Guess What My Kids Ate This Week…

I sometimes worry my kiddos aren’t getting enough veggies and fruits. I have been blessed with fairly easy to please children when it comes to food, but like any children, they still tend to turn their noses up at new things, or steer clear of the green stuff on their plates. Introducing children to new food, or re-introducing them to foods they have previously dismissed as yucky, can be difficult. Over the past several years, I have become pretty good at hiding and disguising healthy foods. I like to think I have a creative side, but thanks to the internet I have found loads of creative ideas for sneaking healthy foods into meals and snacks. The Artful Veggie is one of my favorite sites to find ideas. Here’s a few of the snacks and meals I fed my crew this week, and you won’t believe the healthy stuff I got them to eat! AND they ate it with a smile!! Even my three-year-old!

Every kid has a list of foods that they may or may not have even tried, but that they have already predetermined are yucky. Spinach usually tops most kids list of yucky foods, but usually they envision the stinky and admittedly gross looking cooked spinach. But what about raw spinach? Raw spinach can be just as healthy for them and the perfect addition to salads. I know what you are thinking…. how could you possibly get your child to eat a salad, right? Well if you add a few orange slices on top that just happen to resemble little goldfish, you just might be able to hide that spinach in there without them even knowing!

This salad of fresh spring salad mix and spinach leaves also has some almond slices, shredded mozzarella cheese, and a surprise new favorite for my kids – Sun Dried Tomato Vinaigrette. I cut the orange slices to look like little goldfish and added a chocolate chip eye. This snack disappeared pretty quickly!

Another food that is on my children’s yucky food list is sweet potatoes. So this week, our sweet potatoes got a makeover!

I used cookie cutters to create a giraffe family complete with mama giraffes and baby giraffes, baked them in the oven at 375 degrees for about 35 minutes, and served them alongside a green ‘tree’ and a sweet dipping sauce. The dipping sauce was made by cooking 1/2 cup crushed pineapples, a dozen pitted dates (chopped), a bit of cinnamon, and 1/4 cup of chopped pecans. Cook in a sauce pan on medium to high heat for just a few minutes, and you’ve got a sweet dipping sauce your kids can’t resist!

With snow in the forecast, I thought it might be fun to have a few snow-themed foods this week. First up: Snowmen on a Stick! I saw this idea in a Family Fun magazine recently. It’s extremely simple, super fun, and your kiddos will get a variety of fruits and goodies in the process. All you need are a few Chiquita bananas, apple slices and grapes (The Chiquita Apple and Grape Bites work fabulously for this!), pretzel sticks, mini chocolate chips, and bamboo skewers.

Start with slicing a few Chiquita bananas. Be careful not to slice them too thin, as they will need to be thick enough to be slid onto a bamboo skewer. (I found out later that the ones in this picture were too thin!)

Next you are going to cut the apple slices as seen in the picture above. Each slice will make two triangular shaped snowman hats. Note: I never throw away the scraps! They always get eaten by someone.

Next lay out the different ‘snowman parts’ in bowls or on plates, and let the snowman building process begin!

After a brief talk on bamboo skewer safety, I let my ‘big’ kids build theirs themselves. I helped Luke though, since he’s only three-years-old, and I didn’t want to take the chance he might hurt himself… or someone else!

The kids were all smiles and every bit of fruit was eaten! Aren’t the snowmen cute?!

Here’s another fun fruit option – a Chiquita banana palm tree! All it requires is a simple slicing of a Chiquita banana, sliced kiwi for leaves, and some orange sections at the base of the tree. Yum!

Fun Food Tip: Cookie cutters are a great tool for making food fun for kids, especially mini cookie cutters. You can turn any boring fruit or vegetable into a fun treat just by making shapes!

I have several mini cookie cutters that I use for various fun foods the kids love. It doesn’t have to be complicated! For example, let the kids try some new varieties of cheese, a healthy snack option, but this time lay out some mini cookie cutters with the cheese slices. I guarantee every piece of cheese will be gone, and there will be smiles all around!

Next up? A Snowball Vegetable Soup that was a big hit. John David ate two bowls! Cooked carrots, celery, and onions are all on my kiddos’ ‘bad food’ list. If they even think they are in something, it’s automatically probably yucky. In this version of vegetable soup, complete with potato snowmen and mittens, it didn’t dawn on them that all three of those veggies were inside! Plus, it’s easy enough to make that all the kids helped in some form or fashion.

Snowball Vegetable Soup

Ingredients:
3/4 cup all-purpose flour (you can use whole wheat flour or a mixture of flours to make it even healthier)
1/8 teaspoon plus 1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cup skim milk
4 to 6 medium potatoes
1/2 medium onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 cups frozen mixed vegetables
1 tablespoon butter

First make the ‘snowballs’. These are similar to dumplings and are very simple to make. Stir the flour and 1/8 teaspoon of salt together in a small bowl. Then add 1/4 cup of milk and mix until a dough forms. Add more milk if needed, small amounts at a time. Caitlyn, John David, and Luke were excited to be official ‘snowball’ makers. Just roll the dough into marble-sized balls and set to the side. The recipe makes about 30 – 40 ‘snowballs’.

Next, Kylie and I made the special potato snowmen and mittens by slicing potatoes into 1/4 inch thick slices and using mini cookie cutters to cut the shapes. Make sure you chop up the scraps and use them in your soup too!

Put the potatoes, chopped celery, chopped onion, frozen mixed vegetables, and 1/4 teaspoon of salt in a soup pot. Add enough water till it reaches about an 1/2 inch above the vegetables. Bring your soup to a boil, and then add the ‘snowballs’ a few at a time so they don’t stick together. Turn the heat down and let the soup simmer for ten minutes, stirring occasionally. Next add the butter and milk, and heat a few more minutes until the soup is heated thoroughly.

Got any creative ideas for getting your children to eat healthy foods?