Kid friendly

I continue to try and find kid-friendly meals that are (a) easy to make (b) popular with the kiddos (c) provide healthy options (d) expose them to a variety of foods. It also has to not be egg-centered due to Isaac's allergy. (His allergy continues to improve; he now only seems to have to avoid quiches, puddings, and eggs themselves.)

Traditionally in our home, JB gets home around 5pm. He plays with the boys for awhile and then he cooks dinner for us. Lately we have been doing some sort of fish and some sort of greens nearly every night. Even better is that the vegetables are nearly always coming from our garden. How cool is that?

But here's where problems begin. Five o'clock to seven o'clock is a crazy time in the house. We try to have the boys eat what we eat, but they often don't even want to try what JB makes. This is primarily true of Isaac. Elijah will try any and everything and usually likes most things. But Isaac is much more picky.

So Veronica and I have been trying to do a healthier dinner at lunch time and then do a light dinner (trying some of the things we eat and maybe some fruit or yogurt or grilled cheese or PB&J) at dinner time. This allows me to get the boys dinner ready while JB is preparing our food.

We always said we would not  be those people who make separate meals for our kids. But the thing is, we are eating a lot of salad and fish and light meats and not family dishes (like lasagna, spaghetti, etc.) The boys are trying it but not getting full on it. So we are trying the new strategy instead.

Here are the four meals we tried this past week:
Tricolor Pasta Salad: Not sure how much the boys liked it, but it was super-easy to make and pretty stinkin' healthy. We kept the sauce on the side for dipping in hopes that they would eat more of it. Veronica and I also really liked this dish.

Macaroni and Cheese Muffins: This was a total bomb. I don't know what we did wrong but the muffins did not taste right and did not work at all. In addition, the recipe seemed to be missing a few things. (For one thing, it tells you to keep your boiled water but then it never tells you what to do with it.) We won't try this one again. Especially because it wasn't really healthy at all.

Cheese Whiz: This was a fun idea. The cheese sauce isn't really healthy but the stuff we provided for the boys to dip in the cheese sure was. (Carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and some bread.) Okay so Isaac requested honey and skipped the cheese altogether for dipping, but Elijah got into it.

Creamy macaroni 'n cheese: Veronica made this. She couldn't find the evaporated milk so she used sweet & condensed instead. This mac & cheese tasted AWESOME! However, the boys didn't chow on it like I hoped, and it really wasn't very healthy.

To view past recipes that I have tried for the kiddos, view this link.