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!