Making Mealtime Fun for Kids

Tips for Kid?s Meals :

- Plate food on colorful and oddly shaped dishes.

- Make fun names for everyday foods such as, ?Pirate Pineapple? or ?Goblin Stew.?

- Let the kids make choices. Having a variety of sauces for dipping or assembling their own taco will keep kids busy and make them feel special.

- Don?t forget the drink! Adding a garnish to kid?s beverages makes them interesting. Try a strawberry on the rim of a glass of milk. 





Crunchy Cheesy Cut-Outs

Comes with tomato soup and fruit and yogurt skewers



2 slices honey whole wheat bread

1 slice Cheddar cheese

1 slice Provolone cheese

2 slices turkey (or ham)

cooking spray



Layer meat and cheese in between bread slices. Heat a skillet to medium/high. Spray top and bottom of sandwich with cooking spray and place in hot pan. Allow to brown for about 1-2 minutes, then flip and brown other side 1-2 minutes or until cheese is melted. Remove from pan. With a small cookie cutter cut out shape from sandwich. The less detailed the cookie cutter, the better the shapes turn out!



Tomato soup

1 cup tomato soup (if needed use milk to thin down)

1 ½ tbl. corn

1 ½ tsp. shredded Cheddar cheese



Mix warm soup with corn and top with cheese.



Fruit skewers

apple

cantaloupe

grapes

strawberries (top cut off)

½ cup vanilla yogurt

Two 4-inch wooden skewers



Slice apple and cantaloupe into ½ inch thick slices. Using a small star cutter cut 2 stars out of the apple slice and the cantaloupe slice. Skew a strawberry, apple, grape, cantaloupe, grape on to wooden skewer. Serve in a bowl with vanilla yogurt. (You might want to cut pointed end of skewer before serving to children.)









Mighty Meatball Dunkers

Comes with a cheese sauce for dipping



Meatballs-makes approximately 30

¾ lb. ground turkey

½ lb. lean ground beef

1 ¼ tsp. chopped garlic

2 tsp. Italian seasoning

2 tbl. finely grated Parmesan cheese

2 tsp. tomato paste

¼ tsp. salt

1 egg



In a medium bowl mix all ingredients until just incorporated.

Roll into gumball sized meatballs.

Bake in a 375 degree oven for 20 minutes or until internal temp reaches 165 degrees.



Cheese Sauce

½ tsp. butter

1 tbl. + 1 tsp AP Flour

1 cup whole milk

1 ½ cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese

1/8 tsp. garlic powder

pinch of salt



In a small sauce pan melt butter over medium/low heat. Whisk in flour and stir until you smell a nutty fragrance. Whisk in milk. Whisk in cheese, a ½ cup at a time. Whisk in garlic powder and salt.



-Slice Zucchini into match sticks

-Serve with low fat bread sticks



You say your kids dart from the table at the sight of anything besides chicken, pizza or PB&J. Getting kids to try new foods can be, well, trying. So here are some kid-tested ideas that are sure to get smiles.



Cut food into fun shapes?use cookie cutters for sandwiches.



Fill plates with bright colors and dish out your creativity.



Make up new names?broccoli florets are trees, hard-boiled egg slices are egg canoes, and cheese chunks are building blocks.



Spread it, dip it, top it?camouflage veggies with yogurt-based dip, flavored cream cheese, peanut butter, or a favorite low-fat sauce.





picky-eater patrol

Navigating mealtimes can prove tricky for parents of picky eaters. But don?t despair?kids go through food phases for lots of reasons, including fear of the unknown. In fact, toddlers and preschoolers may need 10 to 20 exposures to a new food before they accept it, say nutrition experts. Taste, texture, and color can influence a child?s response as well. And sometimes it?s not about the food at all. Peers, advertising, packaging, and a need to control also influence kids? food choices.



be adventurous

Your own adventurous spirit will go a long way in getting your kids to try nutritious new foods. Set an example by swapping your favorite deep-fried chicken nuggets for broiled fish, suggests nutritionist Connie Evers, MS, RD. Search for middle ground, adds psychologist Patti Zomber. ?Food is an area where less control is better,? she advises. Refusing to let kids have certain foods may increase their longing for them. The deprivation puts too much importance on them.



  fun with food

Young kids love hands-on learning, so encourage it.



