My kids have great a great breakfast, a good lunch, and a few healthy snacks during the day. By dinnertime they're tired and not hungry and it's the first time they've seen Daddy in hours so they're mightily distracted by the return of their favorite playmate.
I'm OK with letting them not eat much for dinner, or anything at all, since they eat so much and well during the day. The sticking point is that dinner is the time we serve most of our vegetables. At lunch we'll have some raw vegetables - carrots, grape tomatoes, cucumbers - but that's about it.
How do you sneak vegetables in at breakfast or lunch? I'm looking for new ideas!
If you chop up baby spinach into tiny pieces, it looks like the spices in tomato sauce - tastes good too. Carrots can be grated into muffins.
My kids do pretty well with veggies, but I still sneak more in when I can, because otherwise, DH doesn't eat any!
Spinach in the scrambled eggs, or peppers and onions, corn fritters, sweet potato pancakes, soup for lunch (love the cauliflower soup on The Pioneer Woman site), lettuce on their sandwich, easy beef and cabbage pie for lunch or pasta with tomato sauce, celery and PB for snacks, carrot muffins, carrot souffle for dessert.
My son's a super taster (like me) so there is absolutely NO chance of sneaking anything into anything else. So I just serve him veggies he likes. When he likes them, he'll happily eat them at any meal. Even if daddy makes faces about cabbage/carrots/broccoli/peas/spinach salads/saag paneer/ cauliflour gratin/ what-have-you with breakfast kiddo has had "people like different things" drilled into him so much that it doesn't bother him at all.
cook chili in vegtable juice. I like brocolli cook,and raw but hate steamed. I will only eat green beans, carrots, and peas mixed into something. how about omlets for breakfast. use cream of mushroom soup too they will never know the diffrence I will eat it but hate mushrooms. I dont like cooked tomatoes either. so I hide stuff on my 21 yr old son all of the time this way. :) he hates onions and I cook in onion soup mix all of the time or cream of mushroom good luck
Can you make dinnertime a little earlier, say, 4 pm? Skip the snack between lunch and dinner, instead, offer snack just before bedtime?
I don't sneak in vegetables, and like you, their major vegetable intake takes place at dinnertime. Our dinnertime (meaning kids and I) is around 4-4:30. They get a healthy snack (fruit) and unhealthy snack (pudding, chips, or a cookie whatever) just before bedtime.
My kids' snacks throughout the day are only either raw vegetable or fruit (usually fruit because how many carrots can they really eat :)
So, my suggestion is earlier dinnertime.
Fruit at breakfast is a great idea, veggies ad dip for lunch and a veggie (or two) at dinner. But I'm lucky, I don't have to "sneak" them--my kid was always an "Atkins" type eater--heavy on protein & veggies & fruit, low on carbs. He's been asking for "the sparagus" since he was about 3.
I don't think I would 'sneak' them. I would just incorporate them into the meal or serve them as a side.
As an adult in order to get my 3-5 servings of vegetables a day, I do have to have/serve a vegetable with lunch and eat an extra helping at dinner in order to fulfill my daily requirements if I didn't work them in elsewhere. It looks like you have some good ideas of ways to work them in without sneaking them. good luck!
Potato latkes or better known potato pancakes. all thats in it is potato and tons of onion. and it is served with applesauce.
sometimes I serve grape tomatoes or other finger food fruits and veggies right before bed. It's like delaying bedtime so kids go for it!
We try to give my son vegetables at every meal, mostly because he will sometimes just refuse to stop playing and eat at a given meal and we don't want him to miss out on important nutrients for the day.
Breakfast ideas:
1-You can easily put any orange vegetable (pumpkin, acorn squash, butternut squash, carrot, sweet potato, etc) into pancakes, muffins, waffles, or oatmeal. Zucchini also works well in muffins.
2-No matter how we eat eggs we always have some veggies thrown in: spinach, asparagus, bell pepper, etc. work in quiche, frittata, scrambled eggs and omelets. My son seems to prefer mini-quiches/frittatas made in muffin pans. I just make a batch at the beginning of the week and heat two in the toaster oven for him for breakfast. Breakfast burritos and quesadillas are also favorites in our house, with beans, avacado and salsa.
3-Veggie pancakes are also a big favorite. I just shred a combination of sweet potatoes, carrots, white potatoes or zucchini, add a little seasoning and some egg to hold it together and then pan fry them like latkes. My son loves to dip them in ketchup or applesauce.
Lunch at our house is almost always leftovers. So really, anything we have for dinner can be lunch the next day. My son likes leftovers cold in his lunchbox the next day. Additionally, I send steamed or raw veggies in his lunch each day to supplement the leftovers.
I hope that helps, good luck!
Spaghetti= shaved carrots, sloppy joes/taco meat=smashed peas, spaghetti o's= peas, I know I have more but can't think of them
Breakfast could be a great time for veggies if you feel like getting up early to grate zucchini, carrots and other yummies for baked/fried 'pancake' type foods.
If it were me, though, I'd serve the veggies with hummus at lunch or snacktime. Raw veggies are fine: red pepper strips, carrots, cukes as you had suggested. My son likes it when I pack up a few strips of red pepper and some olives for his preschool lunch.
You can also make an extra large stir-fry at dinner and serve it as leftovers for lunch time. In fact, many veggie dinner items can be served at lunch. Or a vegetable chili for lunch also works: let the kids make some cornbread from a mix and put them in muffin cups, to add a little novelty.
Noodle soups are good for veggies too. Carrots, celery, potatoes and beans are often well-received.
You can also do a 'salad bar' type offering where lots of veggies (celery sticks, olives, peppers, carrots) are presented with a couple sauces and some pita wedges, some cheese cubes, etc. If you put up a sign that says "salad bar" or do something else to get the kids to think it's special, even better.
I guess I've learned that unless I'm going to puree everything (and I'm not, as I need a new blender!), it's more interesting for both of us (my son and I) to see the veggies and talk about them. Having kids help as they can with the food prep is fun too, and gives kids a 'safe' experience with new foods, by touching and smelling them first before eating them at the table.
I'll be peeking at other answers too; always looking for new tricks.:)
why would you not choose to serve things like veggie lasagna for lunch or add squash to the ricotta cheese/cottage cheese mixture and sautee spinach with the chicken sausages that already have added veggies or fruits in them (whole foods or sam's club).
There is no rule that says you can not have dinner like foods for lunch ... I reccomend Eat Yourself Thin (cookbook) they sneak veggies into the darndest things and the food is AMAZING!!!
There's an awesome cookbook by Jessica Seinfeld called 'Deceptively Delicious.' You make veggie and fruit purees once a week, store them in ziplock baggies in the freezer, and defrost them in hot water before adding them to various dishes. If you don't want to buy it I'm sure your local library might have it. I found it at Ross for 7 bucks!
Good luck!
Breakfast - avocado on whole wheat toast or with scrambled eggs. Omelets with green/red peppers, carrots, really any veggies. Pureed/mashed squash or sweet potatoes in hot cereal.
Lunch - pitas/wraps with spinach, chick peas, carrots, cucumbers, feta cheese, steamed/raw carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, etc. Left over veggies from the night before. veggie stir fry. Edamame
Dinner - we eat a fair number of veggie only meals so for us it's pretty easy (if he's hungry he eats more, if not, he eats less)
Check out Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Sienfeld - I got mine at Ollie's Bargain Oulet for around $5. It takes some extra work, but so far everything we have tried has been good.
Hi, there's acutally a cook book by Jessica Seinfeld (can't remember the title) that has yummy recipes which include vegetables. They tesed this with a group of kidst and they couldn't tell the difference.
