Go to Meals {Toddler}

I am so excited to have a guest blogger today! Jessica Motley ~ she is a twin mama to 18 month old boy/girl twins {Jayleigh and Jaxson}. You can find her on IG at "themotleytwins". I needed to have a mama with toddlers give us some of her go to meals and Jessica fit the bill perfectly!

Aren't the just adorable!

Here is her post:

I’m going to talk about my go to toddler meals for my twins. I am a first time mom, so I am learning as I go along! My kids are not too picky (thank goodness) which makes them perfect little experimenters. I’ll talk about how we transitioned from purees to bite size pieces and our go to meals for breakfast, lunch, dinner & snack.

The Transition

The transition from purees to “hand fed” meals was really all about timing. I watched for signs that my kids were ready to try to feed themselves. They started grabbing at spoons and their coordination was a little more on point. At first we just tried it at snack time so that we could be sure they ate all of their purees at meal time. Our go to snack was the yogurt melts because we could break them apart and give them even smaller pieces and they dissolved quickly. Once they mastered that we started cutting small amounts of food up to let them try feeding themselves at meal times. (A good tip we discovered is that we keep a ceramic knife (with a cover) hidden down in their diaper bag so that wherever we may be eating we have a good sharp knife to really cut their food up.) Then that became the only way they wanted to eat! These days we are attempting to master the spoon and fork. We generally just give them a utensil at every meal and encourage them to try using it. So far it has been going pretty well. They love the independence it gives them and now they rarely ever let us feed them anything!

Go To Breakfast

At our house, breakfast is really the one meal that is always quick and easy. I don’t feel like waking up before the kids to make something and my kids are too impatient to wait for me to make anything! When they wake up they are hungry-NOW! (They have the patience of their mother!) Our number one go to breakfast food is pancakes. They are ridiculously versatile and easy to make. I will buy a box mix and make the entire box at one time. I have a large family griddle that I use and it takes about 30 minutes or less to make a whole box. The best part is that you can add any kind of fruit that your kids like to eat! We love banana*, blueberry, and apple cinnamon pancakes (pancakes with applesauce and cinnamon added). Once the pancakes have been made you can stack them and put them in a gallon sized freezer bag and throw them in the freezer. When you are ready to eat them, just take a few out and put them in a microwave with a small bowl of water (it helps keep them from drying out) and cook for 30 second intervals until they are the perfect temperature. Usually we pair them with fruits that we have (either in the fridge or freezer) and voila! An easy and quick breakfast! The freezer method also works well with muffins, too! The other easy breakfast we keep on hand is single serve flavored oatmeal packets. The kids love them and love that they get to work on their spoon skills.

Go To Lunch

For lunch we also live off of easy meals. Some of our mainstays are pb&honey sandwiches, quesadillas, pizzadillas*, chicken nuggets, hot dogs, and leftovers. We try to pair more fruit and veggies with sandwiches and chicken nuggets. Quesadillas and pizzadillas are great because we can throw in some veggies and the kids don’t really notice them. Hot dogs make a quick meal because, just like the pancakes, you can make a large batch and then freeze them. Another thing that we make a lot on our own is squeeze packs. They are really easy to make and it makes sure that we know exactly what they are eating. We use the Infantino Fresh Squeezed Squeeze Station and Squeeze Packs to make them. We chose the disposable kind because the reusable kind never really came clean, no matter how hard I tried. Our favorite combinations are sweet potato/apricot, butternut squash/pear, and carrot/apple. It is really easy to buy big tubs of yogurt and applesauce and use those to fill the packs. Once the squeeze packs are filled, I throw them in the freezer. Then every few days I put a few in the fridge to defrost. It’s fun to experiment with different combinations of flavors and my kids are always anxious to try them out!

Go To DinnerDinner time is our family time. My husband works from home and thankfully his break is at 5:00, so I try my best to make us all a nice dinner so we can sit down and enjoy each other’s company. As a general rule, my kids eat whatever we are eating and if they don’t eat it, then it is a long time until breakfast! Now before you start thinking I starve my kids let me say that this rarely happens. I can probably count on one hand that my kids wouldn’t eat what I made for dinner. My plan of attack is to always make at least one item I know they will eat. I always encourage them to try everything on their plate, but never force them to eat it. Varying their meals has widened their tastes and I usually get no complaints. Some good go to sides we use are roasted carrots, sweet potato, mac n cheese, and sweet peas. Plus, any of the frozen veggies make a super quick addition to any meal and give us the opportunity to try all types of vegetables without worrying that the food will spoil before we get to cook it. Hopefully their willingness to try all types of foods will continue!

SnacksMy kids (and dogs) live for snack time! We generally do 2 snacks a day, one between breakfast and lunch, and then another between lunch and dinner. The biggest lifesaver I have for snack time is a travel cup that helps prevent them from spilling their snack. We are always on the go and these cups help keep my sanity. Some easy snack foods are:

Squeeze packs
grapes
blueberries
pretzels
yogurt
graham crackers
goldfish (my kids’ favorite!)
cheez its
puffs
apples
blueberry cookies*
teddy grahams
Lance crackers
banana
Any type of cheerios

Hopefully there were some worthwhile tips for you here and I have also included a few of my recipes that I have or have found on Pinterest that were winners in our book! If you have any recipes or tips I’d love to hear those too!

Healthy Banana Pancakes2 eggs

1 banana

½ c oats

¼ c apple sauce

1 tsp vanilla

½ tsp cinnamon

Blend oats until ground. Add other ingredients and mix until blended. Cook on a buttered pan.

Pizzadillas

Large flour tortillas

Pizza sauce

Pepperoni

Mozzarella cheese

Any other pizza toppings you like to use

Spread pizza sauce on a tortilla. Stack on the toppings you would like to use. Cover with a second tortilla and cook in a pan on the stove. Cook until heated through and cheese is melted.

Blueberry Oatmeal Cookies

1 c instant (quick-cook) oats (measured correctly) 3⁄4 c whole wheat flour (measured correctly)

1 1⁄2 tsp baking powder

1⁄2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp salt

2 tbsp coconut oil, melted 1 egg, room temperature 1 tsp vanilla extract

1⁄2 c honey

1⁄4 c dried blueberries

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the oats, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together the coconut oil, egg, and vanilla. Stir in the honey until thoroughly incorporated. Add in the flour mixture, stirring just until incorporated. Fold in the blueberries. Chill the dough for at least 30 minutes. (If chilling longer, cover with plastic wrap, ensuring it touches the entire surface of the cookie dough.)

2. Preheat the oven to 325°F, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat.

3. Drop the cookie dough into 15 rounded scoops on the baking sheet. (If chilled longer than 1.5

hours, flatten each slightly.) Bake at 325°F for 13-15 minutes. Cool on the baking sheet for at least 15 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.

Notes: It's really important to measure the oats with the spoon-and-level method (like with flour; see link in ingredients). If you scoop the oats into the measuring cup, you end up with 1.5 times as many oats, which will result in very dry cookies.

To make your own instant oats, pulse 1 cup of old-fashioned oats in a food processor 5-8 times.

Melted unsalted butter or melted margarine may be substituted for the coconut oil. Regardless of which is used, be sure that the egg is at room temperature before whisking it in. A cold egg added straight from the fridge would rapidly cool the fat source, resulting in small blobs of semi-solid coconut oil or butter.

Thank you so much Jessica for your help and great tips AND your recipes! 

~Kristy