 Kids enjoy discovering how food can come from a seed. Plant seeds in a garden or in a pot on a sunny windowsill. One 5-year-old had never wanted to eat green beans until a gardening friend let him nurture and harvest them in her garden. He tried them and loved them! Recommended reading: Don?t Be Picky, Clover by Rita Balducci with Cathy Beylon (Inchworm Press, 1997)



Let young explorers scout uncharted territory in the produce department. Assign them a mission to choose one new item on each shopping excursion.



Make trying new foods an adventure. Say things like, ?This Ugli fruit looks so interesting! I hear it?s a combination of tangerine and grapefruit.? Your enthusiasm for sampling new foods will rub off on your children.



 moving past picky

Knowledge is power for kids this age, as they trek into unfamiliar territory.



Let your kids occasionally try new junk food. It will satisfy their curiosity, and you can balance the treats with the healthful foods you serve.



Teach what makes certain foods a better choice than others. Then have kids help plan menus based on how they want to nourish their bodies.



Expand your kids? food horizons by preparing their ?picky foods? in a variety of ways: raw, in soups, or with a low-fat dip.

                                                     Alligator Sandwich







 do try this at home!

Experience is a great teacher for older children. Allow room for food experiments while gently guiding them toward balance.  Dub an older kid the family "food critic." Develop an evaluation form to record their opinions on new dishes. The form could use a 1-to-10 system for rating foods by flavor, texture, smell, and appearance.  Focus on one positive long-term goal, such  as following the Food Guide Pyramid. Break that goal into achievable objectives, such as eating the recommended servings of green veggies every day for one week.

                                                   Mouse Sandwich



MORE TIPS TO GET KIDS TO EAT 



1. Serve it on/in a fun dish. Some ideas include the face plates pictured at left, silicone cupcake cups or anything that has multiple compartments, like Zak?s confetti plates, made of recycled material or, of course, EasyLunchBoxes.

 2. Make it small. My kids love things presented in bite-size portions, especially if it has a toothpick through it. This can be bites of sandwiches, pizza, cheese, meat, fruit. When she was young, my daughter didn?t like tacos but she liked ?mini tacos? made on tortilla chips instead of a large taco shell.



3. Make it a shape. Anything shaped as a heart, Mickey Mouse, a face or the kids? initials has a higher chance of being eaten than if presented in its normal shape. A friend's 5-year-old doesn?t eat noodles of any kind, except mac and cheese. I wonder if these squid dogs would change her mind. Family Fun has a whole section devoted to making food fun, including a slide show of fun shaped food like these kiwi faces to the right. You can use cookie cutters or cheese cutters on lots of things besides cookies and cheese. You can make sandwiches into puzzles and hard-boiled eggs into animals.

 4. Teach them about food. Teach them how it grows and where it comes from. Take them to a farmers? market. Grow a garden. My kids really liked a promotional coloring storybook from Dole that taught them they could get their own rainbow if they eat five different colored fruits or veggies a day.

 5. Make eating a game. I love this idea, which came from a Family Fun article titled Meet the Mystery Vegetables:



Each week I find a vegetable that?s unfamiliar or that the kids have tried and rejected in the past. I then search out a tasty-sounding recipe to prepare in which the chosen veggie plays a starring role. After Gavin and Meriel are seated at the dining table, I tie blindfolds over their eyes and place bites of the mystery vegetable on their forks. The kids always find the blindfolds slightly scary ? in a good way. It definitely adds a thrill to dinnertime. Next, they get to smell the veggie and describe the scent; then they taste it and describe the flavor. The whole time we encourage them to be as descriptive as they can, saying positive and negative things. Finally, they get to remove the blindfolds and name the new dish something wacky.6. Let them cook. Kids Cooking Activities has lots of ideas and lessons for teaching kids to cook. There are lots of cookbooks intended for children, such as Pretend Soup, and other books by Mollie Katzen, Cook it in a Cup and even character-based books like this Princess and the Frog one.

7. Get them their own utensils. Remember that kids? hands are smaller and arms are weaker than ours. They need their own kitchen utensils. Mine have a small whisk and scraper with a cute pig head on the end of the handle. When they are ready to help cut, this safety cutting board would be very handy. What do you think is a good age for teaching kids knife skills? Alton Brown says 13 but I think maybe 10. Even toddler should have a space in the kitchen, and don?t forget a fun apron!



8. Be patient. The most important thing is to remember that it?s more important that the kids learn to cook and to like cooking than it is for me to get it done quickly. So I need to stop saying no when they ask to ?help? or to be lifted up to see into the pot.