Stealth Vegetables for Kids
Getting Your Child to Eat More Vegetables
When my grandson was a toddler he absolutely would not eat vegetables until I came up with the idea of putting them in the pancakes he loved. Here are the recipes and techniques I used to help him get his vegetables. These are good and you'll enjoy them too!
The veggies I used were
spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, kale, swiss chard, zucchini and
green beans. If you can get away with it just finely shred, chop or julienne the vegies. You may want to start out with well cooked and mashed vegies, be aware of the liquid content and adjust accordingly.
The vegetables hide better in the whole wheat pancake. Make little
silver dollar sized pancakes or mouse ear pancakes, just anything to be
different and special (and distracting). Use real maple syrup or honey
or warm jam to top the cakes. Also whipped cream is good. Except for
the broccoli most of the veggies do very well in a sweet application,
but it is very good too if you don't use too much.
Yoghurt Pancakes
1 cup flour
1/2 ts baking powder
1/4 ts baking soda
1 carton flavored yoghurt
1 egg
1 ts sugar (optional)
1/2 ts cinnamon
1/4-1/2 cup shredded vegetable
water
Mix
the dry ingredients in a medium bowl with a wire whisk. Add everything else
except water. The mixture will be thick so just add a little water at a
time until it's the consistency you like. This one is good with
zucchini, carrots or green beans. Use yellow summer squash with lemon
yoghurt to be really stealthy.
100% Whole Wheat Pancakes
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/8 ts baking soda
1/2 ts baking powder
1/8 ts salt
2 Tbs fresh lemon juice
1 cup milk
1 egg
1/4-1/2 cup shredded vegetables
Mix
dry ingredients together in a medium bowl using wire whisk. Measure
the lemon juice into a 1 cup measure, add milk to make one cup of
liquid. Let the milk and lemon set for a minute or two. Mix all the
ingredients together.
Any of the leafy green vegetables hide pretty
well in this pancake. You could also add nuts. Start with smaller
amounts of vegies and then see if you can gradually increase the amount.
Cornmeal Pancakes
3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
1/4 cup flour
1/2 ts baking soda
1 ts baking powder
1/4 ts salt
1 egg
1 Tbs lemon juice
3/4 cup milk
1 Tbs butter, melted
1/4-1/2 cup shredded vegetables
Mix
dry ingredients in a medium bowl using wire whisk. Measure lemon juice
into 1 cup measure, add milk to make 3/4 cup of liquid. Let the milk
and lemon set for a minute or two. Mix all ingredients together. Add
1/4 cup vegetables or more. Of course these are great with corn but
summer squash or cauliflower work well too.
For all of these pancakes they are best in a small size cooked on a griddle with melted butter to give them a little bit of crisp around the edges. If you cook them in butter you don't need to add more butter for serving.
