Since my first posts about food (a while ago), we have made great progress! The girls usually eat pb & j sandwich or grilled cheese quesadillas for lunch with grapes or apple "fries". For dinner they will have what we eat, sometimes from the night before. They like a lot of adult foods, but sometimes have no interest and we have to resort to the standby sandwich or sweet potato chunks and that's all they'll eat.
The issue still exists that we will often have leftovers from the night before for dinner (and there's only enough for one or two meals), or egg sandwiches, or leftovers from date night out. The problem is that then I have to come up with something else for the girls to eat. So I found this blog about making freezer meals for toddlers. You spend one or two nap times making these mini muffin sized meatballs, and veggie tarts and they can easily be thawed in an afternoon and ready for dinner.
~~~~~~~~~~
This is borrowed from the blog:
http://melissafallistestkitchen.blogspot.com/2013/10/freezer-cooking-5-baby-finger-foods.html
Love her ideas and tried them myself. Wanted to share what worked for
us. My mini-muffin pans were very helpful but you could
use cookie sheets with sides too. See this blog for the directions and
ingredients.
First attempt
Healthy Meatballs (24-32)
Mini Chicken Parmesan Cups
Sweet Potato Fries
Shopping list:
ground beef, ground chicken, onion (I used
dried onion flakes), garlic (I use the squeeze bottle of garlic that they sell
in the produce section), 5 sweet potatoes, bread crumbs, recipe suggests wheat
bran (didn't have this, just used bread crumbs instead...not sure that worked
best?), Italian seasoning, spaghetti sauce, baby food purees (2 containers, I
used mixed veggies), egg, mozzarella cheese, parm cheese.
Will try next-
Broccoli Cheese Patties (20)
Spinach Cups (20)
Notes:
Chix Parm (picture on top) A few got crispy, will be
much more careful about size next time and make sure I fill the mini muffin hole
(?) to the top. The girls liked these they are easy to pull apart.
Meatballs (bottom picture) No changes. These were also a hit. I
like that they have veggie baby food mixed in. I didn’t use wheat bran though,
worked ok with extra bread crumbs.
Sweet Potato Fries- Mine were a little crispy and dark the first
time, so the second tray I baked 10 minutes then flipped and did another 10
minutes. I also baked them at 430 instead of 450. I have two tray-fulls of fries
from 5 sweet potatoes.
The issue still exists that we will often have leftovers from the night before for dinner (and there's only enough for one or two meals), or egg sandwiches, or leftovers from date night out. The problem is that then I have to come up with something else for the girls to eat. So I found this blog about making freezer meals for toddlers. You spend one or two nap times making these mini muffin sized meatballs, and veggie tarts and they can easily be thawed in an afternoon and ready for dinner.
~~~~~~~~~~
This is borrowed from the blog:
http://melissafallistestkitchen.blogspot.com/2013/10/freezer-cooking-5-baby-finger-foods.html
Love her ideas and tried them myself. Wanted to share what worked for
us. My mini-muffin pans were very helpful but you could
use cookie sheets with sides too. See this blog for the directions and
ingredients.
First attempt
Healthy Meatballs (24-32)
Mini Chicken Parmesan Cups
Sweet Potato Fries
Shopping list:
ground beef, ground chicken, onion (I used
dried onion flakes), garlic (I use the squeeze bottle of garlic that they sell
in the produce section), 5 sweet potatoes, bread crumbs, recipe suggests wheat
bran (didn't have this, just used bread crumbs instead...not sure that worked
best?), Italian seasoning, spaghetti sauce, baby food purees (2 containers, I
used mixed veggies), egg, mozzarella cheese, parm cheese.
Will try next-
Broccoli Cheese Patties (20)
Spinach Cups (20)
Notes:
Chix Parm (picture on top) A few got crispy, will be
much more careful about size next time and make sure I fill the mini muffin hole
(?) to the top. The girls liked these they are easy to pull apart.
Meatballs (bottom picture) No changes. These were also a hit. I
like that they have veggie baby food mixed in. I didn’t use wheat bran though,
worked ok with extra bread crumbs.
Sweet Potato Fries- Mine were a little crispy and dark the first
time, so the second tray I baked 10 minutes then flipped and did another 10
minutes. I also baked them at 430 instead of 450. I have two tray-fulls of fries
from 5 sweet potatoes.