Making Dinner Fun!

I really lucked out with a non-picky eater.  Kaylee will go for anything green and leafy before eating anything else on her plate.  She loves chicken, turkey, hamburger, steak, potatoes, pasta, fruit, and veggies.  In fact, she refuses to eat cake!  She does like cake pops though!

Tonight's dinner was Love Burgers with spinach salad.  I could have given Kaylee a regular burger and she wouldn't have cared, but I wanted to spruce up her plate just for fun.  Normally I would chop the mozarella up into cubes but Kaylee likes to eat cheesesticks, so I left hers long.  I used a large heart cookie cutter to cut the bun and burger.

Salads can be fun!  Add random things to your salads to entice your kids to eat the whole salad...we eat fresh spinach because I think it tastes better than romaine or iceburg.  Items I add are: cheese, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, apples, mandarin oranges, hardboiled eggs cut up or sliced!  Heck, let your kids put ingredients onto a spinach leaf and make a little taco!  The bright colors make them more fun too!

Make a "Hamburger Salad" - croutons (cut up buns), crumbled hamburger, tomatoes, onions, cheese cubes, maybe a honey mustard dressing

How about a "Pizza Salad" - shredded cheese, pepperoni, olives, mushrooms

Have you tried a Salad on a Stick?  Use shish-ka-bob skewers, slide on different salad items then eat right off the stick!  That idea just came to me, I think we'll make those tomorrow!

This salad has steak, chicken, olives, cheese, apples, blueberries.  She ate that entire plate full.

I'm not an expert but I don't see anything wrong with letting kids "play" with their foods enough for them to get the feel for the textures.  Toddlers explore with their hands, so why not let them "explore" their food before they commit to eating it?  

Here's Kaylee "exploring" spaghetti at about 11 months old.

With that said, if we're in a restaurant I don't let Kaylee eat her macaroni and cheese with her hands, she has to use a fork....or two forks.

okay, okay you caught me...I did let her go forkless at Smokey Bones once.  In her (my) defense, she was only 15 months old and I forgot to bring a little fork for her.

Well, my goal in writing this blog was to give you ideas on how to spruce up dinner for your kids, but it turned into a "scroll through iPhoto reminiscing about the last 2 years" instead.  So I hope you enjoyed my food lover!