Toddler Nachos

Recently, I've noticed that the kiddo has been turning his nose up at food that actually looks like food. So while he eats things like spinach pinwheels, he won't eat ricotta or spinach by itself.
My goal now is to get him to eat and accept more whole foods.
I've started by giving him mini versions of our dinner. We were having turkey burgers tonight, and this idea came to me. It's fun, kid sized, and EASY!

What you need:
4oz ground meat (I used a turkey/pork combo)
1/3 cup shredded zucchini
1oz cheese
12 corn chip cups (more or less deepening on how full you make your chips)
Olive oil (for cooking, or any other kind of spray)

Small sauté pan
Food Scale (not necessary)
Vegetable Grater

Let's Get Started:
- I used my food scale to measure out our turkey burgers and left the last 4oz for the nachos
- Shred the zucchini
- Add your zucchini to your ground meat and mix well

- Spice if you would like - I used a little salt, pepper, and garlic powder
- Heat up your sauté pan and add your olive oil (keep your heat to a medium heat if you are using olive oil, otherwise it will smoke and burn your food)
- Add your ground meat/zucchini mixture to the hot pan and sauté until the meat is browned

Raw meat pictures are gross.

- Pour off any excess liquid that is produced by your meat/zucchini
- Lower your cooking heat
- Mix in your cheese

- Once your cheese is incorporated remove your pan from the heat and start to fill your corn chips

- I was able to fill 12 corn chips with my mixture

The kiddo basically only ate corn chips for dinner, but a few pieces of meat made it into his mouth. Baby steps, or perhaps more accurately toddler steps...

But jokes on him, we will be seeing these again at lunch in the next few days because I doubt that they will keep well, or freeze.
I would recommend not filling all of your cups if you have a picky eater, because the chips will get soggy.
In the event that your toddler eats like mine, these could also be a great game time appetizer.
And in case you were wondering, yes they are delicious, my kiddo is crazy.

Enjoy!

Carrot Chips

Ever have that moment when you missed the mom newsletter a few weeks back, only to suddenly realize you've been happily doing a big "no, no"? Of course you haven't. There is no mom newsletter. This moment did happen to me the other day though, I found out that raw carrots are one of the "worst" things you can give to a baby. Well, my kiddo LOVES carrots. It was one of the first finger foods that we gave him (oops). He would just hold it and be so proud of himself! It was adorable. Now he shaves it down with his teeth until there is nothing left. Just a nub. What can we say - he enjoys it. Just goes to show you that all of us are incapable, right? Oh well...

It got me thinking that he would probable really enjoy a carrot in a softer form. So here it is - a carrot chip. Easy to hold and eat, and loved by all! He eats them warm or cold. So they are the perfect snack to have with us at all times. Bonus - simple ingredients! I'm not going to lie, they are a tad bit labor intensive. The first time I made them I kept saying to myself "he better like these," and "I'm not making these ever again, ... unless he likes them." Well, jokes on me. He can't get enough of them. So when I made them again I tried to stream-line the prep process. Hopefully, they are easy enough to make now, and you won't be cursing me under your breath when you make these.
I haven't experimented yet with adding more veggies or using just a different vegetable, but that is next. Maybe broccoli? Or brussel sprouts? Or cauliflower? And I bet that I can make them into more of a "cookie" by adding cinnamon!

What you need:

Vegetable Peeler
Food processor
Bowl
Cookie Scoop (optional)
Parchment Paper
Baking Sheet Pan

1 and 1/2 cups shredded carrots (about 12 oz)
1/2 cup cheddar cheese
2 eggs
1/4 cup oat flour

Let's Bake:

- Set oven to 350
- Peel your carrots

- Using your food processor grind up 1/4 cup of oats into oat flour
- Pour your oat flour into a bowl
- Using your food processor pulverize your carrots. It should look like you are an expert chef and know how to dice up your carrots into perfectly diced pieces.

- Throw your carrots into the bowl with the oats
- Next grab your cheese, cube it, and throw it into your food processor. If your cheese is pre-shredded or you want to shred your own cheese just skip this step and put your shredded cheese into the bowl with the carrots and oats
- Add in your 2 eggs
- Roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. They best way to work this dough is to get your hands in it!
- All the ingredients should come together easily, but not be too thick

**
- Now here is the labor intensive part. You take a cookie cutter and press a thin layer of your dough into it, then gently pull the cookie cutter away. This takes for-ev-er. Please feel free to do it this way.
**
- OR Using a cookie scoop (mine is pretty big) scoop some of your dough out, then split it into two balls and place on your cookie sheet with parchment paper

- Once that is done, go back through and press down each ball so it is more chip like

-Try to make all patties the same thickness, this way they will cook evenly
- Pro tip: when pressing your carrot balls down, start at the back of your tray, otherwise all of your chips will have an upward slop from where you tried to avoid hitting the unflattened ball behind it.

