Day 7 - cheesy tomato pig face

With the weather lovely and the garden full of berries, my toddler saw an afternoon outside as all you can eat buffet time!

 

 

 

This meant that there wasn't a lot of point in serving much for dinner! We just made cheese on toast with a bit of tomato sauce mixed in and shaped it into a pig with some ham ears, cucumber eyes and tomato cheeks.

 

 

 

So how has our first full week gone of making fun plates every night? There have been a couple of nights where we asked ourselves if we could be bothered every day, but by the time we had cooked, it was easy enough to take a couple of minutes to make it into a shape. Has it made a noticeable difference? Yep! We are getting half hour to an hour of extra sleep every night, less waking in the morning with screaming and less running from the table in the first half of meal time. Will we carry on? Definitely!! I've ordered a couple of cookie cutters and will keep an eye out in the charity shops near me for some more.

 

Day 6 - Breaded chicken and cheesy cauliflower trees

We spotted some breaded chicken on offer and thought they'd make some perfect tree trunks. Hubby roasted off some cauliflower and added some cheese on top for the last couple of minutes to make the tree tops... Yum yum! Paired with peas for grass and a carrot sun, this made for a very popular toddler meal!

 

 

Day 5 - Mashed sweet potato and carrot fish with coconut prawns

For tonight's dinner, I boiled up some sweet potato and carrots and mashed it with a little butter to make the fish. I threw some prawns in egg then a mix of desiccated coconut and ground almond then fried them for about 5 minutes and served up with sugar snap peas, avocados and yellow bell pepper.

Day 4 - Breaded fish butterfly

Today's plan for how to keep a toddler at the table was a breaded fish butterfly. I simply chopped some white fish into strips, broke an egg on one plate, had breadcrumbs with a bit of parsley on another, dipped in each then oven baked for half an hour. The wings were made up of roasted pepper rings, courgette chunks, parsnip slices and some boiled carrot and broccoli.

Day 3 - Baked Omelette Tractor

My plan to entice my toddler to the table today was a baked omelette tractor with hummus and grated carrot grass, a ham man and tractor wheels and spinach leaves.

I made the omelette by cooking up some onion and red pepper in a pan with a little olive oil then off the heat, mixed in egg, grated carrot and spinach leaves. I poured it in to a casserole dish that I'd lined with a silicone sheet then baked in the oven at 180 degrees for about 15 minutes. Quick and perfect for cutting shapes out of!

Day 2 - Mashed Potato aeroplanes

On today's toddler menu is mashed potato aeroplane with sweet potato and carrot sunshine, cauliflower clouds and chicken flying over some mange tout and peas!

Plate Fun Beginnings

Our 23 month old son has always been slim, but with the arrival of his baby sister and escaping the high chair, it's become harder and harder to make my toddler sit at the table, and as a result he has been loosing weight. After trying all the usual tips to help toddlers sit still, I asked my mum what she suggested - her response - if he will eat crayons, why not make his food crayon shaped?!! Not convinced my crayons would look very realistic, I set out to make his plate more interesting. Not only did he stay at the table, but he ate more, slept almost 2 hours longer than usual and was a much happier child the next day. So this is where plate fun begins. We have decided to try to make a different fun plate for every day for the next year and share them with you all.

Our first fun plate:

Cheese flowers, carrot and courgette stars, pea sky, pepper horizon, mash potato boat, minced beef sea and an egg fish.