Hellobee Boards

E loves chili! (particularly my vegetarian chili--sweet potato, chickpeas, quinoa and spinach, but he's on a meat boycott at the moment).

Homemade mac and cheese.
Butternut squash mac and cheese.
Butternut squash, spinach and quinoa hash.
Omelets
Potato soup
Butternut squash bisque
Meatballs (when he's not boycotting meat)
Enchiladas (I make a few varieties--spinach and black bean with sweet potato sauce, spinach and black bean with red sauce, mushroom).
Baked ratatouille orzo pasta
Eggplant parmesan
Several varieties of risotto (made with regular rice, orzo or barley, including butternut squash, asparagus, mushroom, or white bean and spinach).
Salmon
Jambalaya
Lentils, in stews, with rice, or curried

Basically he'll eat whatever we eat, so his diet is only bound by my imagination. Except meat, he's boycotting all meat at the moment.

I think everything is kid friendly. We very rarely cook a separate meal for her. Ever since we started BLW at 7.5 months she eats what we eat.

Favorites of hers that might not be the norm:
quinoa, orzo (basically any starch!)
Noodle soup; I almost always make us noodle soup w/whatever leftover protein on hand for lunches on weekends
steamed black bean garlic sauce spare ribs
steamed whole fish (particularly white bass & "dragon fish)
Soup is definitely her fave. We always make soup from scratch (ie our own broth)
I'm also happy she's finally liking leafy greens bc so much Chinese veg are leafy!

@yoursilverlining: @lovehoneybee: When you guys do chili, do you scale back the spice at all? I'm used to making it really hot and then adding sour cream or cheese to temper it to taste. My daughter does well with moderate spice, but we haven't really tried anything really spicy (other than a spicy curry, which she liked but made her cry).

@Silva: Quesadillas are another good one!

I don't scale back the spice. Honestly, E's spice tolerance is about where mine is, if not better. If he refuses to eat it because it's too spicy I'll mix in some sour cream and crackers or cornbread to temper it a bit. If his tolerance wasn't where it was I think I'd probably scale back the heat some and then put hot sauce or something on the tables

@Mamaof2: Well, my daughter is only 10 months, so I don't give her a ton of raw vegetables because she's not great at chewing. I do give her spinach (as mentioned, ha!) and will thaw a few peas or something like that. But for older kids, you could try a little dressing for sure.
Don't add too much, or else the salad becomes a little less healthy and they might not want to eat it without- but I like a little dressing, and I'm sure they would too. Maybe something like Russian (or whatever the one with ketchup in it is?)- its a little sweet. Or a not too tangy balsamic?