- Cook for 20-25 mins, or until the edges get a golden brown

Yum, golden deliciousness!
These freeze great, and I am very happy with my adjusted way of making them!

Enjoy!

Spinach and Ricotta Pinwheels

Now that you have a delicious pastry dough at your disposal. It is time to put it to good use!

I jumped right in and made a pinwheel. My kiddo loves them. Currently on the short list of acceptable foods.

I won't waste anymore time, here we go!

Spinach and Ricotta Pinwheels 

What you need:

Rolling Pin
Hard Flat Surface to work on
Hand blender with bowl attachment, or blender
Small Bowl
Non-stick baking sheet

Pastry Dough
Flour to dust surface
2 Handfuls of Spinach
1/2 cup ricotta Ricotta
Spices
Egg for egg wash (optional)

Let's Bake

- Preheat oven to 400
- Dust your surface with some flour
- Place your pre made dough in the flour and use your rolling pin to flatten out the dough

You can see that the dough is thin, but not too thin that it will fall apart if you move it. Remember we are stuffing this dough! 

- Let the dough rest while you blend up your handfuls of spinach 

You want to make sure that the spinach is chopped up fine, but not into a paste

- In a small bowl mix together your 1/2 cup of ricotta (or more to taste) chopped spinach, and spices 

- Take mixture and spoon it on to your rolled out dough 

- Evenly spread mixture all the way to the edge of the dough 

I made these twice before posting - props if you noticed that the dough was different!

- Now this is where I made my mistake. I rolled my dough from top to bottom. I should have rolled it from left to right (referring to the picture) 

- This would have allowed me to have a longer amount of dough to work with and to cut up.

- Once you have your dough and filling all rolled up, let the dough chill for a few minutes in the fridge (another mistake I made, and I had my filling spilling out all over the place. Made this mistake twice, and they still come out fine, but I invasion that the dough will cut better - you will have to let me know!)

- Line your non-stick baking sheet with your cut pinwheels - mine were about 1.5-2 inches wide

- They will not rise so you can put them pretty close together 

- The first time I made these I didn't put and egg wash on them, and they came out fine. If you are looking to make a more eye appealing pinwheel, then I would suggest an egg wash. Looking at the pictures, I know which one I would want to eat - but kids [sometimes] aren't picky.

With egg wash

Without egg wash 

- Pop them in the over for 30-40 min
- Keep out what you need and freeze the rest. They freeze beautifully!


Enjoy!

Baked Ziti and Homemade Pasta Sauce

My husband says that the only thing I make well is Ziti. I even make it better than my mother, who can do no wrong when it comes to cooking in his book.
The secret is to flavor the layers. Ziti has so many plain ingredients - ricotta, sauce, pasta, that you need to make sure that each ingredient has flavor or else you are stuck trying to flavor the whole thing at once. Which never works, and you always end up over-salting, or a least I do...

So when I was trying to think up of different things I could make with my silicon cubes (can you tell they are a staple in my cooking?) it came to me that I should make Ziti! All I would need to do is cut out the salt and we would be good to go.

As I was putting together my ingredient list, I realized that I would need to make my own sauce. I did some research and found multiple people saying that not only is it SO easy to make your own sauce, but it is super cost effective. I obviously believed them, but then again I had multiple burning incidents this week, so I wasn't convinced that it would be that easy.

Anyway the final product was awesome, and I even got the husband to say, "yeah, the kiddo will like these." There you go - husband seal of approval.

This is a two part recipe. I was doing these both simultaneously (always a risky move), but they can be done separately. The sauce freezes perfectly and can be used in different ways!

