Le Top Tip: Make Food Fun!

This tip was passed on to me by one of our fabulous designers, Marice, and mom of two.

“Some kids get excited to eat foods that are fun. Try cutting up those veggies into small crazy shapes and let your kids dip them in ranch dip, peanut butter or hummus… (Yum!) I have a cutter that is wavy so it makes food look like crinkle-cut fries. There are a variety of vegetable cutters on the market that can turn seemingly boring vegetables into a garden of flowers, a pile of maple leaves and almost anything else you can dream up. I’ve used regular cookie cutters to make sandwiches into pumpkins, hearts or even cartoon characters like Snoopy. (If you don’t like waste, you can use the cast off edges of the bread to make stuffing to go with your roast chicken or treat your family to a classic bread pudding!)  Kids also love tortillas rolled up to make wraps instead of regular sandwich bread. Be creative.

I have always preferred my kids get used to eating veggies “as they are” rather than hiding them (and yes, they still refuse to eat certain ones) – but I am always happy to give them a snack of carrot muffins or zucchini bread just to get some extra nutrition in them.  There are recipes out there that use juices or other non-sugar sweeteners. I also try to find different ways to cook vegetables – listen to your child’s preferences – do they like it more crunchy or soft, with cheese sauce, etc.  As a kid, I didn’t like zucchini and later in life I discovered that I liked it barely cooked and not so squishy!

Speaking of zucchini, sometimes I slice it lengthwise and top it with pizza sauce and cheese and run it under the broiler for what I call, “pizza-cchini”  – or even a drizzle of Italian dressing topped with parmesan cheese and broiled is pretty tasty for the whole family.”

Thank you Marice for your FUNtastic tip!

Note from the editor: If you have any tips or suggestions that you think another parent or caregiver could benefit from please send it to me at editor@letop-usa.com.

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Le Top Tip: Hide those Vegetables

One of our Le Top moms, Robyn, is concerned about her daughters getting enough vegetables in their diets (especially given that one of them is a picky eater), so she has been doing research on ways to hide those nutrient filled veggies in foods they love. She found a recipe from The Sneaky Chef for mac-n-cheese that has cauliflower, carrots and zucchini pureed in it. Your kids won’t know it not only tastes good, but is also nutritious and good for them. Try the banana pancake recipe with carrots and sweet potatoes. Yum! And, if your child has a major sweet tooth, there is a Brilliant Blondies recipe that has white beans, oat bran, whole wheat flour, and wheat germ. These recipes can all be found at http://www.thesneakychef.com/. Though some may seem a bit bizarre, these are great tasting recipes that will fool your kids into getting exactly what they need to keep them growing healthy and strong. Of course, there is nothing that can truly trick them into eating vegetables, so don’t give up on the real deal. You never know if they get used to the taste, one of these times when they actually try their vegetables they may decide they are A-okay. 🙂

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