A couple of months back I googled flavored milk and the results I got was stirring Kool Aid (similar to Rasna in India) in milk or making a syrup out of the Kool Aid and lot of sugar and adding the syrup to the milk. I wanted something with natural ingredients, something made of fresh fruits. Fortunately months later I have found the book The Sneaky Chef. I think I have written enough about this book in my previous post about Blueberry flavored milk.

I have been trying out recipes from the book and I’m so glad that my son is eating at least some fruits without any fuss. I tried the blueberry juice and cherry juice earlier, which was a huge success. At first my son did not like the blueberry milk, but now he keeps asking for it. He doesn’t even know that his chocolate milk has cherry juice in it. He is happily drinking it. So I got some strawberries (two 16 oz packs) last weekend and tried the same technique. Will you believe me if I tell that he drank it completely in the last 3 days? I could have never made him eat so much strawberries just like that. I can’t wait to try other recipes from that book. Not only that, it also makes it interesting for me because, now I’m thinking what else can I sneak in his food, it’s sort of challenging your creativity.

The Strawberry Milk is surely very tasty enough to entice any picky eater.

My son is 3 years and 3 months old and like many kids of his age he is also a picky/fussy eater. Meal time is definitely a battle time. The problem with him is, he doesn’t have a favorite food. If he had a favorite food, I would simply prepare it for him everyday until he is bored. Earlier broccoli, cauliflower and pasta were his favorite. But not anymore. I think I’m never going to understand his mind in this matter.

I have a very good desi neighbor, whose daughter R is also my son’s age. She also stocks up a lot of fruits and when my son goes there she offers him a fruit and he eats it very quickly without hesitating. So what I do, the very same evening I ask my husband to pick up that fruit on his way home and I give it to my son for breakfast the next day, and he disappoints me by not even taking it to his mouth. Last week I bought cherries for the first time, to try a cake recipe. I was sure that he is not even going to taste it. I was removing the pit in the cherries and I gave him one and he ate it and asked for some more to my surprise. This continued for sometime, I was pitting and he was asking for more. So what do I do, I don’t proceed with the cake. I simply put it back in the fridge and offer it again the next day and you know what, he didn’t even eat one piece. Kids, definitely have their own thought process and they want to show us that they are in control.

Now here comes the rescue in form of a book called “The Sneaky Chef” by Missy Chase Lapine. She discusses about various simple strategies for hiding healthy foods in kids’ favorite meals. She masks spinach and blueberries in brownies, cauliflower in Mac and Cheese, cherry juice in chocolate milk, white bean puree in chocolate chip cookies, etc just to mention a few. This book has definitely made me think outside the box.

I started with the cherry chocolate milk recipe first because he drinks chocolate milk daily in the afternoon after his nap and we had cherries at home. I’ll post this one shortly. Just as it was mentioned in the book, neither of us were able to taste the cherry juice in the chocolate milk. Both the flavors blended so well. So I decided to try the blueberry flavored milk next.

The blueberry juice when mixed with the milk gave a nice violet color. But it was not sweet enough, so I mixed in some maple syrup. I liked it very much. Of course, you will get a mild blueberry smell. I was really excited to see a purple colored milk, more than he was and I asked him if he wanted to drink purple color milk. He too agreed without fussing, but once he tasted he said that it’s not nice. So I had to get him all excited about the color, but no, he wouldn’t drink. Then I got this idea, I told him that his friend R’s mother brought it while he was sleeping and she told that R loves this milk and she drinks it very quickly. And that did the trick, he gulped it down very fast, telling that it was very good. Can you believe this? I’m not sure if this is right or wrong, or how long this trick will work, but I think we have to take baby steps when it comes to kids and their nutrition. We have to pick our battles and should also let them win sometimes. Now coming to the recipe:

This is my entry for Sunshinemom’s FIC – Purple and Black.

Yes, it was totally worth every penny, when I saw my son having fun trying to carry the box (or rather dragging it) all by himself, picking the berries and correctly putting it in the carton, with a sense of pride! 

