Mamas & Papas -
DS is 15 months old, and will eat pretty much anything we set out in front of him. Some days more heartily than the next, but that's alright with us. To keep things easy for the manny, who is wonderful in many ways, but all thumbs in the kitchen (heating a hot pocket) is his idea of cooking, we had been having him feed DS the stage 3 meals from plum, happy baby etc, together with cereal, apple sauce, and yogurt.
I no longer want to buy baby food. That means I need to have ready to serve toddler meals for the manny to serve. Any suggestion for what to prepare? Anything I can prep in bulk on the weekend, and ready in portions for the week would be better.
I know that those of you who have been packing lunches for years will have some great ideas.
Thanks a bunch,
Fanged Bunny
leftovers from dinner he can reheat in the micro
make a big batch of homemade Mac and Cheese (I use the Barilla Plus pasta as it has more nutrition)
advocado is a great toddler food
he can eat up small servings of frozen peas-so fun to eat with little fingers
This website is great for suggestions and ideas and a lot of what's there can be frozen and thawed in the toaster oven or microwave or even the night before in the fridge http://www.wholesometoddlerfood.com/
The easiest and biggest hit for me was veggie pancakes or muffins with zucchini, spinach, pumpkin, winter squash, etc. I even made a version with spinach that my son loved (http://weelicious.com/2012/01/04/spinach-cake-muffins/) and actually weelicious is a great site too. My son also loved the broccoli and cheddar cheese nuggets on this site http://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com/broccolibabyfoodre.... You can also experiment with what he'll eat. We are vegetarian, so I was always experimenting with protein with him. He loves (still does) tofu cut up into chunks, just right out of the package. He'll also eat chickpeas that are lightly roasted in the toaster oven with olive oil for 10-15 minutes like they are snack food. Hummus and pita, cream cheese and crackers, steamed baby carrots with dip, cheese and crackers, PB and jelly, and frozen and thawed fruit or veggies were always good healthy and quick things he liked too. Oh, and pasta with purred veggies as the sauce was a good last minute fix too. Just have fun with it!
EDIT: forgot to mention that almost all of the above (aside from the last 2 sentences) I made in bulk and froze so he had variety without me having to cook something new everyday.
Soups always went a long way here--frozen in little containers, PBJ sammies, string cheese, yogurts, applesauce, crackers & cheese, Pasta with sauce or cheese, chicken tenderloins, breaded & baked.
uncrustable sandwich, string cheese, apple slices, chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, quesadilla, pasta.
Honestly... I would suggest starting to cook extra at dinner. Then package it up along with snacks on "her" shelf on the fridge that he can just grab and zap. Ditto... it's pretty easy to scramble some eggs or make breakfast the night before.
One of the advantages of dinner leftovers... is that you know she'll eat it... and you can do the 'travel the world' thing (young childrens brains categorize new chemicals as posionous and have a gag-yuck-spit response starting at apx age 2... You want to introduce as MANY spices, herbs, proteins, etc as possible between ages 1 and 2. DON'T fall into the trap of "bland toddler food" that only has about 11 ingredients... or you'll be serving those ingredients to your "picky eater" until age 5 or 6 when the neurological response shuts down. Curries, soups, mesoamerican, chinese, italian... cook as MUCH as you can -and order in as much as possible- over the next few months. Just keep the star rating at 0-1, but make sure what she's eating is LOADED with herbs and spices and sauces and and and).
The downside to cooking ahead of time / Coming up with new things means he's the one experimenting with new foods. And if she rejects it will be turning to the one or two favorites (hot pockets, macncheese) and you're going to end up stuck with those things / in arguments with him about her diet.
Gerber makes toddler and preschooler meals that have the food groups they need plus you can add yogurt and stuff with it pretty simple heat 30 seconds and eat
He can do things like pasta - which can have lots of variants. Maybe one day kiddo gets pasta (shapes are fun for little fingers) with sauce, and another day butter and another day pesto. Maybe he gets ravioli. Cutting up fruit is something anybody can do. Do breakfast for lunch with cut up sausage, scrambled egg, toast, or waffles (eggos makes small ones in 4 packs). Chicken nuggets, grilled cheese, mac and cheese....maybe you get a roasted chicken and cut it up or you pack leftovers from your OWN dinner to reheat in the microwave.
You have gotten great ideas so far, especially with the leftovers ideas. Alos, It is very easy to pull a serving of frozen veggies out the night before to eat for lunch the next day. My sister in law doesn't even heat them up, just serves them cold. Also, there are bags of frozen blueberries that can do the same thing. I like the frozen foods because they seem fresher than canned, but you don't have to worry about fresh foods going bad before you can eat all of it.
Most Libraries have some neat "Food for Toddlers" types of cookbooks...I remember checking them out when I was getting bored and needed some new ideas of what to feed them :) If you look up 'toddler cookbook' on amazon...they have a slew of options. Your library may have some of those in stock?
Leftovers from dinner
Grilled Cheese
Pizza
Quesadillas
