Casseroles and Soups?
 

As a rule, do the kids in your care eat them or not?
I'd love to find some tried and true recipes that most kids would eat but it seems that any food that touches any other food can be out of the question.
I can serve plain meat, plain noodles(blah) and they'll eat 'em up. But if I put sauce into the equation, forget it.
So are there recipes they'll eat for you?

I serve them. Some go over better than others. Have you tried tator tot casserole? That is usually a hit here.

Mine will eat anything rotini, ziti, angel hair, bowtie or shells.

Alfredo, pesto and roasted garlic tomato sauce are your friends.

I premix.chop pasta dishes well (black bean chili mac, chicken broccoli alfredo, baked beef, tomato and carrot ziti, refried beans, salsa and rice, etc), separate into personal sized bowls then top with shredded cheese, reheat to melt cheese.

Soups/stews are served over rice in the aforementioned bowls. Shredded cheese trick works here as well.


Additional Veggies and fruits served on the side in their own dishes. ;) No touching... likethis If they see the veggies served on the side they generally do not go snooping through the "pasta sauce" looking for them. ;) :Sunny:

My kids prefer their food separated, although they'll eat chicken noodle and tomato soups.

When I serve spaghetti with meat sauce most of them put the sauce NEXT TO the pasta and eat it separately with their spoons.

Come to think of it, when I serve sandwiches they pull them apart and eat the bread and filling separately too. :lol:

Casseroles almost no one will touch.

Soups are a success. Favorites are tomato, black bean, split pea, or potato (we're vegetarian).

Fruit/yogurt/milk smoothies work great for some kids with a straw cup, but apart fAfter trying different things, I just do non-messy, finger food. I only let the less messy kids have liquidy food like yogurt and then only if it works for the whole group who is there at the time. Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing the right thing, but I hate having to clean up sloppy mess, and then it also means giving younger kids something different.
So here we do a lot of crackers/dry cereal, cheese/ham/eggs, and chopped fruit and I give the kids forks and spoons if they're two-ish or older.
I think I must be a bit on the strict side. If they even get weird with crackers, I tell them they have to have cheerios instead if they start making tons of crumbs by playing with their crackers by gnawing or anything.

I don't make many casseroles. I do a homemade pot pie they love but I'm going to use a dpcrock pot recipe I saw that is easier.

I do more of the spaghetti, homemade chicken Alfredo, homemade mac n cheese, bean & rice bowls, etc. than casseroles. But that's kind of the same thing and yes they eat these. My kids tend not to picky.

Originally Posted by Josiegirl:
As a rule, do the kids in your care eat them or not?
I'd love to find some tried and true recipes that most kids would eat but it seems that any food that touches any other food can be out of the question.
I can serve plain meat, plain noodles(blah) and they'll eat 'em up. But if I put sauce into the equation, forget it.
So are there recipes they'll eat for you?

Same here:(
It's a bummer because I actually love to cook and my skills are wasted :lol:
I've often thought in winter it would be so nice to have a homemade beef stew going on the stove or in the slow cooker all morning and be able to serve it to hungry, appreciative kids for lunch ....:lol::lol::lol:

It's so funny you should ask. I just tried this recipe https://www.keyingredient.com/recipe...dle-casserole/ and the kids loved it. I got them to eat way more than when I make tuna melts. LOL!

Originally Posted by thrivingchildcarecom:
It's so funny you should ask. I just tried this recipe https://www.keyingredient.com/recipe...dle-casserole/ and the kids loved it. I got them to eat way more than when I make tuna melts. LOL!

Hmm. I don't eat seafood, but I am wondering how this would be with shredded chicken in place of the tuna?

Originally Posted by Baby Beluga:
Hmm. I don't eat seafood, but I am wondering how this would be with shredded chicken in place of the tuna?

I'll bet it would be good with chicken! I'd like it but there again, my dcks wouldn't even try it because the foods aren't separate. Most of my dcks won't try unfamiliar foods, especially those with sauce, or peas. :rolleyes: Now if it was plain bland noodles, they'd want seconds. Yuck

Homemade potato soup
Homemade chicken/rice
Homemade cheesy broccoli
Are favorites

Not one of mine will eat a casserole. I love casseroles, but never get them because my dh and grandson won't eat them either.

Soups, forget that one too!

Mine like everything separate, no mixing except for spaghetti.

Originally Posted by sharlan:
Not one of mine will eat a casserole. I love casseroles, but never get them because my dh and grandson won't eat them either.

Soups, forget that one too!

Mine like everything separate, no mixing except for spaghetti.

All my babies eat casseroles... everything from chicken divan to pot pies. Of course I get get them before they even start table foods & most my families in care cook similar, so kids have a variety... I do a lot of Ethnic in the skillets too, and not one complaint even when they start talking

I personally don't make a lot of casseroles, but we do have various types of soup at least once a week.

I've been pretty lucky for the most part as my little one's aren't really picky and the one dcb I had with sensory issues was easily worked around.

That said, my kiddos like to go in what I call "patterns." New dcg doesn't like tomato sauce, now none of them like tomato sauce. :rolleyes:

Goulash and Pizza Casserole are favorites of the current group, toddlers and preschoolers alike.

Goulash is elbows, ground beef, pasta sauce with paprika added.

Pizza casserole is rotini, ground beef, pasta sauce, pepperoni and topped with mozzarella shreds.

For each of these I add either purees of pumpkin or squash to the sauce to sneak an extra veggie in. Also makes the sauce a little sweeter. Also, while I haven't done it yet, it is on the next menu cycle to add kidney beans to the Goulash, which is how my mother always made it and is sneaking in more beans in to their diets. Of course, they will likely leave a pile of beans on their plates...:lol: