Let's hide some veggies in the sauce

For supper, my daughter decided on spaghetti and red sauce.  She has been on a slight hunger strike and if she decides she will eat something, I make it.  Have any of you dealt with kids who decide they are not going to eat?  This seems to take place every couple of weeks with my daughter.  She decides that she dislikes all food, chews it for a while and spits it out, or cries that her belly hurts and that ice cream will help her belly ache.  This is usually a stressful time at our house because we want her to eat and my husband and I get extremely frustrated.  Last night ended her hunger strike when she ate all her noodles, fruit and garlic bread.  Phew, that was a long five days of trying to MAKE her eat.

Now, for the dinner:

I make homemade sauce and pureed vegetable to hide them in the sauce.  It could be carrots, zucchini, cauliflower, spinach, etc. 

I was going to give you my recipe for sauce, but decided not to as it is a family recipe.  So, you can use your homemade sauce or favorite jar sauce and puree it a little to hid the veggies.

I like to use rice noodles, SMART pasta or brown rice pasta.  I also use regular pasta, but have been trying to use something a little healthier and not as heavy.

As I said in my introduction, I have to be creative in the way I present food to my kids.  I cut apples up like rings and my kids put them around their fingers and ate the apples while giggling.  There is nothing better than kids having fun at dinner time and enjoying their food.  For the garlic bread, I baked slices of bread with butter and garlic salt at 350* for 15 minutes.

The little pink dots are toddler yogurt melts.  My kids still love these and have ever since they were babies.  A little treat at dinner time, they do not contain preservatives or artificial sweeteners and a little probiotics to help with their bellies. 

Another activity that my daughter enjoys doing is drawing me what she would like for breakfast the next morning.  We are working on drawing, letters, spelling and being creative.  Here is what was requested for breakfast tomorrow morning.