As always I found this amazingly simple and healthy recipe in the July 08 issue of Parents magazine.  I reduced the quantity of ingredients because it was my first try.  But the end product was so good, I wish I had followed the original recipe!

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

I came across this recipe in Recipezaar when I was searching for mango recipes for this month’s Weekend Breakfast Blogging – May Mango Madness hosted by Arundati, originally started by Nandita.  Inspite of the good reviews, I was not sure if we would like the combination of these two fruits, so I scaled down the measurements.  But to my surprise it tasted very good. 

Ingredients:
Raspberries, fresh or frozen – 1/2 cup
Maongo chunks, fresh or frozen – 1/2 cup
Plain Yogurt/Vanilla Yogurt – 1/2 cup
Milk – 2 cups
Honey/Sugar – as per your taste
Vanilla essence – 1 teaspoon (if you are using plain yogurt)

Procedure:
1.  In a blender add the fruits, yogurt, honey and 1 cup of milk and blend it smooth.  If your using fresh fruits you can also add few ice cubes during this stage.  I used frozen fruits, so I thawed them at room temperature just for 5 minutes and blended it.

2.  Now add the remaining milk or as much as required to get the desired consistency.

This also goes to my dear friend Dee’s AFAM – Raspberry event.

I came up with this recipe accidentally. When my son was around 24 months, I wanted to give him cereal for breakfast. My husband and I eat the Fiber One, Honey Cluster cereals. It tastes too good for a fiber cereal, with 13 gms of fiber per cup serving. I also wanted my son to start with that one itself right from the beginning, instead of starting with the regular sugary cereals and then trying to move on to the healthy stuff. So one fine day morning, I put little cereal, milk and couple of slices of banana. He started eating it, but he was having trouble with chewing the honey clusters. I panicked that he might choke on that.  I neither wanted to eat it myself nor throw it away, so I put the entire contents of the bowl in the blender and made it like a smoothie.Wow! It was DELICIOUS. The sugar in the bananas and the cereal gave the perfect amount of sweetness to the smoothie. The cereal although powdered nicely gave a crunch and the smoothness of the banana together gave a nice texture to the drink. I gave it to my son in a cup with a fancy straw and he just gulped it. From then onwards it’s his favorite breakfast. Then I started modifying the basic recipe, by adding dates, almonds, apples, flax seed meal etc. In any case you need not add sugar at all. If the fruits are not sweet enough just add a teaspoon of honey it should be fine.After reading Mansi’s definition of a balanced meal only it struck me that I was covering all the food groups in this one smoothie. Actually this smoothie is light yet satisfying. It can be enjoyed by adults and children as well. I tried it with the All Bran variety of Fiber One cereals too. That cereal has 14 gms of fiber in 1/2 cup. But it did not taste as good as the Honey Clusters one.

Ingredients:
Banana – 1 small or 3/4th of a large banana
Fiber One Cereal (Honey Clusters) – 1/4 cup
Milk – 1.5 to 2 cups (depending on the consistency you want the smoothie to be)
Almonds – 1 tablespoon (slivered)
Flax seed meal – 1/2 teaspoon (This one is optional. I add flax seed meal in anything and everything. Being vegetarian the sources of getting Omega-3 is restricted to flax seed meal and walnuts. So I sprinkle it in all my dishes including cereal, salad, curries, and soups and even in my chapathi dough.)

Procedure:
1. In a blender first add the cereal and almonds and powder it.
2. Then add the sliced bananas and milk and blend it smooth.

My Notes:
1. You can add the flax seed meal while powdering the cereal itself or just sprinkle it after blending the smoothie.
2. If you want to add dates, just soak it in warm milk for a couple of minutes and then blend it.
3. This smoothie is stomach filling by itself.

This is my entry to Mansi’s WBB#20 – Balanced Breakfast. 

Update:
1. I use 2% milk for this smoothie. The organic milk’s taste is better than the regular. I have tried it with fat free milk also, but I didn’t like it.