Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Easy and Healthy Toddler Approved Meals (with veggies!)

I was recently talking with some girlfriends about the increasing distain our toddler's have for trying new foods.  Mealtime can be fraught with stress for many parents, especially when our little ones are asserting strong opinions about what they like and don't.

For us it seems to go in phases.  Sometimes James Robert is very picky and seems to only eat noodles and to be honest, some nights that's OK.   Usually, we'll try again the next day with something new; experimentation and variety have served us well.  And now that he is a little older, including him in the meal prep has been a HUGE win.  When his little hands get to help shred the cheese, mix or pour the ingredients or we call things by a fun name, he is much more enthusiastic about giving it a try.

With that in mind, I wanted to share some quick, easy dinner ideas that we have made in the past couple of weeks that had us all eating our veggies.  Follow along on Instagram where I will be sharing more in the future.

1) Everything but the kitchen sink crockpot veggie soup.  I literally throw in all my veggies, stock, chicken and it always turns out great.  You can add noodles.  We love ours with frozen okra thrown in at the end (JR's favorite veggie).   Adapted from this recipe.  
 
2) Chicken and veggie enchiladas are always a hit.  This is a family recipe that I can share in another post, but really it's so simple.  These have mushrooms, spinach and chicken as filling and I've discovered that the smaller I chop up the veggies in the filling, the more I can hide! 
 3) Zucchini boats were a recent win! JR helped to mix the ingredients and absolutely loved that they are called boats.  I cut his up into little pieces at the end and added extra cheese and he gobbled them up. I loosely used this recipe. 
4) Twice baked sweet potatoes filled with bean burger and topped with avocado, cheese and greek yogurt. I used this recipe. 
 
5) I couldn't get enough of these healthy buffalo chicken wraps, along with everyone else in the family.  I topped the tangy chicken with celery, greek yogurt and lots of broccoli slaw.  Adapted from this recipe. 
 
6) This isn't so much a recipe as a throw-together meal.  It may surprise you how much you like it and your little.  We've been trying to add fermented foods to our diet and have discovered a love for sauerkraut in the process (the kind that comes in the refrigerated section of WF). This sauerkraut is a ginger/carrot kind and is so delicious. Drain off excess liquid, add chopped apples and some cubes of cheese and it's a delicious meal. 

P.S. When all else fails, we make green smoothies.  They are still a huge favorite and a delicious, easy way to get JR to get his greens.

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