Makin' baby food...sweet potatoes for my Bentley

Bentley is my youngest of five children. For my older four I always just took the easy way and bought them baby food in the jar. Just a little FYI about jarred baby food...it is mostly water. Yes it's more convenient, but you are only paying for half of what the label says. In these tough economic times I need to make sure I get ALL of my money's worth. Bentley just turned six months old today, which means my little man will be starting solids. Today I decided to try making my own baby food and sweet potatoes were on the menu today.

you'll have to forgive the low quality of the pictures as my camera's flash decided to call it quits today.

So the first thing I did after giving me sweet potato a good rinse was to boil it for about 20 minutes. It may take a little longer depending on how big the potato is. A good test is to stick a fork in it to see if it's tender.

A great little tip I learned from my mother-in-law is to take the sweet potato directly from the boil in water and stick it in cold water. Let it sit for a bit and the skin will slide right off.

Once you've peeled the potato and made sure to remove any buds that may be on the potato, all yu have to do is mash it up. It would probably be easier to use a food processor, but really the potato was so soft that all I needed was a potato masher.

I then scooped out, by tablespoonfuls, the potatoes onto a wax paper-lined cookie sheet. Each tablespoon holds about 1/2 ounce.

Place the cookie sheet in the freezer until the portions are solid. Then you can pop them off of the wax paper and stick them in a plastic freezer bag.

Now whenever it's time to feed my little man, I just take a portion out, warm it for a bit, add some breastmilk, and baby is ready to eat!

Of course, you can do this with other fruits and vegetables, too. The best part is that you know EXACTLY what your baby is getting!