Yogurt with Veggies? Huh??

We are a pretty die-hard Yobaby yogurt house. Sly would happily chow down a container of the stuff at every meal — and considering that yogurt and cheese are still her main source of calcium, I’m glad she likes it so much.

That said, we’re trying something new this week and so far it’s a hit. Horizon (maker of organic milk and right down the road from us in Broomfield, CO) has a new kiddie yogurt called Little Blends that combines fruit and veggies. I’ve seen two flavors: strawberry/carrot and apple/butternut squash. We tried the latter, and Sly gulped it down just as quickly as she eats the all-fruit kind.

For the apple/butternut squash, one of the four-oz. containers includes:
- 100 calories
- 25% daily protein
- 20% of Vitamin A
- 4% of Vitamin C
- 4% iron
- 8% Vitamin D
- 20% calcium

I think the Little Blends will be a semi-regular addition to Sly’s diet, but I still prefer Yobaby for a few reasons.

The Little Blends are not certified organic, but marketed under the fuzzier “natural” label. Some of the ingredients are still organic, but not, say, the butternut squash puree that’s used.

The price is about the same as Yobaby (around $3 per package) — but with Yobaby, I get six four-oz. yogurt containers and Little Blends only has four.

Still, for toddlers who fuss about veggies, this is definitely something to try! Though it’s also worth noting that these include orange veggies that are high in Vitamin A, as opposed to green veggies. In our house at least, the green ones are the real challenge; I can almost always get Sly to eat baked sweet potato fries, but I certainly can’t say that about peas or beans.

Explaining Oatmeal

I’ve raved about oatmeal-as-great-breakfast-food before, but I wanted to delve into that a little more. Instant oatmeal — in packets for breakfast, or for no-bake cookies — was pretty much my default oatmeal purchase until Sly came along. And then I started wondering what exactly the difference are between the various kinds of oatmeal.

So, first, the basic types: steel-cut oats (also called Irish, pinhead or Scotch oats), old-fashioned, quick and instant. Now, according to Quaker, the only real difference between them is how much they’re pressed and chopped. More processing = cooks faster.

Quaker describes the differences this way: Steel-cut oats are whole oats that aren’t rolled into flakes — they’re just cut into thirds. They take about half an hour to cook and have a chewier texture. Old-fashioned oats are whole oats, rolled flat. The quick and instant oats are steel-cut oats rolled thinner and/or cut finer, so they cook faster.

According to my packages of quick and old-fashioned oats, they are nutritionally exactly equal.

The biggest difference seems to be in texture of the resulting oatmeal. The more processed the oats are, the more pasty the oatmeal. And for us, the old-fashioned oats provide just the right amount of chewiness but still cook up fast enough for a impatient toddler. But for a little one just making the move up from baby cereals, instant oats may be the way to go.

I generally use about 1/3 cup of (dry) oatmeal to make Sly’s breakfast, using an equal amount of half-and-half or whole milk. Three and a half minutes of cooking is perfect. I’ve also found that it seems to take a bit longer for the oats to cook with milk products than with water.

A word on Chex. That word is: yes!

For a lot of people, the default baby/toddler snack is Cheerios. For us, it’s Rice Chex.

They’re perfectly bite-sized — not too big, not too small. Just the right amount of crispy-crunchiness. They’re also now wheat/gluten free — and while Sly doesn’t have a problem with gluten, plenty of kids (and adults) do. And wheat is one of those things “they” tell you to avoid in the early months of solids — but it’s not easy finding a wheat-free snack. Even Cheerios has wheat starch.

Once we started trying to add extra calories to Sly’s diet, I started seeing Rice Chex not just as a snack — but as a blank canvas as well. The size and shape make them perfect for adding a smear of something tasty. No extra chopping or slicing required! I use peanut butter and cream cheese most often, but I’ve also done dabs of avocado and even applesauce or fruit preserves. (The fruit-based spreads tend to soak in a bit and make the cereal a little less crunchy.)

Discovering new incarnations of old snacks

One of the things that both amazes me and makes me feel old about being a parent is how much some of my favorite childhood snacks have changed. 

