Monkey Bread

Okay so I made this snack for a group of adults but it would be a cool snack for toddlers...


Think of how monkeys "pick" the bugs off of each other. How they pick at food. What toddler wouldn't want to eat like a monkey? I could just see a group of little ones going at these bite sized gooey pieces. It's a semi-homemade kinda recipe which is not usually my style but sometimes you gotta cut corners. *Recipe from Pillsbury Website* (I added homemade icing too)

INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 cans (16.3 oz each) Pillsbury® Grands!®refrigerated buttermilk biscuits
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3/4 cup butter or margarine, melted

DIRECTIONS
1. Heat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease 12-cup fluted tube pan with shortening or cooking spray. In large -storage plastic food bag, mix granulated sugar and cinnamon.
2. Separate dough into 16 biscuits; cut each into quarters. Shake in bag to coat. Arrange in pan.
3. In small bowl, mix brown sugar and butter; pour over biscuit pieces.
4. Bake 28 to 32 minutes or until golden brown and no longer doughy in center. Cool in pan 10 minutes. Turn upside down onto serving plate; pull apart to serve. Serve warm.

Grilled Peanut Butter & Banana

It's hard to pick out lunches for a toddler. Justin does not really care for meat and he won't eat pasta. He does however, LOVE toast. I can make any kind of grilled sandwich and he squeels "toast, toast!" and gobbles it up. Here's my current fave...
Slice a small banana. Spread peanut butter on wheat bread and lay sliced bananas on top. Melt 1 tbsp margarine in a small skillet. Top with another slice of wheat bread. Add sandwich to hot skillet- flipping after about 2 minutes or until golden. I gotta admit- this one is hard to keep my own hands off of!

Strawberry-Banana French Toast

There are a lot of nights that Justin has "breakfast for dinner". It's a great way to save on my grocery budget, he LOVES breakfast foods and they tend to be nice and light for the summer. On nights that Jody babysits- Justin usually has frozen waffles, we call it the da-da special.

The only problem with breakfast for dinner (especially with things like waffles) is syrup. I can't see loading a toddler up with insane amounts of sugar and expecting him to fall asleep an hour later. That's why I started using "banana syrup". It's super easy! I just take a ripe banana and toss it in the food processor (or blender if you have one) with a little milk and some cinnamon. You could drizzle this syrup on anything- pancakes, waffles or french toast like we did.

For Justin's french toast I mixed 1 egg with a splash of vanilla extract and a splash of milk. I dipped 2 pieces of wheat bread into the mix and placed them into a hot pan- flipping when golden brown. I sprinkled some diced strawberries on top and added 1 serving "banana syrup".

Veggie Omelette Cups

We gardened all day yesterday, then I was up until about midnight painting new "markers" for the vegetables. I was totally exhausted. Usually, Justin is up around 7:30, so this morning when I heard, "Mama? Mama? Hellllo?" at 6:25, I could barely scrape myself out of bed. These are the mornings when I love having Veggie Omelette Cups handy. It's super important to me that Justin & Jody have a "real" breakfast every morning but sometimes it's just not an option for me to stand there and dice veggies before the sun comes up.
I made a batch 2 days ago (they tend to "fall" quickly so excuse the ugly picture)

After these bake & cool, they can go right into a ziploc in the fridge. You can microwave them all week! I used to make them in mini-muffin cups when Justin used his fingers. My sister-in-law told me she made them in little heart shaped pans- Cute!!! This is a also a way to use up any small amount of random vegetable you have in the fridge.
My mix was; 6 eggs, 1/4c milk, couple pinches of cheddar cheese and lots of FINELY chopped veggies. This batch had; onion, red pepper, green pepper, broccoli, spinach, carrot and even some hashbrown potatoes I had leftover from a previous breakfast. I sprayed muffin tins w. olive oil spray and poured the mix in. Bake at 375 for 10 minutes.

Today's Breakfast
3 Veggie Omelette Cups w. 7 veggies
1 small banana
Peach Danonino Yogurt
.

Kale Chips

I was reading a list of "Top 10 foods you should be eating but aren't" on msn the other day. The 1 food that on the list we really don't eat was Kale. Turns out that Kale is a Super-Veggie! It has loads of calcium, iron, Vit A, Vit B, Vit K and nutrients that help fight cancer. Here the low down; Kale looks like a large bouquet of spinach, they sell it at Wegmans (2.99- a little pricey I thought) and it's the "green stuff" in that Zuppa Toscana at Olive Garden!

I found an easy recipe online, Kale Chips! You wash & dry the kale and cut into potato chip sized pieces. Spray it with a little Olive Oil spray- sprinkle with coarse salt and bake for 8 mins at 375. Easy! It was a total fail. I should say that all the adults in my house loved it! I made Kale chips with my lunch 3x last week. They bake into this crisp/flaky texture and it totally freaked Justin out. As soon as he tried to bite down it kind of "shattered" and he was over it. Oh well...

Yogurt Meals

When I saw that YoBaby was making "meals", I thought- jackpot! Justin loves, loves yogurt. He stands by the fridge begging for it every morning. The only problem was that they're $1 a piece. It may not seem like a lot but for a kid that eats yogurt every.single.day, that's $30 a month! I usually buy Justin whatever yogurt is on sale, without a crazy amount of sugar. This week I steamed some green beans and pureed them in the magic bullet w. a few slices of raw apples. (This would be great to do w. left over baby food you may have!) When he begs for his vanilla yogurt- I just add a big scoop of the puree (which stays good in the fridge for days) & stir to make our own "yogurt meal". He doesn't even notice! Gotta love extra veggies at breakfast!

Today's breakfast:
Wheat toast w. peanut butter
Homemade "yogurt meal" (vanilla w. green bean & apple)
Sliced fresh pears and strawberries

Good Eater

As an infant, I could puree ANYTHING and Justin would eat it. anything. Everyone told me how lucky I was to have a good eater... it didn't last. By his 1st birthday all he wanted was yogurt and toast. 2 healthy choices but not enough to live on, haha. It is a lot of work to feed a toddler a healthy, balanced diet. It's all about little steps.

Today's lunch- Grilled Cheese & Spinach Sandwich w. Garlic Green Beans
Justin hates milk. HATES it. I think he may have inherited from me, I can't drink it . I've tried everything for him; skim, 1%, 2%, whole, chocolate, strawberry, warming it up- he drools it right back out. (He hates juice too right now, too) My main concern is to make sure he's getting enough vitamin D and calcium. Dark green vegetables are a great source of calcium. Justin LOVES grilled cheese sandwiches. I always use whole wheat bread and kraft 2% American cheese. It's a lunch staple. He barely seemed to notice when today he had grilled spinach and cheese :) I just added a handful of fresh baby spinach inside of his sandwich. He got a good serving of Vitamin A, iron & calcium. Plus- everyone who watched Popeye knows that spinach gives you huge muscles!!!