St. Patrick’s Day Green Mac-n-Cheese

LifeAsMOM's weekly Ultimate Recipe Swap is St. Patrick's Day food. Hope you'll stop by and check out some of the other recipes her readers have shared. Fun!!

I’m sure there isn’t a single reader who hasn’t heard of “The Sneaky Chef” technique where you blend purees into sauces, smoothies and batters to hide veggies in a kid’s meal. While I do look for opportunities to add nutrition into our diet, I also know that if you always hide nutrients kids will never learn to like them enjoy them and eat them. After all, the older they get the less and less meals they eat at home, and at some point in early adulthood they will eat all their meals away from home. What will these kids do then?

My strategy is to add nutrients to batters, sauces and smoothies, but to also offer these items as whole foods so that kids have a chance to accept them. Kids can’t eat what isn’t available. If a fruit salad is never offered and fruit is always served in a smoothie a kid can’t learn to appreciate fresh fruit.

That being said there are times when sneaking in veggie, fruit, lentil, bean purees is appropriate.

• When young kids don’t have a lot of teeth to eat all table foods


• When grade-schoolers have missing front teeth and biting sandwiches and crunchy foods are a challenge.


• When kids are malnourished, and nutrition, even sneaky nutrition is priority over best-case eating habits


• When kids are diagnosed with disorders or illness that cause many food sensitivities (i.e. with Autism Spectrum Disorder)


• When food allergies complicate adequate nutrient intake.
  
  

Did you notice that “picky” eater on that list?? Nope. Picky eaters should not qualify for sneaky nutrition at the exclusion of offering whole foods. Picky eaters actually develop a more restrictive diet when parents offer only those items kids devour and don’t show initial aversions to. Do your picky eater a favor and keep exposing her to a variety of food. She may warm to them more slowly and need more encouragement that your more adventuresome eaters, but she will eventually accept some of the things she thinks she hates. Of course I do condone a double pronged attack, where you offer whole foods and sneaky recipes at the same time until a wider variety of food is accepted. That will give you peace of mind that your childs vitamin and mineral needs are being met until she is eating more food without deception.

Kids love colored food, so here’s a way to excite their eyes and avoid chemical additives in food coloring. Most food coloring is petroleum based, a chemical I prefer to keep out of our diet. Spinach, beets, carrots, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and turmeric are great ways to color food without chemical additives.

Green Mac-n-Cheese
Green Mac-n-cheese is a dish I served Big Boo when he was making a transition from baby food to table food. He could eat soft things like pasta, but raw and even small pieces of cooked veggies were not quite manageable. Spinach is hard to except in puree unless you have a mouthful of teeth. While this is very appropriate dish for a toddler coming onto table food, it also a great natural food coloring a kid favorite for a fun holiday, St. Patrick’s Day!

Recipe

One 14.5 oz box of whole wheat pasta shapes (shells, elbows, spirals, etc.), cooked and drained.
8 slices Horizon American Cheese Singles
1/3 cup + 2 TBS organic milk
One bag prewashed baby spinach.
Salt and Pepper to taste
2 cans (5oz) cans of tuna (not albacore-it has more mercury)

Over medium heat, drizzle a bit of oil in a sauté pan. Add spinach and wilt until it reduces in size, turns bright green and is soft. Add wilted spinach to a food processor and puree. Add a bit of milk if you need some liquid to get a smooth consistency. Cook and drain pasta according to package directions. Add 8 slices of Horizon’s American Cheese Singles to the empty hot pasta pan along with the 1/3 cup milk. Stir until combined. Use up to 2 more TBS milk if needed to get the right consistency for sauce. Add spinach puree and mix until combined. Add salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste. Return drained pasta, and drained tuna to pan and coat with spinach cheese mixture.

Need another green recipe? Here's my take on the "Got Milk" campaign's Green Milkshake.

Kid Appeal Tip Kids don’t like to feel that nutrition is being “done” to them. Eating healthy food because you have to, makes eating healthy food unappealing. It feels like a punishment, instead of an opportunity to provide their body with food that fuels play and learning. Watch your language when talking about “healthy” and “unhealthy.” Connect good food to energy for play, calories for growing and protein/fat for brain function and growth. Show enthusiasm when offering good food.

Negative reinforcement
Be mindful of how you talk to others about what your kids like to eat. If kidlet hears you say to a friend “Jimmy doesn’t like any healthy food. All he eats is peanut butter sandwiches and crackers or junk,” then kidlet believes what your say. He is a kid who doesn’t like healthy food. So when you offer him something that’s new and you label it “healthy”, he won’t eat it because it’s “healthy.” He’s not refusing it because it looks strange or tastes awful. He’s refusing it because he is a kid who doesn’t eat healthy food.

Positive reinforcement
Try reinforcing the things your kids eat that are healthy. Even if your child’s diet is very limited, think of the healthiest food they like. That may be milk, or apples or peanut butter. And let kidlet hear you say to their dad or a friend, “You should have seen Jimmy gobble up his peanut butter sandwich today. He must have needed a lot of energy for the playground, and big muscles to ride his bike.” Then the next time you offer him “grow” food he’ll be more inclined to try it because you’ve labeled him as a kid who eats food that helps him learn, grow and play.

This dish was a huge hit in our house. We had an adult dinner guest who had three servings and even my pasta loathing hubby ate it happily. I'll let you be the judge of whether or not little boo enjoyed it. (He's in the I-won't-smile-for-any-camera-no-way-no-how phase, but the chin should be evidence enough...)For more recipes and kid appeal tips on how to make real food relevant to your kids, click there to join the food with kid appeal facebook fan page, or there to become a subscriber via email or google reader. We share What's for Dinner (WFD) daily on Facebook, and I pose a "Question of the Day" (QOTD).

What's your take on sneaking veggies into your child's diet?