Wednesday, July 28, 2010

A day in food

I know how easy it can sometimes be to fall in a rut with feeding a toddler...chicken nuggets, pasta, grilled cheese. Sure, they are eating, but are they gaining anything (besides weight) from the food?

I wanted to give some simple toddler friendly ideas for meals, so here is a day in food.

They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so why not pack it full of tasty fruits?  Honeydew, cantaloupe,  blackberries, red grapes, green grapes, raspberries, kiwi, strawberries, watermelon, pineapple, peaches & blueberries make up this fruit salad, and yes, it was as delicious as it looks.

For lunch, I threw together a quick chicken salad. We already had the chicken cooked (this was marinated over night in teriyaki, then cooked on the grill, but of course works with any seasonings and cooking style).
Chop the chicken coarsely, add some chopped red onion & mayo, then toast your bread and you are in business!
I added some green grapes & multigrain tortilla chips on the side.
Some high fiber billion grain bread for adison.

White bread & some cheese for Mike.

And what did I eat (I'm vegetarian)?  Cheese sandwich..typical, I did the meal prep and didn't eat the meal!

For dinner, we did big salads..YUM. 
Lettuce, tomato, cucumber, red onion, baby portobello mushrooms, green peppers, snap peas, croutons, and craisins.  Make that cherry flavored craisins.
Let me just stop you before you tell me how weird that is, and say that they are pretty good.  I still prefer my regular cranberry flavored craisins, but in a pinch these worked.  They are better as a snack than in my salad, but certainly a cherry flavored craisin is better in my salad than no craisin at all.

Here's Adison's salad (notice that chicken again, leftover chicken made it into 2 meals in one day).

My salad :mouth watering:
And for dessert? The season's best fruit, watermelon.

6 comments:

  1. Wow, Merideth, mouth-watering indeed!! I think I know what I'm gonna make myself for dinner tonight! I need something fresh in this heat, and your salads sound perfect! :)

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  2. Those salads look amazing! I found your blog through the product review place, and I am your newest follower! :) Great blog :)

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  3. Your meal ideas are great and look so tasty! I eat cheeses sandwiches too lol glad im not the only one! I left you a message on your twitter! =)

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  4. Great photos...I love the last one with the watermelon! Whenever my kids and grandkids are over I try to put out a plate of cut fruit and veggies and I'm happy to say they always disappear - and then I feel so good!! I love the big salads for dinner idea. I'm going to put out bowls of different items and let the kids maker their own..yahoo!

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  5. Thanks for the ideas. I am going to give the chicken salad a try. My son likes all the incredients so why not mix 'em up and put 'em on some bread? I do get in a rut with his lunches sometimes.

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  6. This post made me so hungry! And all I have in the house is junk food...oh poor me!
    Great post and great ideas.

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