Monkey Platters are a cool thing. Simple in concept, and really good in reality. At least in my place.
Basically, you get a muffin tin and fill the cups with different snack foods. For some reason, this renders "normal" food to be super special in the eyes of your toddlers and they will devour them with abandon. They are also great for play dates and get oohs and aahs from parents and kids alike.
I like to do a mix of fruit, veg, protein and carbs. This particular one had carrots, crackers, honeydew, pineapple, cheese, blackberries, and broccoli.
Here are some other nice things to put in:
- edamame
- frozen peas
- frozen corn
- frozen blueberries
- fresh berries of any sort (guaranteed to please)
- cheese cubes
- sausage - either cooked or smokes (like kielbasa or cabanossi)
- ham
- melon in chunks or balls
- cubed tofu
- squares of nori (seaweed)
- small cookies
- bits of banana bread
- tiny sandwiches ( you can use cookie cutters to cut them up!)
- crackers
- leftover cubes of meat - chicken is esp good
- cucumber
- carrots
- dips of any kind
I'm sure you'll think of other things to put in. I'd love to hear how your kids like them.
i love doing this when we're having a lot of "grown up" food for dinner. i just put the real food in one of these and there are a lot of other options so that they don't seem to pout. it's pure genius. i like your almost all fruit one - i'll have to do that.
ReplyDeleteMine are almost always mostly fruit. I have a couple of fruitarians. They left the crackers and broccoli. Everything else was gone!
ReplyDeleteSo glad to hear you do it too!