Quick and Easy Recipes

My 19 mo old loves this quick and easy and CHEAP meat loaf: Mix 1 lb ground beef, one box stove top (I recommend their new whole wheat one, we like its seasonings the best in this so far) and 1 cup warm water together. No eggs needed and the spices and bread crumbs are already in the stuffing. I put mine in muffin tins instead of loaf pans. Its easier to do serving sizes, pack leftovers for lunch, and cooks a lot quicker. I cook it at 400 for about 15-20 minutes.

Here is one that my kiddos love:
Easy Chicken Manicotti

1 jar (32 0z.) spaghetti sauce (any flavor)
1/2 to 3/4 cup water
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1 1/2 lbs. (about 14 tenders) chicken breast tenders (not breaded)
14 uncooked manicotti shells (8 oz.)
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (or any shredded cheese- like the Itallian
mix)
chopped fresh basil leaves (optional)
1. Heat oven to 350*F. Mix marinara sauce with water in medium bowl. Spread
about 1/3 of the sauce into a 13x9 inch baking dish sprayed with non stick
spray.
2. Sprinkle garlic salt on chicken. Insert chicken into uncooked manicotti
shells, stuffing the tender from end to end (use end of wooden spoon). Place
stuffed shells on sauce in baking dish. Pour remaining sauce evenly over
shells, covering completely.
3. Cover with foil and bake about 1 hour or until shells are tender.
Sprinkle with cheese.
4. Bake uncovered about 5 minutes more or until cheese is melted. Sprinkle
with basil leaves

Let me look around and I'll send you some more. Just remember this is a TOUGH age! Don't give in and become a short order cook!

D.

I receive Kraft's Food & Family magazine in the mail every couple of months. It always contains easy, inexpensive, healthy recipes that appeal to children. Subscriptions to the mag are FREE! Go to www.kraftfoods.com to sign up. You will also be able to search recipes on their site, too!

Instead of serving traditional spaghetti to our daughter we use spaghetti squash instead of regular noodles. She loves it and it is very easy to cook. Just buy a spaghetti squash from the store, cut in half, put a small dab of butter and your favorite seasonings, cover in aluminum foil and bake at 350 until the sides are soft. We put the squash on a plate and cover it in traditional spaghetti sauce (we occassionally include ground turkey and chicken into the sauce).

We also use the crockpot quite a bit, we always place a ton of carrots with whatever meat we are cooking for our daughter - we will save the leftover carrots and serve them to her over a couple of meals. We found that the traditional carrots that require peeling taste better than the bite-sized carrots that are so popular.

For lunch we often just steam frozen vegetables and serve them with luncheon meat or chicken (we will grill extra breasts on Sunday night and reheat them during the week).

We do not give our daughter anything with refined sugar or juice so she loves loves fruit. Her favorite fruit is mangos so don't be afraid to try something different.

I've always fed mine whatever the family is eating, with a few adjustments to make their serving less spicy, etc. I also buy lots of frozen veggies in bags (Plain - no sauce, just heat in microwave with a little water), so I can make a small bowl at a time - my one year old loves veggies and some sliced turkey for lunch - you can't get much easier than that. She also loves pasta - those ready-made tortellini (try the spinach kind) cook quickly and are easy finger foods for her, put sauce on for the rest of the family. Good luck!