Long Term Baby Food

I know that some pretty strange things get me excited. . . and this is one of those. :) I saw this on another blog and just had to try it. I had read about people making vegetable powders, which I thought was great, but never got around to doing it, until, I saw this incredible use for it: baby food! Not just any baby food, because, honestly, there are easier ways to make baby food, but this is baby food that can be stored and preserved for years! Great for your food storage and for 72 hour kits if you have a baby.



So, here's what I did. I bought four butternut squash, washed, cut them in quarters, seeded them, put them in baking dishes, and baked them on 350 until they were soft (I really should time these. . . sorry). Note: I didn't think about putting foil over the top, but I will next time because they tops were a little tough. Then I pureed the squash and spread it out on my fruit leather sheets on my dehydrating trays.

I dehydrated them for a LONG time. I wanted to make sure they were really dry. They were in there for over 24 hours--probably close to 30 hours. Sorry I am so exact!! Ha ha!

Then I put the dried squash into my blender and powderized it. FYI, it is LOUD. It scared my baby, so I had to finish when he was napping. :)

Here's my bag of squash! I haven't done this yet, but you can now vacuum seal this in the jar (do it in the ziplock bag so it doesn't plug your sealer, but poke a hole in your bag with a pin) and it will be good for years!

I am excited to do more of this over the summer when there are lots of extra veggies that need something done! And it doesn't just have to be for baby food. You can use vegetable powder to sneak in nutrition to other meals--not that any of you have picky eaterslike I do, I'm sure.

Mine didn't turn out super powdery. I probably could have blended it up longer. Once I reconstituted it it was a little grainy, but my baby didn't seem to mind.

So, that's it! A little involved but such a great way to be prepared with a young baby.

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