The New Sloppy Joe in My House

Hello All,

Apologies for the extreme delay in posting anything new.  I appreciate everyone hanging in there and surviving on the increasing old posts I have already added.

I am pleased to announce that Tasty Toddler has added a new member while you have been waiting.  We welcomed our little girl, Charlotte to the world in September and we are all consumed with her loveliness.

As of the day before yesterday all of my baby helpers have left and I am forced to make dinner on my own again - can you hear the groan?  However, I found a recipe on pintrest.com over the weekend that made me groan just a bit less. 

While surfing the site I came across - White Trash Sliders (found through Pintrest on South Your Mouth).  Though the name is not exactly appetizing the ease of making this little dinner and the taste more than made up for it.  This recipe was fat, simple, easily modifiable for taste and health content and almost everyone in the house ate it - woo hoo!!!

I did not even bother to consult the recipe when I made these beauties - they were that self explanatory.  To feed two adults and two toddlers (my son had a friend over) I used:

1/2 lb. lean ground beef
6 breakfast sausages
salt & pepper to taste
1/4 block of velveeta (2% milk)
3 hamburger buns

I simply cooked and chopped the meat together, mixed in the Velveeta and added salt and pepper.  The cheese helped everything stay together unlike Sloppy Joes and it was a quick and easy meal when served with a vegetable side.  I was thinking I could further and some nutrition by chopping up some veggies into the mix, using whole wheat buns, turkey sausage or meatless sausage, etc.  This recipe is that easily customizable.

Result: Parents enjoyed them - SUCCESS! Toddler enjoyed them - 50% SUCCESS! (One toddler is currently not eating anything lately and the other complimented me that it was yummy)

Food Crafts for Toddlers

It is very rare that you find a craft that your kids love, is easy to do for parents and adults and you have all of the materials on hand but I found one!

I was surfing Pintrest.com the other day, shocking I know and found the image of this great looking craft or better named learning activity for toddlers. The child pictured was simply using spaghetti noodles that were pointing straight up from dough and threading cheerios on them.  I thought; I have cheerios; I have spaghetti noodles; I have play dough.  I should try this.  So that very afternoon around my sons snack time I sat him in his high chair and decided to give this a try.

Besides being handy and easy to assemble I found that my child loved this little game. He could eat the cheerios on his tray or put them down the spaghetti sticks. If a noodle broke it didn’t matter because it offered varying lengths to play with and I of course had plenty more. I played with him for a while and would add cheerios to sticks making “O” sounds when one made it down the noodle which brought on giggling from Will. Will was also happy playing with them himself.

I kept the dough in the cup to spare the mess. I also did this in a high chair so there would be no play dough accidents on the carpet.

All-in-all Will played with this activity for about 30 minutes. I highly recommend it as a cold or rainy day activity or maybe while you are trying to get something done without little ones under your feet.It seems very open to substitutions of other snack foods, homemade dough, straws instead of noodles – whatever you may have on hand. I really enjoyed that if he ate anything from this craft they were mostly food items and non-toxic. In future, I think I may try to use real food dough instead of play dough so that it is a food product as well.  I have seen a few recipes on Weelicious.com for kid dough.

Result: Parents enjoyed them - SUCCESS! Toddler enjoyed them - SUCCESS!

Healthy Breakfast Muffins with Vegetables

Sweet Potato Muffins
[Weelicious.com]

Hello parents of picky eaters,

I apologize for the long delay in posting something new to the site.  Life seems to be getting in the way of my blog and I haven't been keeping up with it as I should.  However, I have not been completely idle and I have been researching new recipes and plan to be much better with posting new items for everyone to try and experiment with in your own homes with your families.

This week I realized that I was out of breakfast muffins and really needed to get cooking.  I serve Will (my 20 month old) a lot of different varieties of toddler breakfast muffins and he loves them.  I have yet to find a variation that he does not gobble up with plenty of audible – mmmmms.

I decided, I wanted to find a new recipe to try to see if I could introduce some more vegetables into Will’s diet.  As you all know he is a picky eater so getting him to eat vegetables and meats is always difficult.

In choosing a new recipe to try I went to my tried and true favorite kid recipe site – Weelicious.com.  I actually found quite a few recipes I plan to try but this week I attempted Mini Sweet Potato Muffins.  They were fantastic!  I made them exactly as the recipe suggested without any substitutions.  The timing was perfect.  The muffins were moist and delicious and contained less sugar than my current favorite toddler breakfast muffins.  I am definitely keeping this in my weekly rotation.  My only variation is that I may add some dried fruits – raisins, cranberries, etc just for some more flavor combinations.

Recipe: Mini Sweet Potato Muffins [Weelicious.com]

Recipe result: Parents enjoyed them - SUCCESS! Toddler enjoyed them - SUCCESS!

Healthy Vegetables Side Dish That Your Toddler Will Eat

Sweet Potato Biscuits
[Weelicios.com]

This post makes me laugh.  I actually completely ruined this recipe.  I found it on my go-to web site for healthy recipes to try on my toddler.  It is on Weelicious.com.

I had some sweet potatoes waiting to be used and I wanted to try something different other than my go-to muffins.  So I went to Weelicious.com and simply typed in sweet potatoes.  My results were a ton of great things I need to try. 

I settled on the recipe Sweet Potato Biscuits.  Other than muffins, I don’t make many bread recipes.  I don’t have the patience for the yeast rising and up until recently I haven’t been able to do the whole floured surface and rolling thing.  I finally started using a pastry mat – what a dream come true. Before, I was using my counter which no matter how many times I washed it it was never clean enough and no amount of flour stopped things from sticking. But when using a pastry mat and not needing to use yeast and wait I thought this recipe might be doable.  I was wrong.

