Cranberries and Sugar

Some children will find this too tart. Mine loves it, but he has always liked sour fruits like blackberries and raspberries. My mom often had this for a snack so I picked up a taste for it as a child.

It's healthy, easy and also builds eye-hand coordination and fine motor skills (and just keeps them occupied for a while!)

Ingredients:
Handful of whole, frozen cranberries
One tbsp white sugar

Directions:
Briefly rinse frozen cranberries in a colander under cold water (to take the edge off coldness.)

Place the cranberries in a small bowl and sugar in a separate small bowl.

Pick up the cranberries individually with a toothpick (this is where the motor skills come in!) and swish around in the sugar. Eat. Repeat. The sugar should stick because the cranberries are still dewy from rinsing them.

Note: Lucas tends to pee-pee more at night when he's given these as his last snack, so it may be better during the day :)

Smoothies

Now that the weather has warmed up -- and because Jarrett and I have started drinking protein shakes most mornings -- it seemed a good time to introduce smoothies into Elsa's breakfast repertoire. Below is a recipe I threw together, but the beautiful thing about smoothies is that you can really play around with them and make them new every time.

Elsa's Breakfast Smoothie

Servings: Approximately 2 child-sized portions

1 cup orange juice

1/2 cup whole milk plain yogurt

1 banana

1/2 cup frozen berries

1/2 to 1 teaspoon honey

Combine all ingredients together and blend until smooth (I use a handheld immersion blender, but obviously any blender or food processor would do the trick). Pour into cup appropriate for child, throw in a straw, and voila!

Great additions to this would be flax seeds, hemp protein powder, chia seed powder, a few greens, carrots, etc. I plan on playing around with ingredients as the months go on.

Pumpkin Yogurt

My friend, Shelly, sent out a link to an article in the New York Times that lists the 11 Best Foods You Aren't Eating. We won't talk about the bunch of beets I bought from the farmer's market and then proceeded to let go bad in the fridge before I could get around to doing anything with them, but I am trying to eat more of these foods. As a result, I am also attempting to get Elsa to eat some of these, and decided to make pumpkin yogurt using canned pumpkin. She loves it. And, really, how could she not? It tastes pretty much like pumpkin pie filling! Note that this recipe also contains cinnamon, another food off of the list.

Pumpkin Yogurt

1 large (32-ounce) container yogurt (I used vanilla, but will probably opt for plain next time to cut down on the sugar)
1 can 100% pure pumpkin
1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cloves
honey to taste (I probably used just around a teaspoon since the yogurt I used already contained some sugar)

Mix all of the above ingredients together in a medium bowl. Set aside the amount you intend to eat immediately (because you won't be able to resist) and store the remaining yogurt in the now empty yogurt container.

Bon appetit!

Dilly Ricotta Dip

Christian loves any food that can referred to as "dip." He loves to dip crackers into this, and I can occassionally coax him to dip steamed carrots.

Dilly Ricotta Dip

1/3 c whole-milk ricotta cheese
1 T minced fresh dill
2 T freshly squeezed lemon juice

Combine all ingredients in small bowl and stir until creamy.

Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins

Last week was a muffin-baking-kind-of week. So, in addition to the cherry pecan muffins, I also made some whole wheat blueberry muffins. This recipe is based on Cook's Illustrated's Best Blueberry Muffin recipe, with some changes -- the most important being the substitution of King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour. The beauty of this flour is that it bakes just like all-purpose flour, so you can use it with ease in all different recipes. I love blueberry muffins, and I think these are fantastic. All other partakers seemed to enjoy them as well, including, of course, Elsa.

Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins
Makes 12 to 16 muffins

3 cups white whole wheat flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
10 Tablespoons unsalted butter (1 1/4 stick), softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cup vanilla yogurt
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1 1/2 cups frozen blueberries, defrosted and drained of excess liquid
1 Tablespoon flour

1. Adjust oven rack to the lower-middle position. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a standard 12-muffin baking pan with nonstick cooking spray.

2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside.

3. Coat defrosted and drained frozen blueberries with 1 Tablespoon of flour.

4. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar together, beating until fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating until incorporated after each one. Beat in the grated lemon peel.

5. Beat in one-half of the dry ingredients until just incorporated. Beat in one-third of the yogurt. Beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients. Beat in a second third of the yogurt. Beat in the remaining dry ingredients and then the remaining yogurt. Again, be careful to beat until just incorporated to avoid overbeating. Fold in the berries.

6. Distribute muffin batter equally among the cups. Bake until muffins are golden brown, about 25 to 30 minutes. Test with a toothpick or bamboo skewer to make sure the centers of the muffins are done. Set on wire rack to cool for 5 minutes. Remove muffins from the tin and serve slightly warm.

