What do my kids eat? Day 7 of 7

Breakfast:

Here's my attempt at heart shaped pancakes for Valentine's Day.  I made my kid's favorite banana flax pancakes.  They were not perfect, but the kids were happy!

Morning Snack:

I grabbed a couple of LaraBar snack bars on the way out the door to gymnastics this morning.  The kids ate them in the van on the way home.  These bars are made with whole food ingredients including nuts and dried fruit and are a great option in a "snack emergency" as my daughter says.  While these are not safe for my teenage son with a peanut allergy, my little ones love them.  Their favorites are the Chocolate Coconut Chew and Coconut Cream Pie.

Lunch:

I needed an easy lunch today since I had two cranky, tired kids as a result of an early morning and long gymnastics class.  Leftovers to the rescue!  They had some leftover "saucy meatballs" from last night's dinner and cucumber sticks.

Afternoon Snack:

Since today was Valentine's Day, we did have some homemade chocolate hearts for our snack along with some coconut milk.

Dinner:

For dinner tonight, we had roast chicken with carrots and mashed cauliflower.  To make mashed cauliflower, I first saute half a small onion and a couple of cloves of garlic in coconut oil in the bottom of a large pan.  Then I add about 2 cups of chicken stock and one head of cut-up cauliflower pieces to the pan and cook until tender.  Finally, I use an Immersion Hand Blender to mash the cauliflower.  While my kids will not eat either raw or cooked cauliflower florets, they love it mashed.

Return to Day 6

What do my kids eat? Day 6 of 7

Breakfast:

Yes, some sausage again this morning along with a leftover butternut squash pancake from yesterday.  The juice was a mixture of kale, carrot, and apple.

Morning Snack:

It's hard to not get caught up in the Valentine's Day spirit.  We dipped strawberries in some homemade chocolate while it was still warm, and then chilled them in the fridge.  Yummy!  Fairly guilt free though since the chocolate only has coconut oil, cocoa powder, and honey.

Lunch:

Simple lunch today with deviled eggs and a mini-salad.  Simply swap virgin olive oil for the mayonnaise and create delicious GAPS friendly deviled eggs.  The kids love them!

Afternoon Snack:

I had hungry kids for snack time today.  They each had two plates of sliced apples and Organic Sunbutter.

Dinner:

My kids call this "Saucy Meatballs".  We just pour some Mariana Sauce (Kirkland Marina Sauce which happens to be sugar free!) over my chia seed and beef meatballs (1.25 lbs. ground beef, 1/4 cup chia seeds, and 1 egg).  Add some peas and voila a simple meal.

Bedtime Snack:

Here's another of our favorite ways to incorporate calcium and vitamin D fortified coconut milk into our diet:

Pineapple Whip

The recipe calls for Almond milk, but I just substitute coconut milk because that's what we typically have on hand.  We buy frozen pineapple chunks at Costco which makes this a simple treat to whip up.

Return to Day 5

Continue to Day 7

Sneaky Meatballs (Grain Free, Paleo and GAPS friendly)

The GAPS diet focuses heavily on soups and stews made with homemade stock.  Since my little ones' diets consisted primarily of finger foods before beginning the diet, getting them to eat soup was a bit tricky.  I also needed to hide the veggies in order to get them to eat cooked vegetables.  I started making them Sneaky Meatballs packed with veggies that I could serve in homemade stock to get them to eat.  These meatballs could also be eaten alone or served with your favorite spaghetti sauce.

Simply combine 2 lbs of ground meat (beef or turkey), 1 large carrot shredded, 1 zucchini shredded, 1 yellow squash shredded, and 1/2 a large onion shredded.

Just form them into balls and bake on cookie sheets for about 30 minutes.

They are great right out of the oven.  I typically make extra and freeze some for later use.  In order to freeze them, you'll need to first transfer the cooked meatballs onto a clean cookie sheet to freeze.  Once frozen, then transfer them to a large freezer bag to store.  Then you can pull out as many as you want at a time for a snack or meal for the kids.