Monday, October 19, 2009

Fruit, Veggies & Toddlers!

Some of the ideas presented in this blog were passed on to me from my mom and others are my own.
Ever have trouble getting your little one to eat his/her veggies? Try some of these tips below for easy ways to get the wholesome goodness of veggies into their diet!

1. Pumpkin pancakes. You can mix up a batch of pancake batter and add some canned pumpkin and a little cinnamon Yum!

2. Add pureed squash, carrot or sweet potato to boxed macaroni and cheese dinners or make your own mac and cheese which is even better. You can add these veggies to spaghettie sauce as well. If you are in a hurry use baby food veggies-they are already pureed for you.

3. Instead of having your child drink apple juice try giving them V-8 Fusion juice. Put cold water in a cup and add an equal amount of juice to it. This juice has veggies and fruits in it, your kids will like trying all the different flavors.

4. Make ants on a log (see the bottom of this post for directions)

5. You can always put veggies in breads and muffins too. Pumpkin muffins or zucchini bread are both great ways to get veggies into your kids. (recipes are below)

If you tend to have a problem with fruit as well as veggies just try hiding that too.

1. Banana Pancakes or bread: Just mash the banana as you would for bread and add to the pancake batter!

2. Put applesauce in muffins

3. Use fruit for a topping on ice cream

4. mix raisins with their favorite crackers and or cereal for a fun snack mix

Recipes :

Ants on a log:

You need:

celery (washed and cut into slices)
peanut butter

raisins or chocolate chips

Directions: spread peanut butter on celery (log) and place raisins or chocolate chips on top!

Pumpkin Bread

16 oz can of canned pumpkin

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (NOT self rising)

2 tsp. baking soda

3 cups sugar or 3 cups Splenda

4 eggs beaten

1 cup vegetable oil

1 and 1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp. cinnamon

2 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 tsp. allspice

1 cup chopped pecans (optional)

1/2 cup rasins (optional)

Water 2/3 cup

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 F

In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, soda, salt, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, and sugar

Add the eggs, water, oil and pumpkin

Stir until blended

If using nuts or raisins add these now, then stir well by hand or use mixer

Pour into two lightly greased and floured 9x5 loaf pans

Bake approx. 1 hour at 350 F. Test for doneness by putting knife into bread, if it comes out clean it is done

Let bread cool about 10 min then place loaves on a wire rack

This bread tastes good if you let it set a bit. You can wrap it in plastic wrap then refrigerate

( pumpkin bread recipe from: http://www.pickyourown.org/pumpkinbread.php)

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