First Chicken Casserole – Trial Run
As I wrote in a previous post, I ran out of homemade food and I still have a couple of weeks before our OAM Baby Food Big Day. So I thought I would try a couple of recipes out that I was planning on making for the Big Day. I was curious to know how much I would spend and how many “servings” each recipe would make.
So tonight I made the First Chicken Casserole recipe (Karmel, Annabel. (1999). First Meals. New York: DK Publishing).
Here is a run down of how much I spent:
Carrots: 1.5 cups = $0.50 (3 medium carrots)
Leeks: 1 = $0.59
Chicken Breast: 5 oz. = $0.40 ( I had a bag frozen chicken breasts in the freezer, I paid $4.99 for 4 lbs a few weeks ago)
Potatoes: 1 lb. = $0.40
Parsnips: 1 medium = $0.29
Total: $2.18
I didn’t quite follow the directions in the recipe. Instead I chopped and steamed the potatoes, carrots and parsnips together in my steamer and boiled the frozen chicken breast in water and covered until cooked through—about an hour. I boiled enough chicken for this recipe and Chicken with Sweet Potato and Apple. I then boiled the chicken and leeks together in a small pot for 15 minutes. Then I pureed all the ingredients together. I added 1.5 cups of water (I used the water that I boiled the chicken in) to the puree to thin it—I would say about a stage 2 consistency. Being paranoid also, I ran the puree through my food mill, just to make sure my son didn’t get any unexpected pieces of chicken in his mouth.
The puree was tasty, but a little bland. I think I may add a second leek to the recipe next time just to give it a little bit more flavor. But we will see how my little man likes it tomorrow.
The above ingredients made 31 ounces: which breaks down to $0.07/oz. Depending on how much your baby eats at one sitting this recipe will make 10 to 15 meals (2-3 ounces each).
So for $2.18, I made 10 to 15 meals. Not too bad!