Ziti and Homemade Sauce 

What you need:

Small Sauce Pot
Medium Sauce Pot
Stick blender (or regular blender)
Bowl
Colander
Silicon Cube Tray

Pasta Sauce

1 28 oz can  of peeled, whole tomatoes

1 small onion 

3 garlic cloves

2 tablespoons olive oil
Optional - handful of spinach 

Ziti 

1 cup uncooked alphabets pasta  

1 cup ricotta

1 cup sauce 

1.5 oz mozzarella shredded 

Seasonings you prefer 

Let's Bake:

- Start by making your sauce first. Grab your small sauce pot and add in your whole tomatoes
- Slice a small onion in half, and put it in your sauce pot
- Peel 3 garlic cloves (more or less to your liking) and add that to your pot too
- Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil

- Bring the sauce to a boil (I like to do this on a medium heat to reduce splatter) then reduce your heat to a simmer.
- With a watchful eye let your sauce simmer for 45 minutes*, or until your onion halves can be easily pierced through (the onions should look transparent)

Almost done! The onions are looking transparent 

*While this is happening, lets make our ziti!

- Preheat your oven to 350
- In a different sauce pot bring about 3 cups of water to a boil
- Measure out 1 cup of uncooked alphabet pasta (I was looking for pasting, but this is all my grocery store had) and add it to boiling water

How cute are these?

- Let the pasta cook for about 8 minutes - it is ok if it is a little al dente, because it will be going into the oven to cook
- While the pasta is boiling grab a bowl
- In your bowl add 1 cup of ricotta, 1.5 ounces of Mozzarella (or more, there is never too much cheese in a ziti) and your seasonings. I used pepper, garlic powder, and an Italian seasoning mix.

- Mix your ingredients together.
- Once your pasta is done use your colander to drain the water and add the pasta it to your cheese mixture*

*Heading back to the sauce

- At this point I threw in a handful of spinach and let it wilt down - I wanted to sneak in some extra veggies!
- You can remove the onion and garlic, but I wanted to extra flavor
- Once the spinach wilted I took my stick blender and blended up the whole sauce pan - BE VERY CAREFUL! THE SAUCE IS HOT!

- And that is it! Sauce is made!*

*Once more, back to the Ziti

- Add 1 cup of your homemade sauce (small applause) to your cheese and pasta mixture.
- Evenly distribute your mixture into your silicon cup

- Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until your desired doneness

These little morsels are a HUGE hit with my kiddo! I hope your kiddo enjoys them too!

Broccoli Cheddar Quinoa Bites

My kiddo loves to eat. Loves it. He loves eating as much as he hates chicken. Hates it. I've pureed it, I've mixed it with delicious things, I've boiled it, shredded it, cubed it. I've hidden it in peanut butter (he actually licked the peanut butter off and threw the chicken over the side of his tray), I've even made it into a meatball. Nothing throws this kid off of the smell of chicken. That being said, I needed a alternative source of protein. He enjoys both the turkey and beef meatball, but I was getting bored of alternating them throughout the week, and I needed some lunch protein staples.
So I turned to Quinoa. High in protein, flavorless, and I had some laying around - all great things when it comes to needing to make a recipe.
I knew I couldn't just serve up some quinoa, it was too small for his pincers to grasp. But I bet I could bake it with some eggs and make some quinoa bites. So I gave it a try - and man was it a success! I hope your kiddo likes these as much as mine does!

Broccoli Cheddar Quinoa Bites 

What you need:

Blender 

Rice Cooker

Cheese Grater

Saute Pan 

Silicon Baking Cups

1/2 cup uncooked Quinoa 

1 cup water

1/2 cup ground up Broccoli 

Olive Oil

1/2 cup grated cheese (cheddar)

1 Egg

Spices 

Let's Bake: 

- Set oven to 350 

- In your rice cooker add your 1/2 cup of quinoa and 1 cup of water. Start your rice cooker and get everything else together

- In your blender place heads of broccoli and blend until really fine 

- Get broccoli into a sauté pan with a little olive oil, to prevent sticking, and cook on a medium heat. This just allows the broccoli to not be raw going into the oven. 

- While your broccoli is heating up grate your 1/2 cup of cheese

- When the broccoli is soft, add in your cheese and mix together 

- When your quinoa is done, add that to your broccoli and cheese mixture

- Once it is well incorporated, let it cool for a few minutes before adding in your egg. You don't want to scramble the egg! 

- Your mixture should come together pretty easily. If it is too loose you can add some more cheese! More cheese never hurt anyone! 

- Add in your spices. My kiddo likes pepper and garlic powder

- Pour mixture evenly into silicone cups

- Cook at 350 for about 25-30 minutes. I usually cook them until they pull away from the sides of the cups.

I hope you kiddo enjoys these! Packed with protein and veggies! They make a great lunch or snack. They hold up pretty well and freeze great! My kiddo likes to tear them apart limb from limb so be prepared for a lot of quinoa to get on your floor

Enjoy!