Sweet potatoes make me happy. I’m not the biggest fan of them myself, but they were the first solid food our Little tried and loved. The image of those sweet, chubby little fists firmly gripping spears of the steamed veggie still makes me smile. For that reason alone, I like ‘em. For the first month or two of the new venture into real food eating, there were lots of variations of sweet potatoes: purees, steamed and roasted spears and discs, pancakes, stews. We even began to include them in the grown-ups meals more often since I always had so many on hand (I grossly overestimated how much I needed to buy to sustain a newly-introduced-to-solids baby). We were excited to see baby experiencing and enjoying new foods for the first time, and, probably unrealistically, concluded that we did not have a picky eater on our hands.
Now that it’s not baby’s first rodeo anymore and teething is seemingly perpetual, we have reluctantly admitted that the little savant is currently a picky eater. Acknowledging that I probably couldn’t rely on the current standby of cheesy scrambled eggs more than once a day, I started to experiment more. Not one to miss out on baby clichés, our Little fights most vegetables with wonderfully theatrical facial expressions of repulsion, so I needed to find a way to hide them. The beet and apple muffins I first made were not terrible and baby seemed to initially enjoy them, then suddenly didn’t. Luckily, the backyard chickens love baby-rejected leftovers. Frustration and trial and error feeding sessions led me back to the trusted sweet potato.
This sweet potato muffin was delightfully received by the Little as both a meal and snack option. They are light and fluffy, slightly sweet and fruity, almost a little savory, with a warm hint of cinnamon. Being able to offer these with a smear of peanut butter or cream cheese and a side of eggs, yogurt, or fruit, reassures me that our little connoisseur is getting balanced, quality feedings. I’m pretty sure the little bit of added sugar in them has something to do with the warm reception, but I’m not going to feel guilty about it. Subbing out for honey (12 months+, of course) would be great, too. Even my husband and I snack on them as a satisfying and healthy little treat. While it was a small victory, any bit of meal time success is like striking gold. Safe to say this recipe has made it into the very cutthroat toddler-approved rotation.
