Quick Recipes

Have you ever tried giving her a baked sweet potato as a meal? They're great! Bake or microwave the spud, and fix it up with butter and cinnamon sugar, butter and brown sugar, or butter and salt and pepper. You can do several at once and keep them in the fridge already fixed, they just need reheating. You can do the same with regular potatoes, and serve them with a variety of things. I'm not a vegetarian, but my 21 m/o son doesn't eat much meat and these are some of his favorites.

Hello-My 28 month old son will eat the Morningstar Farms Garden Veggie Patties. He is pretty picky and will usually only eat the "kid foods". I give them to him with a dip that he likes with his chicken nuggets.

Hi, Try Allrecipes.com, it is an awesome site. You are sure to find some "new favorites". Look up "Black bean lasagna"...very good vegetarian dish.

Good luck!

I actually host the Cooking For Your Family bulletin board on BabyCenter, and we have literally countless recipes there including vegetarian recipes. The board is basically a recipe swap. Feel free to come visit and ask for specific recipes, or just poke around and check out our Recipe Box database. Here's the link to the board: http://boards.babycenter.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?webtag=bcus...

My daughter and I are vegetarians too. She hasn't shown too much of a picky side yet, but I have had to be a bit creative. I used a mothering magazine website that's loaded with really good veg recipes. Try the seet potato and black bean enchiladas, or the squashed macaroni, (macaroni severed with a butternut squash sauce that turns out the same color as that blue box stuff, without all the additives). Those are my daughters favorites. I hopes this helps.

http://mothering.com/sections/recipes/recipes.html

My husband and I are raising our children vegetarian (I'm a vegetarian but my husband is not). My son (almost 3) is relatively picky (like almost every toddler/preschooler). We primarily feed him fruit, hummus (which he loves), peanut butter, a few veggies (we keep trying to get him to eat more), some dairy (especially plain yogurt and cottage cheese), and whole grains (brown rice, whole wheat, etc.). I just purchased "The Vegetarian Family Cookbook" by Nava Atlas and "Better Than Peanut Butter and Jelly" by Marty Mattare and Muldawer. I haven't tried either yet. I did use "Super Baby Food" by Yaron when he was an infant/young toddler to make his baby food. I think that there are toddler recipes in there too.

Good luck.

My family can not eat wheat (no bread/pasta/crackers etc) so whatever we make for dinner I make extra for lunches the next day ... but w/o meat... hmmm... I eat (as does my four year old sun) garden burgers, even boca burgers... morning star has a decent line and most (if not all)of those are meat-free. The garden burgers are made mostly from brown rice ... then she could have veggies/fruits for snacks.

We also have rice pasta (or regular in your case) and saute zucchini w/a small amount of olive oil (serve over the pasta). Making veggie kabobs with my son always proves to be fun. (mushrooms, squash, eggplant, pineapple ... and so on)

Hope this helps or sparks new ideas.

I used to take tofu and freeze it and then thaw it. Prepared this way, and fried in ghee, it has the consistency of ground beef.

You can also take milk and cook it in a skillet with yogurt. If you do this, it cooks down to a very rich, chewy, yummy product which tastes good with curry spices.

Hi R., I am a vegetarian so out of habit I tend to feed my 10 month old only veggies and occasionally chicken. I make my own mac & cheese and add carrots and peas to it. She also loves to eat garden burgers, soy sausage.
Hope this helps!
~S.

1) I really like to cook pasta, especially the tri color pasta, and also cook a bag of frozen mixed veggies in a wok with some butter and garlic. Once the pasta is done, you drain it, add it to the veggie mix, and add seasonings to taste, along with a little more butter, enough to coat the veggies and pasta. It tastes really good, and only takes as long as the pasta to cook.

2)Also, you can do the same thing, but add chicken. saute the chicken pieces in the wok with butter, first, and then add a chopped onion when the chicken is mostly done. saute the onion and chicken until the onion is cooked, add fresh garlic with the onion, or a little after you put in the onion, then add the veggies. add pasta whent he pasta is done. this version also only takes as long as the pasta does.

3) if you like spinach, you can saute some of that up with garlic and onion and butter as well. It doesn't take long, and it also tastes really good. Top it with cheese.

4) there is also a frozen asparagus stirfry blend at teh grocery store, not sure whta the name is, but it comes with little pieces of spaghetti in it. That stuff is great, and really quick. no meat in it. (you can always add meat if you want to)

5) Portabella mushrooms are great also. You can bake them in the oven, or on the grill, snap of the stem first. Then cut up teh stem, onion, garlic, tomatoes adn sautee them togetehr. Once the ports are done, put the sautee mix on top of them, add bean sprouts, if you like, and you can put cheese on top. If you put the cheese on top, pop them back in teh oven long enough for the cheese to melt. You can put the ports no rolls, or eat them just like that, and they are really good.

Have you tried Couscous? Also, any of the pasta's are good. Some of the larger supermarkets have an organic section. And in the freezer section you can purchase meat free chicken nuggets, hot dogs, pierogies, little pizzas and so on.

Go out and purchase a Thermos container and when you pack lunches for her, put the hot items in the container. They will stay warm for hours and make them more applealing when lunch time comes around.

Try a quesadilla - fill a flour tortilla with shredded cheddar, refried beans and/or black beans, avocado, or salsa. Heat one side in a skillet sprayed with cooking spray, the flip over when it gets light brown. They are very good! Chicken can be added if you ever desired. Also, some kids like tofu because you can flavor it up easily and cut it into chunks. Beans are a great source of protein for non-meat eaters. Hope this helps... good luck!

Hi...I am vegetarian so hopefully I can help. I make my boys cheese quesedillas often for a quick and easy lunch. As far as day care there is a company called Amy's they make little pizza snack things that are all organic, thats kid friendly. Have yout tried veggie burgers or any of the other "fake" meats that they make? Good luck.

Try buttered bow ties! They are just regular bow ties cooked and dried set aside then sautee onions in a pan with a little butter to taste and salt (you can add spices black pepper if she is used to it) when the onions have turned golden brown add your bow ties and garnish if you like. (I normally add garlic generously but not for babies I think....:) You can always be adventerous and add veggies in it to make the meal more balanced for her!
I am also big on recooked meals....so if you have left over pasta you can make patties out of them place them on a oiled baking pan and baste the tops of the patties with some oil to make it crip and bake them at 325 degrees for 15 min....
I do the same to veggies and rice mixed together, biriyanis...,pulaos etc...the patties are tasty less messy and shell love the finger food part of it! MOST importantly you can hide in it the veggies she may not like eating seperately! Good luck!

Hi R.,

My name is Raine and I also have a pretty picky eater. And he's only 5.5 months old..I cannot believe what I have ahead of me! I don't have a lot of recipes for vegan food (esp for kids!) but I just wnated to share my dilemma too.

From your name I think you are from India (I am from Kerala). I live in Massachussets-just thought we could share some stories on the kids and sob on their eating habits together:)

Thanks,
raine
My email address is ____@____.com

Hey everyone,
I will be bookmarking these responses to try myself. R. thanks for asking the question. I was going to recommend Weeknight survival guide cookbook, but it is far from vegeterian. Good luck. I will also ask one of my coworkers. She primarily fixes vegeterian meals as well. I'll send along any good ones. Hope the kiddos are well.
L.

Hello there- I often find great recipes on allrecipes.com - The recipes are rated by people so you have an idea of what to expect. You can search by what's in your pantry to find quick and easy recipes to suit your daughter's tastes. Good Luck!