What's the best way to get kids to eat their veggies and try new foods? We have found that playing with our food is a recipe for success! If you sat at our dinner table you might find us using carrot sticks as swords or waving around our asparagus (they are spears after all!) We even allow green beans to be eaten without a fork occasionally (just not in from of Grandma).
Bottom line is our kids gobble up a lot of healthy food and that makes us feel good. Here are a few more ways to make eating food a fun time for the family:
Personalize It
My husband has a knack for forming food into amusing shapes. Who wouldn't eat carrots and cucumbers carved as their name?
Liam was thrilled when his dad baked his name in crackers!
The kids helped make these special Mother's Day rolls:
Make It Goofy
Face shapes are always fun!
We made this dragonfly from the Bean Appetit cookbook:
Here's a little snack that Liam made for me the other day. Proof that he loves to play with his food too!
Shape it like a Heart
We seem to be especially fond of making heart shaped food around here. This past Valentine's Day my husband turned beets into this beautiful heart salad:
Last year he and the boys made a soup with homemade heart shaped noodles for Valentine's Day:
And I couldn't resist this silly little experiment to turn eggs into hearts:
What do you do to make food fun for your family?
I think we need to come to your house to eat! Your meals are much more fun than ours. I love the snack that Liam made for you.
Posted by: Lori Popkewitz Alper | June 02, 2012 at 10:04 AM
This is so cute!
Posted by: Good Girl Gone Green | June 02, 2012 at 06:35 PM
You are welcome anytime Lori! We would love to show you around Minneapolis!
Posted by: Micaela | June 02, 2012 at 06:38 PM
Thanks Stephanie!
Posted by: Micaela | June 02, 2012 at 06:39 PM
I think my kids would love to come eat at your house too! I love how creative you get with the food!
My kids love Salad People and we can do some fun things with those and whatever ingredients we can scrounge up. They also really like the mini muffin tin lunches I do sometimes. Now how did you do the eggs?
Posted by: Brenna @ Almost All The Truth | June 06, 2012 at 01:21 AM
I've never heard of Salad People Brenna - sounds fun though! Here is a link for the heart shaped eggs - I had originally seen it on Facebook but just found the post! http://www.moneyandshit.com/how-to-make-a-heart-shaped-egg
Posted by: Micaela | June 06, 2012 at 07:21 AM
Salad People is one of my favorite books y Mollie Katzen! I teach childrens cooking classes and want to have a class where we make rainbows out of food. I love your heart shaped beets Micaela!
Posted by: Leah | June 07, 2012 at 12:51 PM
Just looked up Salad People - so cute! I can't believe I've never heard of it before - I have 3 other Mollie Katzen cook books!
Posted by: Micaela | June 07, 2012 at 01:44 PM
I love the idea of soup with homemade heart shaped noodles for Valentine's Day. This can really make cooking with my children more fun. Do you still have the recipe for the noodles?
Posted by: Kids Dentist | June 21, 2012 at 11:24 PM