My first mistake was not really reading the instructions.  Now I normally forget an ingredient or two when I screw up a recipe but not this time.  This time I felt I knew better. Actually it was - I don’t have the patience to do it the way the recipe says.  So instead of pulsing the dry ingredients and then dough I just turned the food processor on.  Well over mixing my dough did one thing – it caused my biscuits not to rise.  They looked like pancakes.  I was hesitant to even try them out.  But if I expected my toddler to try them I had to do the same.  So my husband and I gave them a shot.  For the dense-ness of them not rising they were actually pretty good.  Will (our toddler) actually ate his too.  So surprisingly this was a success for the tasting just not for the chef.  Lesson learned to follow the instructions, well hopefully.

Recipe: Sweet Potato Biscuits [Weelicious.com]

Recipe result: Parents enjoyed them - SUCCESS! Toddler enjoyed them - SUCCESS!

How to Get Toddlers to Eat Vegetables

Broccoli Cheese Patties
for Picky Eaters

I find the process of getting my son to eat a vegetable a little difficult, to say the least.  The best I have ever managed was to hide nutrients in muffins (Healthy Fall Recipes for Picky Eaters). So far, we have not had any problems with carbohydrates or fruits. Meat is difficult to introduce due to lack of teeth.  But vegetables have been a problem for us based on the taste.  Since eating solid finger foods Will has turned his nose up at green beans, carrots, broccoli, etc.  It does not matter if I offer dips or sprinkle them with cheese he will immediately pick them up attempt to remove them from his tray.  Therefore I am determined to find a few recipes that will help me get more vegetable goodness into my son.  I decided that Weelicious.com would be a great place to start.
 
I found a recipe called Broccoli Cheese Patties.  It got quite a few thumbs up on the site and I thought maybe my husband and I might like it too.  After all, somebody in my house needs to eat these experiments so we are not wasting food.
 
The recipe was so simple I had everything I needed in the house and was not forced to run to the store.  I already liked it. The recipe also looked as though it might be fairly easy and it was!  I was able to make this and several other dinner items at the same time without feeling like this recipe was so demanding and particular that I could not finish it if I was multitasking.
 
The Broccoli Cheese Patties turned out beautifully.  They were easy to make, they looked as good as the picture and the best part is, everyone liked them.  Parents and toddler both ate them!
 
Recipe: Broccoli Cheese Patties [Weelicious.com]

Recipe result: Parents enjoyed them - SUCCESS! Toddler enjoyed them - SUCCESS!

Healthy Fall Recipes for Picky Toddlers

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
for Picky Eaters

With chilly weather and the holidays rapidly approaching I thought I should make something festive.  Pumpkin definitely has a fall feel to it so I wanted to make something with pumpkin in it. My little man has had pumpkin purees in baby food mixes but I have never let him experience the full deliciousness of the pumpkin flavor.  For this taste test I opted to make Pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.  I know for me making muffins is a stretch for me – ha ha.  For those that have recently joined me you can view my successful with toddlers and adults catalog of muffin recipes and their variations (Healthy Breakfast Ideas for Toddlers, Healthy Muffin Recipe for Toddlers, More Mini-Muffin Madness.)

I found this recipe through Pintrest.com but it led me to the recipe owner’s site which is AllRecipes.com.  I have actually found a lot of healthy toddler recipes for picky eaters there.  I will definitely be re-using this resource in posts to come.

These muffins were delicious!  I made them in about 20+ minutes total.   Other than the can of pumpkin I keep my pantry stocked with every other ingredient I needed to make them. I took them to a neighborhood party with several adults, toddlers and small kids.  Every single person loved them.  I even brought the three remaining muffins to my day care lady the next day and she loved them.  I highly recommend giving this recipe a try.

My only variation to the recipe was replacing with sugar with brown and making them into mini-muffins.  Mini muffins should be cooked for about 11 minutes.  I may experiment with this recipe and try raisins or a touch more spice next time too just to see what happens.

Recipe: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins [allrecipes.com]

Recipe result:  Parents enjoyed them - SUCCESS! Toddler enjoyed them - SUCCESS!

Healthy Breakfast Ideas for Toddlers

Healthy Toddler Breakfast Muffins

As my readers may know I am a big fan of Healthy Muffins for Toddlers.  I find that it is a really easy way to get a lot of nutrition and taste into each bite my child consumes in the morning.  Therefore, I have made several different kinds of muffins and have been experimenting with ways to make the tastier while balancing the healthy ingredients.  I usually will double or triple the amount of bananas in a recipe.  I will add oats to a recipe.  I will substitute whole wheat flour over white and see the results.  This week, I have taken my tried and true muffin recipe and attempted to go a little fancier with my add-ins.  I want my son to have a varied palette and to have tried many foods when he gets out in the world and starts tasting on his own.

For this round of taste testing I made two variations on my former list of Healthy Toddler Muffins Varieties.  My first attempt was to try something a little gourmet.  I would like my little man to be ready for the challenge of eating grandpa’s fancy meals someday. Therefore, I made my banana oatmeal recipe with white chocolate chips and cranberries.  I wasn’t sure if those flavors would go well with the bananas and oats but it worked surprisingly well.  My second variety was butterscotch chips.  I was not worried that the butterscotch flavor might not meld with the bananas and I was completely right.  They went together perfectly.

Recipe: Healthy Toddler Breakfast Muffins [Healthy Muffin Recipe for Toddlers]

Recipe result - Banana Oatmeal White Chocolate Chip Cranberry Muffins:
Parents enjoyed them - SUCCESS!
Toddler enjoyed them - SUCCESS!

Recipe result – Banana Oatmeal Butterscotch Muffins:
Parents enjoyed them - SUCCESS!
Toddler enjoyed them - SUCCESS!