Being a first time parent there were a lot of things I heard that left me feeling a bit uncertain. One thing was this whole vegan thing my partner and I do. I've always heard how hard it is to get little people to eat healthy foods and so I really didn't know how we were going to navigate it. Yikes.
However I found that raising a healthy vegan baby is so much easier than I ever thought it would be! He eats basically everything we eat with his favorite foods being broccoli, water melon, sticky rice, avocado and all of his mamas sauces. Since he was born we have kept a strict rule of no refined sugar, gluten or processed foods in our home and only cook with whole foods leaving him no choice but to fall in love with plants. Occasionally we do get a special treat when we are out but it's rare. All in all he's growing up loving all the healthy foods his dada and I fill our tummies with.
He's such a little foodie already when it's time to start cooking he eagerly grabs my hand and leads me into the kitchen. I ask him what he wants and he thoughtfully looks in the fridge and pulls out his favorite items and then it's up to me of course to make them as tasty as possible. Today he pulled out broccoli, red peppers and coconut milk. Hmmmmm. What to make what to make!?
Back to the fridge I went! I rummaged around to fill out our meal. To the ingredients Kai had already chosen I added a giant bunch of kale, garlic and some fresh rice noodles.
One of my favorite things is preparing dinner with my beautiful little chef and together we assemble some really delicious creations!
I love getting Kai involved in the cooking process, not only does he LOVE helping but I think it helps him feel connected to the food he eats, learn responsibility, practice his practical motor skills and patience and many other things. Who knew cooking was such a well rounded learning activity!
Ok back to dinner! We cleaned and chopped up the kale and broccoli, tossed it all in some coconut oil, mixed in some minced garlic and salt then spread it on some baking sheets. I then cut and de seeded the bell peppers, rubbed with coconut oil sprinkled with salt then added a few roughly chopped garlic cloves and added them to the baking tray.
Into the oven they went! It only took a quick 5-10 minutes for everything to be just perfectly cooked! While they were getting all hot and tasty I got busy getting the noodles boiling which also only takes a few short minutes so once the trays were ready to come out the noodles were ready and it was time to get the sauce going. For the sauce I simply threw the bell peppers with the garlic chunks in the blender with a bottle of coconut milk and a bit of salt, blended till smooth and creamy then poured over our noodles and added our kale and broccoli, mixed well and BAM! Dinners ready! Yum yum!