I’m not much of a snacker as an adult, so I don’t really buy chips/cookies/snack crackers etc. on a regular basis. So when I started looking for finger foods for Sly, I found myself wandering down the snack aisle at SuperTarget going, “Wow, when did they come out with these? And this? And geez, that looks tasty!”

Take Pepperidge Farm’s goldfish crackers. The only ones I ever remember as a kid were the plain,bright orange goldfish. But now they have more than a dozen different flavors and variations of goldfish. Just in the “cheddar” goldfish category, they have the classic cheddar goldfish, then cheddar-made-from-whole-grain (my new default goldfish variety), and less-sodium-cheddar. They even have “baby” sized cheddar, with extra-tiny fish.

They have not one, but THREE flavors of graham-fish: chocolate, honey and cinnamon. Sly adores the cinnamon, and I liked being able to find a non-honey graham cracker treat for when she was younger than a year.

Then there are the pretzel-fish. OMG, they’re my new favorite snack and ridiculously addictive.

And have you seen the Cheerios’ line-up lately? I had no idea that there were 10 different kinds until I checked out their website. Some of those I haven’t seen in a local store to actually try, but their new banana-nut Cheerios are a huge hit with Sly. I also have the Yogurt Burst and multigrain varieties on my list of cereals-to-try-as-snacks. And I’ve noticed that coupons for the various varieties show up in the Sunday paper pretty often (there’s also a coupon for banana-nut Cheerios on the company website).

The choices are almost a little overwhelming, but it’s fun to have so many new twists on the classic snacks that I loved. And man, I wish pretzel-fish had been around when I was a kid. Yum!

Grandma-Created, Toddler-Approved

Before I make this recipe, I make sure I have empty ice cube trays and tiny freezer-safe containers ready — because it freezes and re-heats like a dream, and making one batch results in a huge amount of toddler-or-baby-sized meals. 

This is one of the staples of DD’s menu. If she won’t eat anything else, she will almost always eat broccoli-rice-&-cheese casserole. I’ve shared this recipe in other places, and one mom told me that her son was leaning forward and pounding on his tray for more. Sounds like a successful meal to me!

Since I try to always keep a stash of it on-hand, it’s a quick, no-brainer of a meal component. It also rolls nicely into bite-sized balls so little ones can feed themselves. 

This is my mom’s recipe, and she’s so proud that one of her grand-daughter’s favorite meals comes from her. I’ve made some modifications and use different options depending on how calorie/fat heavy I want it to be. Sly is currently on a high-fat diet, so I’m always looking for places to get extra caloric bang. I’ve noted some of the potential options below.

Broccoli, Rice & Cheese Casserole

- 1 package of frozen, chopped broccoli. You can use one of the small, square packages, but I like to use the 1-lb. bags and go heavy on the veggies. 

- 1 can cream of chicken soup. Using the low-sodium/low-fat variety works fine, but I use the regular kind right now to get the extra fat. 

- about 2/3 of a package of shredded cheese [edited: 8 oz. size]. I typically use mild cheddar or colby-jack, but straight colby or other varieties of cheddar are good as well. 

- 1 can (use the empty soup can to measure) of instant rice

- 1 can of milk (or half-&-half, to go calorie-crazy)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Thaw the frozen broccoli in the microwave. If the chunks are too big for your little one, give it a whirl in a food processor to make them bite-sized. Mix the thawed broccoli with the soup, rice, milk and most of the cheese in an oven-safe casserole dish — save just enough cheese to sprinkle some over the top. Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes. Allow some cooling time before putting the casserole into freezer-safe containers. 

I love this dish, not just because Sly can’t get it into her mouth fast enough, but because it provides a pretty good balance all by itself: a healthy veggie and lots of nutrients from the broccoli, calcium and protein from the milk and cheese, and carbs and additional nutrients from the rice. 

Additional options: For that high-calorie diet, add a few tablespoons of butter. To bump up the protein, try adding small pieces of cooked chicken — canned will work, but I find that it tastes better and is healthier to use remnants from a roast chicken, which I make every couple of weeks anyway. It takes a bit of time to go over the carcass for meat bits, but canned chicken is ridiculously expensive in comparison. And the improved taste in chicken pot pies and casseroles is a bonus!