Now that Darlington is eating solids, many of my mom-friends ask about her eating habits. Luckily, she’s a great eater, and she’s pretty adventurous, too. I attribute this newfound zest for solids to our months of cooking together and making her baby food.
From the age of six to ten months, I created a weekly menu that introduced a new fruit or vegetable to Darlington’s palate, while also incorporating the foods nicely into our own dinners. For example, on the night when we’d make sweet potato puree for Darlington, we’d also make Hassleback potatoes for us!
Tucked snugly inside her Baby Bjorn, Darlington was a part of the entire cooking process. And at dinner, she got to see the whole family enjoy the same food together. I always made sure to introduce one fruit or vegetable each week at a time, in case she developed any food allergies, and any leftover puree was poured into individual baby food jars and stored in the freezer. Doing this enabled us to have homemade baby food when we traveled and also kept Darlington’s homemade food supply intact.
And now, three months later, it’s hard to believe my little girl is more than a year old and eating on her own. Here’s one of Darlington’s favorite recipes and ours, too—Sweet Potatoes 2-Ways.
- 8 large sweet potatoes
- small bunch of fresh rosemary
- olive oil
- 2 ripe avocados
- 4 long green onions
- 1 tbsp chopped fresh coriander
- juice of 1 lime
- 2 tbsp organic Greek yogurt
- 1 jalapeño
- salt and pepper to taste
- Preheat the oven to 400F.
- Wash each sweet potato thoroughly with a vegetable brush.
- For Darlington’s sweet potatoes, take 4 of the sweet potatoes and use a fork to generously poke holes all over each one.
- For the Hasselback Potatoes, take one sweet potato at a time and place it on a cutting board. With the help of a sharp knife, slice all the way through the potatoes as thinly as you can and release just before the knife blade hits the bottom of the potato. The potato should stay intact.
- Wrap each of Darlington’s potatoes in tin foil and put aside.
- Rinse off rosemary.
- Using a blender, take 1 cup of olive oil and rosemary and blend together.
- Toss mixture into a bowl.
- With the finely sliced sweet potatoes, dip each one in the bowl with the rosemary-olive oil mixture.
- After each Hasselback sweet potato is coated evenly, season with salt and pepper.
- Add foil to a baking tray and carefully place each of the 8 sweet potatoes on it (4 wrapped in foil and 4 without).
- Bake for about 40-50 minutes, depending on your oven.
- While the sweet potatoes are baking, place the remaining ingredients into the blender—avocados, yogurt, lime juice, onions, coriander, jalapeño, and salt and pepper to taste.
- Blend until smooth. Then set dipping sauce aside.
- Remove Darlington’s potatoes from the tray and slit each sweet potato lengthwise. Scoop out the interior of each sweet potato (discarding the skin) and toss into a blender.
- Press puree.
- Distribute the puree into individual baby food jars.
- Serve each Hasselback potato with the dipping sauce.
Enjoy!
If you like to plan out your meals and want to make our two sweet potato dishes, be sure you pick up all the ingredients at the store! To make your life easier, we’ve created a shopping list for you to print and take to the store with you (and don’t worry, there’s plenty of room for all the other items you need to pick up). Just click on the banner below and print that puppy out!
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