Tuesday: Whole Grains

Pancakes! One of our favorite breakfasts.  Whole wheat, oatmeal, buckwheat or multi-grain, its a fantastic way to get some whole grains into your kids before starting the day. 

In honor of valentines week, I wanted to test out my new heart pancake shaper the Quaker folks had sent me!  It was easy to use, and the hearts turned out perfect. 

In order to turn them pink, I pulled out some puree’d raspberries I had in the freezer.  I keep them in little tablespoon portions to add to smoothies or baked goods.  But it didn’t turn the pancakes pink at all!  Maybe my pancakes were too brown from the whole wheat? I don’t know. 

Then instead of pulling out the food coloring, I sprinkled them with a tiny bit of red sprinkles while they were on the griddle.  The kids loved them.

There are other ways to make pancakes appealing.  Check out Gourmet Mom on the Go!  She has Groundhog day pancakes , Happy Face pancakes, Ghost pancakes, and my favorite, confetti pancakes.  I love the confetti pancakes because, lets be honest… you spend all this time making shapes for your pancakes, only to cut them up as soon as they hit your child’s plate! But with these, you wouldn’t even be cutting them.

Also, for more hot breakfast ideas…Visit The Happy Housewife. She has dedicated all of February to Hot Breakfast month.

Experiment of the night: Ketchup boy and Cereal boy will not eat cataloupe.  Which is a crying shame with more vitamin A than any other fruit, and as much vitamin C as an orange, they are really missing out.   

Unfortunately I’m not a creative mom that can carve Mt. Rushmore into their mashed potatoes. So with my limited skills I wanted to see if it even mattered.  Are kids more likely to eat healthy food if it looks like a flower, than a melon ball?  Will they eat a red pepper on their pizza if they think it’s a face with a mouth?   

Cutting a flower into cataloupe, even with the cookie cutter, was not that easy.  You have to slice a piece of cataloupe to begin with to have a surface to work with.  Well, Cereal boy wasn’t fooled, he still didn’t want any cataloupe.  Ketchup boy at least gave it a go: