Easy Food

Getting Your Munchkins to Eat

Need to get your toddler to eat a bit more at breakfast. Let me do it himself. He can share his Cheerios with his sister and you'd be surprised by how much the two of them eat.

 Great Finger Food Ideas:

Try cutting sweet potato or carrots into sticks prior to cooking or microwaving. This will give you easy an easy, ready to go snack or veggie for a meal.

Place carrot or sweet potato sticks on a covered cookie sheet and put in the freezer. If they freeze individually then you can put them in a big zip-lock baggie and pull what you want. Freezing in one layer will prevent them from sticking together while being stored.

Diced carrots and sweet potatoes make for easy, healthy snacks for all ages. Dice, microwave for 5-8 minutes depending on the amount cooked, drain water, spread on a cookie sheet and freeze. This makes easy finger food.

Store frozen food cubes in containers to use when needed.

Need a healthy twist on making baby food. Add a bag of fresh, washed spinach to any other baby food. One bag of clean spinach, 1-2 cups of water, microwave for 7 minutes. Add to pureed broccoli, cauliflower, sweet potato, carrots, applesauce, zucchini, etc.

 Teething Baby Ideas:

Frozen peas are a great snack for teething babies. It's a fun way to eat. So I can get her to eat a bit more "green" if she can feed herself.

Purchase frozen, whole cherries as a fun sweet snack for ages 9 months and up. I quarter the frozen snack for my toddler and slice the quarters in small bits for my 9 month old. Keep the frozen for an easy and yummy teething snack to help gums feel better! 

From one of my previous blog posts:

I LOVE making my kids baby food! It is so extremely easy! You don't need to be crafty, handy in the kitchen, or have a ton of time. It's great to have a full freezer of healthy goodies!!!

Here's the easiest set up ever: 

1. slice and dice your veggies

2. microwave in a Pampered Chef steamer until tender and cooked through

3. Puree in blender or food processor until smooth

Today, in less than 30 minutes I made 10 -2 oz jars of sweet potatoes, 10 - 2 oz jars of peas, and 11- 4oz sweet potato, apple, banana mixed pouches. 

I love these easy containers to send to school with my infant and as carrying cases for snacks and formula, when necessary. These containers were cheap and easy to clean. Since they are cheap, I don't mind if they get lost at school or not returned to me right away. They do break easily under pressure but the benefits outweigh the cons.

I bought a Freeze Squeeze system this morning and love it so far. I am looking forward to trying reusable storage for my toddler and mid-aged infant.

Thinking about how much our family loves and enjoys Plum Baby pouches, I want to see if this is a better deal than the 10 for $10 at various stores :) 

1 lg sweet potato 1.10

4 med apples 2.50

1 lg banana (paid about a $1 for 4 bananas earlier in the week)

So..... for about $4 made 11 pouches. The system costs about $30 and $17 for 50 extra pouches. 

Doing some extra math the pouches are $.34 a piece and depending of the cost of food each filled pouch will cost about $.65-$.75 each. Saving money for those families who are on the go and want homemade food for their little ones.