remember, if you use breastmilk it is not recommended that you microwave when thawing. I made this batch a bit thicker, but that's because Max is growing and is getting more and more comfortable with thicker foods. Yeah...when I say 'comfortable', I mean he has learned to swallow food, haha.

7. Bon appetit, baby! (Why do I only think of French words when writing recipes???)

My little chunk gets pretty excited about sweet potatoes!

UPDATE: At 7 months and two weeks, sweet potatoes remains Max's favorite food. If I add even a tablespoon of sweet potato puree to anything, he just gobbles it right up. Lately, I've been giving him some oatmeal, sweet potato, and a bit of cinnamon and it's one of his favorites. If you plan on adding a little bit of spice to your life, don't forget to follow the four day rule just like you would when adding new foods.

Making Stage One (Stage 1) Baby Food - Butternut Squash (Oven)

After Googling the word 'squash' for 15 minutes, (er, I mean...after careful consideration) I decided to go with the butternut squash for our next stage 1 vegetable. Fun fact, it is the hardest of all squashes to cut! There are several types of squash. On a cultural note, squash is called 'pumpkin' in Russian (тыква), from which I accurately deduced that squash and pumpkin are in the same family! I have a Master's Degree and don't know my vegetable families...sad. I bought this organic, but since it ripens underground and doesn't have much exposure to pesticides, it's one of those vegetables that can be bought in-organic (?). Let me rephrase that, it's one of those vegetables you do not need to buy organic.

I went with the fun oblong shape of butternut squash, which is quite delicious and nutritious. 

:)

1). Preheat the oven to 400°F and sharpen your knife. Trust me on this one.


2). Wash the squash and cut it in half. I tried two ways: (1) laying it on its side, piercing the middle, and just cutting the halves, (this resulted in 'hesitation marks', which you can see below) and (2) standing it up the counter and just slicing straight down...surprisingly, this worked well for me but I don't think anyone would recommend this technique.

     

Result of the latter cutting technique

3). Remove all the 'meat'. I just used a spoon, but I considered getting my pumpkin carving set out.

Result of the former cutting technique

4). Lay the squash halves face down in a glass baking dish and submerge in 2 cups of water.

5). Bake uncovered at 400°F for about 40 minutes, or until the squash is nice squishy. The skin will look a bit wrinkly. I poked this one gently with my oven mitt and it sank straight down, so then I did it again to the other one because it was so much fun. 

Squishy Squash

6). Flip the squash over and you should be able to effortlessly scoop out the squash leaving the skin.

7). Place the squash into a blender and purée. I normally add some breast milk but since the squash cooked in water, it was not necessary to add anything because it was already so moist (moist, ick).

8). You can either store in the refrigerator for the recommended 48 hours, or freeze in freezer friendly trays. I prefer the 2oz silicone ice cube trays. Here's my little baby food garden; carrots and squash. Oh yeah, and that's my dog waiting for me to drop it on the floor.

The one squash yielded 26oz of food. I made two, so I hope my baby isn't sensitive to it and likes it.


Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this as much as my live audience, who are always hungry for more. ;)