I have a 3 year old and a 17 month old and I feel like I am constantly looking for healthy meal and snack ideas, but they never come to fruition. I am not opposed to mac n' cheese every once in awhile, but I am starting to feel like thats all they eat. I need ideas suggestions, etc. That will be easy to put together and wont break my budget. I have so many cookbooks and wesbsites that I have explored i just can't seem to bring it all together!! help me!
Thanks for all the great advice,I am going to check out all the information and hopefully my hubby and I can sit down and come up with a plan! I am going to try and find 14 recipes that work and rotate them!
I'm really big on menu plans to help me strategize what to make for the week. I also try to make and then freeze a bunch of waffles, pancakes, cookies, veggies, etc.. so I can just take out what I need. Hopefully this will give you a few ideas: http://weelicious.com/photos/
Healthy... means, not processed foods, not fried foods.
That encompasses most of it.
You can make your own Mac n' Cheese from scratch. Thereby bypassing the processed foods, types. Then it will be healthier.
Just cook from scratch.
That is the best way, to cook/eat healthy.
And just don't buy, junk.
Jerry Seinfeld's wife has a cookbook that is about sneaking vegetables in everyday dishes. I cannot remember the name of it though.
Last November I asked about cookbooks and nutrition. I got such great answers from the mamas on this site. Laurels' Kitchen is a book I used so often raising my children that I hate to bring it out of the cabinet. It is covered with dry food and fingerprints of. The Mamas told me of the New Laurel's Kitchen.
Feeding the Whole Family by Cynthia Lair is a great book also advised by a Mamapedia writer. I bought it for my daughter who is feeding her family. I also bought her books on how to eat out gluten free since she was born with a condition that requires the gluten free diet.
There are websites to look up for food and I even got a couple of answers from professional nutritionists who answer on this site.
I never did mac n cheese all our meals were from scratch. I did a great deal of tortillas with refried beans, quesadillas, I made tofu pate also froze tofu and squeezed the water out of it so it could be marinated and baked.
If you eat meat hamburger bits sprinkled on food can go a long way.
You need 14 meals that 's it. Rotate which one you are serving. The kids will let you know if they like "potatoes all rotten" which is what they jokingly called pototoes au gratin.
When you find 14 meals they'll eat you can keep it going for months at a time and substitute a new one to see how it works out.
Cook all the food yourself. You'll get the hang of it. Cooking is just a blending of energies and tastes with heat. Your confidence will grow as you do it.
My kids never, ever went to fast food places because all our food was organically grown.
One of my DIL's started giving her kids frozen veggies(corn, peas, green beans, mixed vegetables ). It was warm in her house and part of what the kids liked was the cold nature on a hot day. Now 4 of my kids do this. When the kids get home from school, they go in the frig and get the frozen geggies out. I was amazed.
I had to try the frozen corn and peas too. I actually liked it. My DIL also pulls grapes off the stem and freezes them. The grand kids love them. If I lived in Vegas, I'd grow cherry tomatoes in the back yard where the a/c water comes off the condenser. It will keep the tomatoes watered for free, or at least as long as you use your a/c. You can freeze the cherry tomatoes, and they are good frozen, but not so good if they thaw out.
Hope that helps. Good luck to you and yours.
My grand daughter loves frozen peas and carrots, lima beans and corn. Once they thaw out, she doesnt want them. We call them popsiveggies. 8kidsdad,, weird yes,,lol,,,Frozen grapes are popular, as are frozen bananas.
I just joined a program e-mealz and it's awesome. They give you a weeks worth of recipes and a shopping list to go with it. You can choose from stores in your area or for just a general grocery/recipe list. For a family of 4-6 they give you a shopping list for 7 nights meals for $75-85 budget. I do the wal-mart reduced fat menu but I go to a local chain that sells meat and veggies for less and I get my ingredients for all seven meals for about $60 per week. So you can play with it a bit. The cost to join is $15 for 3 months. I am saving all my recipes and marking the ones we love and crossing off the ones that were not good to us. The most awesome part is my kids, 4yrs and 18 months, LOVE it. They get all excited about what is for dinner every night and having someone else tell me what to buy and what to make just took a huge load off of me. None of the meals have been hard either. Like tomorrow is sweedish meatballs and I can already tell my kiddos are gonna love it and I know they will get a healthy meal of protein starch and veggie. I was like you feeling like mac n cheese and peanut butter was starting to take over our lives!! I am much happier now, so you may want to check it out! Good luck :D The website is just e-mealz.com and they will let you look at some sample menus and grocery lists to get an idea of what it is like.
Just put mixed veggies in their mac and cheese. I cut it up super fine so my son cannot pick it out.
For another option you can add a can of drained tuna to mac and cheese. It's super yummy.
Try: weelicious.com It's a website dedicated to recipes for toddlers and kids.
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