29 // Meals Made Easy BONUS EPISODE
Meals Made Easy BONUS EPISODE:
Fun & Festive Desserts (that are food dye free)
For the months with five Mondays in them (like May), many of you had requested that I do a bonus episode on healthy desserts. So, although you can expect easy breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack ideas every month, I am excited to also share a special red, white, and blue episode here too!
To help get us ready for the summer months, celebrating things like Memorial Day, and the 4th of July, this episode will give you EASY ideas you can involve your kids in whether you want to make it fun and festive or are searching for ideas that are food-dye free for families.
I am always looking for an excuse to have a little extra fun with food. Particularly with the given nature of doing more patriotic things and incorporating red, white, and blue foods, summer can be a fun time to start experimenting with food, practicing having more fun with your food, incorporating your kids in the kitchen, and getting them a little more hands-on with what items you might be offering.
So whether you're hosting some sort of a festive holiday gathering or bringing something to a potluck or a party, this episode will give you healthy dessert ideas the whole family will enjoy. Each are fun, festive, and food dye free!
Listen to this episode of The Veggies & Virtue Podcast now!
Full Episode Transcription
Please note this a raw transcription. If something doesn’t read correctly, toggle to that timestamp in the show so that you can listen in on what was actually being said!
[00:00:00] Mama, are you struggling with how to feed your kids? Right? Do you wish that there was a way to help your child try new foods? Do you look at a pantry cluttered with pirate, booty and a fridge full of the same food every week and wonder how you're going to get your family's meals off the hot mess express.
[00:00:16] I know what it feels like to scroll through all the feeding accounts on Instagram and to see a bunch of Fuji food that my family would never eat. And I too have pinned all the healthy recipes with good intention. But zero execution. I understand as a busy mom of three, that it can feel really unattainable, especially on the days when I'm exhausted.
[00:00:34] I have a short fuse. He really disliked an easy button and the date way. Well, that's where these meals made easy episode ideas come from with everyday ingredients that you already have on hand, I give you one meal or snack idea week that's dietician, mom approved, and is going to fit in your family's busy life.
[00:00:52] So get ready to press, add to cart and to make meals. Again, Hey there. And with it being the fifth Monday in may, I wanted to do a little bonus episode. There's only so many months out of the year that have five Mondays in 2022, but I know for myself and I'm sure a lot of your family. That as we get into the summer months and celebrating things like Memorial day and enjoying the long weekend, and as we get closer to the 4th of July, it is just always fun to have a little extra fun with food.
[00:01:24] And I feel like particularly with. And the given nature of doing more patriotic things with red, white, and blue, it can be a really fun time to just start experimenting with food, to start practicing, having fun with your food, incorporating your kids in the kitchen and get them a little more hands-on with what items you might be offering.
[00:01:43] If say you're hosting some sort of. For a festive holiday, or if you're bringing something to say a potluck or a party, and you want to make some, make something that you know is kid friendly and that your kids will enjoy. So regardless of what else is being offered, you know, that there's a love of food available at the given function.
[00:02:03] And so today I want to run through. Some really simple ideas. You know, I had some people ask me if I could go over kind of healthy dessert ideas with the fifth episode each month. And again, there's not a lot of months in the year that have five, but I think particularly as we celebrate this fifth Monday before.
[00:02:23] It would be a fun time to talk about patriotic snacks that could, that could easily be offered interchangeably as a dessert. So these are going to be kind of your sweet, fruity snacks. But what I want to help you think through is not the blue food dye, colored cupcakes with the frosting and colored sprinkles.
[00:02:42] Not that there's anything bad with those ideas. I'm sure my kids will be enjoying those periodically this summer. However, personally, as a dietician mom, I like to bring something that I know I want my kids eating and that's just a little bit more nourishing of an option to go ahead and bring. And so while I think there's a wide range of festive foods that can be appropriate and really fun to have over the summer months.
[00:03:06] I want to share with you some of those that I would consider a little bit more nourishing in the case that you want to kind of steer clear. The Jell-O jiggler stars and the more maybe processed food options that give you those festive colors. But instead of to focus on foods that are naturally red, white, and blue, and creating some really simple, really easy creations out of those that do not skimp on the.
[00:03:30] With each of these, I want you to see ways that you could also engage your kids in this process, have them help. And of course, having our kids help in the kitchen is not always actual help, but as you begin to involve them in the kitchen, what you'll see is the things that they can do with the things that they're interested in doing.
[00:03:49] And hopefully the foods that they can learn to, like, because they're a part of the process. And so while this might be focused on a really fun and more isolated event, like a festive holiday, What you hopefully will also see is ways that this can translate to your everyday where they can begin help using things to skewer kebab things on a stick or use a cookie cutter to cut out a given food and how a lot of these things that we're going to be doing are so interchangeable with other foods outside of those that are red, white, and blue.