Cherry Pecan Bran Muffins with Flax

With a dreary, rainy day well set in, what else was I to do but bake muffins? The following recipe is an adaptation of the one posted on a blog I read fairly regularly, Pinch My Salt. Both Elsa and Jarrett deemed them quite tasty, and I think they will make an excellent breakfast/snack option this week. Obviously you will only want to feed these to your child if you have already introduced nuts into their diet.

Cherry Pecan Bran Muffins with Flax

1 cup oat bran
1/2 cup flax seed meal
1/2 cup boiling water
1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 cup milk
1/3 cup canola oil
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 cup dried tart cherries, roughly chopped
1/2 cup chopped pecans

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prepare a 12-cup muffin tin with butter, nonstick baking spray, or paper liners.

2. In a medium bowl, stir together oat bran, flax seed, and boiling water; set aside. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. When the oat bran/flax mixture has cooled, whisk in the egg, milk, oil, and brown sugar. Pour wet bran/flax mixture into the flour mixture and stir with a large spoon until just combined. Fold in the chopped cherries and pecans.

3. Divide batter evenly between the twelve muffin cups. Bake for 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Guacamole Lunch

Last summer, Lucas and I had this for lunch about once a week. We took a break from it for a while and last Friday when I made it I remembered what a great toddler lunch this is! It is just a very basic recipe, but tasty. I like it because I can whip it up in less than 5 minutes.

I often break up the tortillas into bite-sized pre-dipped pieces and Lucas just picks them up. It is also on my list of allowable foods to hand-feed Lucas while he plays because it is green and has omega-3s.

This recipe makes a substantial snack for toddler and mommy and there are enough leftovers to make your husband happy with an appetizer when he gets home.

Recipe:

necessary:
2 avocados
1 small lime, juice of (I like it quite limey - you may want to reduce this)
salt, to taste

optional:
1-2 T onions, minced (I usually add as much as I think Lucas will tolerate)
chopped tomatoes
black pepper
dash of cumin

Half the avocados and remove the pit by striking it with a knife and wiggling it out. Score the avocado all the way to the skin into cubes. Scoop out and mash in a bowl. Stir in the remaining ingredients and serve with soft pitas or tortilla chips.

Snack Plates

Lucas, age 3

One of Lucas's favorite forms of sustenance are his beloved snack plates. They are served before nap and before bedtime in his bedroom. And because of the snack plates, I rarely have trouble starting his nap/bedtime routines.

A friend of mine from Japan, Rumiko, stressed the importance of presentation when preparing food. Everything should be beautiful. And these simple plates always put a smile on Lucas's face. He eats foods he would normally shy away from like raisins and walnuts because they are packaged with an organic granola bar or yummy dried mango.

Lucas has several guidelines that we must follow when preparing his snack plate:

1) It must include three or more foods.
2) Rarely will he let a plate slip by without a yummy carbohydrate.
3) Sometimes a bowl of cereal will be accepted as a substitute.

My own guidelines:
1) If it's bedtime I go easy on the fruit. Too hydrating.
2) Everything is usually healthy in some regard.

Ideas include:
Dried fruit
Nuts
Pretzels
A granola bar cut into bite-sized pieces
Cheese
Apple slices (can act as a toothbrush if necessary :)

Old Reliable

For the first recipe posted to this blog, I will lean on the old reliable recipe for mini banana apple bran muffins from one of the cookbooks I turn to quite often, The Petit Appetit Cookbook, by Lisa Barnes.


If you are looking for a healthy, yummy muffin recipe for your child (or yourself!), I highly recommend this recipe. I have made these several times, and Elsa is quite the fan of them, though I have to be careful not to over serve them, as she does become bored after awhile. As a word of warning, I realized the second time I made these that I actually made them incorrectly the first go around by mashing all three bananas and mixing them into the batter rather than mashing just one and slicing the others to place atop the batter once poured into the muffin cups. Regardless, they were still tasty, and I usually forgo the slice on top now, as Elsa usually won't eat it anyway. I also make these in large batches and freeze them, simply defrosting them by throwing them in the microwave for 30 seconds or so prior to serving. You can make them in mini or regular size, and they make for a fantastic, healthy snack or breakfast item -- or even served as a side to a lunch or dinner meal.

Mini Banana Apple Bran Muffins

Makes 24 mini muffins or 12 regular muffins

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup oat bran

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

3/4 cup applesauce

3 medium bananas, 1 mashed (about 1/2 cup) and 2 sliced

1/2 cup packed brown sugar (the recipe calls for light, but I only had dark on hand, and they turned out fine)

2 eggs

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease 24 mini muffin cups or 12 regular muffin cups.

Combine flour, bran, baking soda, and salt in a small mixing bowl. Melt butter and combine with applesauce, mashed banana, sugar, and eggs in a large bowl. Add flour mixture to applesauce mixture and stir until just blended. The batter will be lumpy and very moist.

Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups, filling two-thirds full. Place banana slice on top of each muffin. Bake for 12 minutes, or until golden brown and set. Cool muffins on a wire rack for five minutes before removing from pan.