serena
I hesitate to put this up because it is not representative of what we eat for lunch. But I enjoyed these crabcakes so thoroughly, I thought it was worth remembering.
The snack lunch
V, being a toddler, would eschew all meals in favor of snacks if she could, so lunches and dinners are often hit or miss. In my pre-parenting days, I would have haughtily declared that our kids were going to eat what we are eating. There would be no kids meals. Oh how quickly a two-percentile-weight toddler will change things. Still, I’m resolute in the mission to serve real food.
Lately I’ve been experimenting with making real food more “snack-like” on weekends. For example, a recent lunch:
- Thinly sliced baguette pieces, brushed with olive oil and toasted with a sliver of Monterey Jack (using a vegetable peeler)–I called them “crackers.” V liked how they crunched.
- Tiny cubes of bananas skewered on toothpicks–I introduced them as “kabobs.”
- Leftover rotisserie chicken, still cold from the refrigerator cut into toddler-sized slivers–I called them “chicken sticks.”
- A tiny silicone cup of blackberries.
It’s a constant evolutionary arms race, trying to get food into our little peanut. Just when I develop a strategy, she changes things up. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Yum! Love the lunch ideas, Serena. Such enticing names and “packaging”! I’m going to try these with M for sure.
Recently, we’ve been reading “The Pet Dragon” by Christoph Niemann. In the book, a little old lady eats a “magic bean” and grows so tall she can touch the sky. This has done wonders for our peas, legumes and edamame consumption. Not to mention, he can now read the Chinese characters (and so can we, haha).
Magic beans, what a great idea! I’m going to check out that book. I’m always looking for ideas to get finicky toddlers to eat. Seems like they can live on air sometimes.