Adventures in Cooking for Kids

I know this doesn't have much anything to do with design, but believe it or not, my days are spent mostly doing the normal stay at home mama activities (ie: cooking, cleaning, chasing kids, tripping over random toys, etc). Being that it is a new year, and most people jump on the "new year, new you" train I decided not only would I hop aboard, but I would drag my (mostly) willing family along with me. For me, this means the following: we joined the local community center and intend to use it and, maybe the most important change, we are planning meals and intend to actually cook them. :~) I'm not going to lie, not every.single.meal is going to be super healthy (read: Grandma's chicken spaghetti is tonight, which actually contains Velveeta, sorry all you "non-processed" people.), but they will be homemade and the hubs and I could use a little practice with portion control. So, just in case you want to jump on the healthy(er) train with us, I would like to share a bit of what I have already cooked or am planning to cook.

Veggie Muffins. Yum. I made these yesterday while the boys were napping. I halved the recipe except kept the broccoli the same (by accident). They turned out pretty well. I think they are delicious, the (little) boys, however, are not quite as impressed. They ate them, but with a definite "I know something is up with these" suspicion, which is strange considering they actually eat all of the ingredients under normal circumstances.

Baked Mozzarella Sticks. Again, yum. These were today's lunch. I thought there were QUITE yummy, but I do love me some fried baked cheese (who doesn't right?!). I changed the recipe a bit, in that I only used half of an eggroll wrapper for each stick (cut on the diagonal) and I brushed them with olive oil and sprinkled a bit of salt prior to baking. Yet again, these were more well received by yours truly than "the littles", granted little-E had been throwing a WHOPPER of a tantrum for a good 30 minutes prior to lunch, so he wasn't really in the eating mood. I was surprised by the lack of enthusiasm, normally cheese=good and dipping food=SUPER good!

Black Bean Burgers. These will be dinner tomorrow. Honestly, I don't make these enough. They are SO yummy and one of my all time favorite vegetarian recipes. I do absolutely nothing different with this recipe well, strike that, I think I have added corn a couple of times, but it's really quite good as is. I serve the burgers sans bun with sour cream, salsa and a side of store bought sweet potato fries, so SO good! Now, hopefully the littles will feel the same...sigh...toddlers.