Making food, making food.

Since the peas went so well, I decided to go ahead and make zucchini, sweet potatoes, pears, and green beans. The preparations for the pears, green beans and zucchini were pretty similar to the peas: cut if needed, steam in steamer basket, then puree (the pears need cored and scooped from skin as well). I used frozen green beans and fresh pears and zucchini.

For the sweet potatoes, you have to bake them at 425 degrees for 45 minutes, then remove the skin before pureeing. Once the foods were frozen, I popped them out of the containers (so I could re-use them) and put into labeled freezer bags. These frozen foods will last for 3 months.

Cost breakdown:

Green beans (10 frozen ounces) yielded 4 Gerber containers (12 Tablespoons) = $.70

Normal Gerber cost: approx. $2.00

Savings: $1.30

Fresh zucchini (one large) yielded 5 Gerber containers (15 T) = $1.99

Normal Gerber cost: approx. $2.50

Savings: $.51

Fresh sweet potatoes (2 medium) yielded 12 Gerber containers (36 T) = $2.18

Normal Gerber cost: approx. $6.00

Savings: $3.82

Fresh pears (2) yielded 6 Gerber containers (18 T) = $2.05

Normal Gerber cost: approx. $3.00

Savings: $.95

Grand Totals (including peas):

My way cost $7.62

Gerber cost approx. $16.50

Total savings: $8.88

All-in-all, I pretty much cut my food costs in half. Now, of course there are going to be some foods that I simply cannot make myself, BUT I am also making some foods that Gerber does not offer. It took me very little time to make the food and the color differences between the packaged stuff and the freshly made is remarkable.