Friday, November 7, 2008

Muffin Tin Meals

In an effort to get the girls to eat more fruits and vegetables, I needed an idea that might make these things a bit more appealing.

Saw this idea in a Flickr group called Muffin Tin Meals. It's a group where people upload pictures of different meals, snacks, and appetizers in muffin tins. The tins are either 12-count or 6-count.

The tins can be lined with a paper muffin cup or left plain (like I did in the picture).

Since Mondays are busy days with homeschooling and the homeschooling co-op, thought I'd do this idea on Tuesday instead. Thus, "Tuesday's Terrific Tin" or "Tuesday's Tiny Tidbits" was started...either one works for the girls.

The girls were SO excited. The entire tray was gone by the end of dinner.

An upcoming challenge that the group has is to create a tray based on your culture. Since my daughters were born in China, I thought it would be fun to try a Chinese-theme muffin tin.

A couple of the other challenges that the group recently had:

- make a tin based on a child's book that you read (essentially, you're bringing the book alive and doing a food activity with the book...a great idea for homeschooling families!)

- create a Halloween-theme muffin tin. Some upcoming holidays to try could be: Thanksgiving, St. Nicholas Day, Winter Solstice, Christmas, and New Years. What kind of tin could be created for each of those holidays?

So many possibilities...

In the muffin tin above, this is what is in each row:

Top row: green grapes, pistachios, teddy grahams, and carrots.

Middle row: peanuts, dairy-free cheese, Swiss cheese, and celery.

Bottom row: dried pineapple, sesame sticks, pickles, and red grapes.

Everything, with the exception of the Swiss cheese, is dairy-free so my oldest daughter (who has dairy allergies) can enjoy the variety of items.

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