Practical Healthy Family Meals + some food that’s just fun

There’s something about creating a healthy meal and sitting down with our family to enjoy it that brings me a sense of warmth and happiness. But that’s hard to do on your average weeknight. So I’ve decided to put together some practical healthy family meals that have become my weeknight go-to recipes. Maybe they’ll come in handy!

I’ve put together a number of recipes we have on rotation in our household. And I’m always smuggling new cookbooks into the house to find new recipes. So I have some whole-family meals that are designed to be easy to put together and to appeal to everyone in the family. I’ve also included other go-to, toddler-tested recipes that I’ve created to secretly dose my children with vegetables. Other recipes are my personal on-the-go low calorie options inspired by the urge to fit back into my pre-baby clothes so that I do not need buy an entire new wardrobe. And some recipes are treats and just for fun because it’s important to enjoy life and the occasional treat! 

Some quick links:

I often feel like my adult years have been defined by efforts to overcome my natural laziness, having discovered that laziness is one of my worst traits. I’ve had mixed success. But it does have the benefit of providing strong encouragement to find shortcuts where available. In the kitchen, I think that probably could come in useful to someone. So I’ve put together a cheat sheet with some helpful shortcuts and equipment that have come in handy in my own kitchen to speed up prep and clean up for your perusal.

The overarching goal here is to create a go-to spot to find recipes for practical healthy family meals. In general, I try to eliminate sugar where I can, or to use whole wheat or healthier flours if it results in a recipe that still tastes good.

At the same time, I’ve been reading up on tricks to encourage toddlers to like new foods (for instance, pairing a vegetable with something sweet the first few times they try it) and collecting tidbits about how toddlers learn to like certain foods (for instance, children aren’t born liking salty things — apparently, this is learned, not inborn!) So I’ll include some of those tidbits I’m picking up where relevant or helpful.

To give you a further sense of what you’ll find here, below is my tiny kid/family meals manifesto. These recipes are intended to help our family:

1.  Develop positive associations with healthy food;
2.  Maximize our consumption of vegetables/proteins/whatever healthy thing the children are currently refusing to eat;
3.  Limit sugar;
4.  Avoid ultra processed foods, most of the time; and
5.  Preserve parental sanity by making the meal prep practical.

My delightful three little babies are a constant challenge.

I’m always struggling to try to get them to eat well and behave (thus the rapid consumption of parenting books!) I’m constantly experimenting and trying to find new recipes to get them to eat healthy (or at all).

But if you have any particular foods you’re trying to get your kids to eat, I’m happy to experiment with you. Send me a note! I’ll see if there’s a recipe I can come up with to help you tackle that toddler, er, problem.