[00:04:19] So to hop into some really simple ideas, Well it a pen and paper, and just jot down some mental notes or come back to this episode when you are ready to make some fun investive snack or dessert ideas. But some of the first ones I want you to think of is just the general red, white, and blue foods. And so I'm going to really be focusing on freight here because fruit gives us so many great opportunities, but we'll incorporate a few other ideas as well.
[00:04:43] And so one of the first ones that I think for summer that can be really, really fun. Is F kebab. And so you could do something as simple as skewering, red, white, and blue with things like a strawberry, a slice of banana and a blueberry alternating. This is a great way to practice patterns with kids. Or one that we often will do is skewer a lots of blueberries.
[00:05:06] So it kind of looks like almost like a little sparkle or stick. And then. A little star cookie cutter to punch out a piece of watermelon in the shape of a star. And then you just put that on the tip of the kebab, really easy option for entertaining groups. If you want kids to just be able to run up, grab a stick, of course not run with the stick, but to have it all kind of consolidated.
[00:05:27] Another option you could do is if you don't want to skewer the food is to do something like a fruit salad. You can pre toss it, or you can put it like in a trifle bowl and just layer different. Another thing you might do here kind of like taking a step off of this is if you did want to incorporate something that was a little bit more dessert, like you might layer either interchangeably with the bananas or in place of the bananas, something like a whipped cream, or you could use like an angel food cake or a poundcake as your white layer there, but still got a lot of the really delicious, fresh berries to add some color to that.
[00:06:01] And it can be really pretty in a presentation like that. You can also do this in individual cups really easily. If you needed to make kind of individual portion snack or dessert cups, or again, this could be done as a dessert, or you can do it as a snack, but something that I know my kids get really into is patriotic per phase, same sort of concept as like the larger Profay, but you're going to put it in a smaller cup.
[00:06:25] Ideally one that's clear. We've done this in little clear plastic cups. When we have friends over, or you can do it in like a glass cup. If it's just at home with your kids and layering things like either yogurt, you can do plain yogurt with some honey, you could use a vanilla yogurt, one that's ideally a little bit less than sugar, but again, if this is in place of a dessert, it's okay to have something.
[00:06:47] Sweet there, layer it with the fruits. You can add granola if you want to, or maybe just sprinkle a little bit on top, but to give that layered pattern, and this really helps again, as parents often feel intimidated to involve their kids in the kitchen or to let themselves. All of these things are such low pressure, playful, positive food interactions.
[00:07:08] So whether it's your child, skewering, a kebab, and they want three times the strawberries that they do, blueberries or banana, let them do that. You'll see where their comfort level is with different foods. So when it comes to something like a salmon kebab, something we talked about in pre. You can see how they skewer different proportions of different foods on their kebab, but they're gaining comfort and familiarity with each of these food exposures.
[00:07:32] Additionally, something like a parfait. I always find it really interesting as I watch my kids build their own parfait to see what ratio of each of the layers are they doing. And where is their comfort level with some of these different. The last idea I want to go ahead and share is doing something fun on a flat rectangle to resemble something like an American flag.
[00:07:52] And so with this, you could just lay out as kind of a fun charcuterie with fruit of layering out bananas or those marshmallows I mentioned or straw. Or raspberries watermelon, you can use any red, white, and blue foods here that you want to, but just lay it out in the white and red stripes and then do something up in the corner to resemble the blue.
[00:08:16] And so oftentimes here I'll put, you know, a square of blueberries. You can use like a fun square bowl to kind of hold them in there, but this is a really simple, really fun option. Again, if you want to take it up a notch and make it a little bit more dessert. Doing something like a cookie pizza, you can make one giant sugar cookie base.
[00:08:35] And then on top of it, you can use a light frosting of your preference and then do the stars and stripes again with fruit on top of it. And then cut it up into squares. Everyone gets some fresh fruit, cookie pizza, and that is always a big hit as well at these festivals. I love coming up with fun ideas for holidays and just special friend and family gatherings.
[00:08:58] And so this was a fun little bonus episode to come up with for you. And I hope that it gave you some fun and festive ideas as well, to try out with your kids and to help make both of you a little bit more comfortable with them helping out in the kitchen. These meals meet easy ideas are helpful. You in any way, or this show is encouraging you and the message in the mealtimes of motherhood.
[00:09:19] I would love to hear about it all you need to do. Scroll down on apple podcasts and tap, write a review. I check each and every one of these and they truly blessed me to read and to know how the show is helping shape your family's relationship with food so that I can continue to create content that serves you.
[00:09:35] That thank you in advance for taking the time to leave me a review. And I look forward to seeing you back here next time.
