The Sneaky Chef

One of my newest books that I love is The Sneaky Chef by Missy Chase Lapine.  I devoured (yes, pun intended) this book on our trip and came home ready to buy cauliflower to hide it various things!
Sweetpea is our "picky" eater in that there is no convincing her to try something if she is not interested.  Buddy will at least try most things but even he can be selective about what he eats. 
The Sneaky Chef not only gives recipes that hide veggies and fruits but also gives various reasons and methods behind choosing to hide the healthy foods. Missy Lapine addresses meal time battles and how this makes family meal times a dreaded event for both parent and child.  Jon and I have struggled to make our family suppers a joy while encouraging healthy eating.
I hope to apply a few of the principles learned from this book and breathe a little easier knowing that Buddy and Sweetpea are getting the nutrients that they need.  With recipes like Magic Meatballs and Sauce, Power Pizza, and Total Tacos, Buddy and Sweetpea will be able to enjoy their favorite meals while consuming hidden vegetables and fruits.  I still plan to present vegetables and fruits on their plates to hopefully get Buddy and Sweetpea to eat them as is but without battle!
If your children are finicky eaters, I recommend finding this book and giving it a read.  Meal times should not be a guilt filled experience of bribing or cajoling or fussing at our children.  All moms want to know that their children are eating healthy and enjoying it.  The Sneaky Chef finds a balance between a fuss-free meal and nutrient rich food.

Compromise...

When Jon and I were first married, one of my easy go-to dishes was spaghetti until Jon finally confessed that he really did not care for the way I made spaghetti.  He then made spaghetti his way...which I admitted I did not like.  So we quit making spaghetti in our house. 
I've been wanting my spaghetti for about two months but knew that Jon wouldn't enjoy that supper.  It finally dawned on me, why couldn't I cook two sauces?  It would be the best of both worlds!  So for the first time in years, we had a spaghetti dinner where both of us were happy.
It dawned on me as I was eating that this was a simple compromise that we should have made immediately.  Marriage is made up of small compromises, for example, the way to make a bed, the way laundry is folded, and even the way toilet paper is put on the roll.  In the end, the commitment to a life-long marriage is more important than how tightly the sheets are tucked in, whether or not the towels are tri-folded, or beef or italian sausage spaghetti.  I was glad to find a happy compromise for spaghetti and someday Buddy and Sweetpea will get to choose between "Mommy's spaghetti" and "Daddy's spaghetti".  Who knows, maybe they will enjoy both!

Pajama Party

Last night our family had a pizza and pajama party!  It is Family Week at church which meant no activities last night so we decided to make it a special Family night.  I made a batch of the pizza dough yesterday morning then we all created personalized pizzas that night.  Buddy was able to choose his ingredients and helped to make the pizza too.  No surprise that he wanted olives (blech!) and he asked to make a smiley face.  I provided direction but Buddy placed the olive pieces where he wanted them which included a row of hair for his "pizza man".  Sweetpea also had a special small pizza made for her.  She helped pat down the dough a little but Mommy did most of the work.  Here are our finished creations!

We ate in the living room, another special treat, while watching Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.  Buddy was quite engrossed into the movie which was a different take on the classic children's book.  It was a really cute movie and made both Jon and I laugh out loud several times.

Sweetpea was not interested in the movie at all and played on the floor after dinner.  She even tried to cruise her way to Buddy's leftover pizza!

It is the fun nights like this that are my favorite evenings.  Everyone was relaxed (how can you not relax in pjs?) and we all had a great time.  Mommy wasn't fussing over vegetables uneaten, no rush to go to bed, and Buddy and Sweetpea had lots of snuggle time.  Every family should stop once and a while and have pajama parties.  I love how such a simple thing can bring us closer together as a family!

Homemade Baby Food

Since Sweetpea is almost a year old, my foray into the world of homemade baby food is almost to an end but if we have another baby, I will definitely be making baby food again.  Some people around me have not understood why I took the time to make Sweetpea's food when stores sell baby food conveniently packaged and ready to go.  The reason I decided to try out making homemade baby food was how expensive baby food has become, even since Buddy was a baby.  One very small, non-name brand jar will cost almost 50 cents so you can imagine how quickly it adds up, especially as your baby grows and eats more. 

I began by reading a lot of online articles about homemade baby food, talking to a few friends who made theirs, and collecting a lot of ideas.  Wholesome Baby Food is a website dedicated to sharing nutrition facts on foods and how to prepare your own baby food.  This website is the main site that I have used and have even made Sweetpea teething biscuits from a recipe on the site.  I took a few hours one Saturday and made Sweetpea enough food to last two months and was surprised at how easy it was.  This even introduced my family to butternut squash for the first time.  If you are thinking about making baby food for your child, here are a few of the pros and cons that I have discovered. 

Pros:
1.  Homemade baby food is definitely less expensive than buying jars of baby food.  A bag of carrots is around $1 and made, for Sweetpea, over 10 servings.  If I were to buy 10 servings of jar carrots, it would cost around $5.
2.  Homemade baby food smells and looks so much better.  This was the reason I continued making Sweetpea's food because it is such a huge difference in the smell and look of the foods, especially the fruits.
3.  Homemade baby food introduces your baby to a wider variety.  Sweetpea loves mashed avocados but I never would have considered giving Buddy avocado because it did not come inside of a jar.

Cons:
1.  Homemade baby food is not as convenient.  When we go for a day of shopping, I tend to grab a few of the jars because the homemade food will not keep all day without refrigeration. 
2.  Homemade baby food takes a lot of freezer space.  I freeze Sweetpea's food in ice cube trays and then store the cubes in plastic bags.  Our current freezer section is not very big and her food takes up a lot of room now that she has a lot of choices stored.

All in all, making my own baby food for the past few months has been a great experience and if you have an infant who is ready to start solid foods, I encourage you to at least try making the baby food yourself first!

Homemade Poptarts and Pizza Pockets

Today, Buddy and I tried out the healthy poptart recipe from the Heavenly Homemakers site.  The dough can also make pizza pockets, so I halved the dough and we tried both.  My favorite thing about these is that both can freeze for easy convenience meals in the future.  Plus, I'm a huge fan of anything pizza!

Buddy and I had fun measuring and mixing the dough together.  His favorite part is counting and then dumping ingredients into the bowl.  I helped him stir since I didn't want flour all over the flour and knew the dough would be harder for him stir by himself.  We then let the dough rest and rolled it out after nap. 

Buddy liked sprinkling the flour onto the wax paper and using the rolling pin.  Check out how much flour ended up on him!

 These are our finished strawberry and huckleberry poptarts.  I made icing and drizzled it over Buddy's.

They were very yummy!

This is a picture of the pizza pockets, which were also very good.  I should have added more filling and will definitely be trying them again.

I highly recommend trying both of these recipes and will be making larger batches of both the poptarts and pizza pockets to put in the freezer.   The great thing is that the fillings can be changed to suit your tastes.  Any kind of jelly or jam can be put in the middle for poptarts or even scrambled eggs and sausage for a breakfast sandwich.  Head over to the Heavenly Homemakers and try them out for yourself!