meals Archives – The Pinterested Parent

I hate to sound like a broken record… I know you have heard me complain about this many times…BUT I have to say it again, my daughter is a picky eater. I can’t even imagine the amount of time & food I have wasted trying to get my child to eat a good meal. I have many sneaky ways & tricks that I use to help with the process, but that only works if she likes what she is eating.

She has a long list of gripes about her food:

“It’s too spicy.”
“It’s too cheesy”
“Not warm”
“Too hot”
“Noodles are disgusting”

You get the idea. Planning meals just plain stresses me out. At 2 1/2 years old our little girl still only weighs 25 pounds, so I will pretty much feed her anything that will get her to eat. Here lies the challenge. It is not uncommon for me to have several different meal options out at one time.

After rejecting meal 1 & meal 2, we try for a 3rd option. It is very frustrating. People tell you, they will eat when they are hungry, but yet I have seen my girl goes days without barely taking a bite.

I try to make food as fun & easy to eat as possible. She has recently taken a liking to hot dogs, just the hot dog, no bun. Tonight’s menu, corn dog bites. These are fun & super easy.

Ingredients:

2 boxes of Jiffy corn muffin mix (2/3 cup of milk & 2 eggs)

1 package of hot dogs

1/4 cup of parmesan cheese

1/2 tsp ground mustard

pepper to taste

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400. Slice hot dogs into chunks about 1 1/2″ long about 1/5 of the hotdog. Prepare the corn muffin mix according to directions. Mix in the parmesan cheese, ground mustard & pepper. Dunk the hot dog chunks in the mixture one at a time coating them well. Place on two greased baking sheet. Do not worry about them being covered perfectly. You can top off any bare spots my spooning mixture over the chunks once on the sheet. Leave plenty of space on the baking sheet between corn dog bites. Bake for about 10 minutes. Let cool & serve with ketchup or mustard.

It was a dinner time victory tonight. It even warranted a thumbs up from my finicky little girl. A sigh of relief & one more meal down. Until tomorrow….

As you all well know, my daughter is a picky eater. There are very few things that I put in front of her that she will eat. We have our old standbys that usually work. For breakfast french toast balls or nanna’s pancakes are a sure fire hit. For lunch a basic cheese sandwich with ranch dressing will usually do the trick and for supper meatballs or meatloaf are a safe bet. As of the past month our daughter has begun commenting that her food is “too spicy”. This is a strange comment as mommy never makes spicy food. She has developed a fear of her old favorite the meatball over the “too spicy” concern, Mommy thought she would squash this fear by making her some sweet meatballs & since one of her favorite things to eat is maple syrup it was the perfect combination.

Maple and Swiss Meatballs

Ingredients:
20oz of ground turkey
1 egg
1/2 cup of wheat bread crumbs
1/3 cup of real maple syrup
1 cup of shredded swiss cheese
1/4 tsp pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400. Combine all the ingredients except the cheese in a large mixing bowl. Add the cheese and mix in with your hands evenly distributing the cheese throughout. Shape mixture into small balls about 1″ round. Place on a cookie sheet lined with foil & spray with cooking spray. Bake for 20 minutes or until cooked fully through. Cook times may vary.

In a stroke of pure genius from my husband, he made cocktail meatballs by sticking pretzel sticks in the middle of them. What a great idea instead of a toothpick. I will be trying this at our next party.

Mai has been practicing with her chopsticks and getting pretty good at it. She gobbled up her meatballs and they were not too spicy.

Tag

meals

My Picky Toddler Woes & Baked Corn Dog Bites

Maple & Swiss Turkey Meatballs