The Greatest Finger Food, Strawberry Banana Muffins, and Organic Elmo's

When I started looking up ideas for toddler finger foods I found a host of sites that offered different snacks, but most of them did not include maybe the greatest finger food of all: beans. What makes them so perfect? Well, they are small, soft, and cute—well at least in the eyes of a child. Tack on their high fiber and generous protein and it turns out to be a treat of gold.

Try cooking up your own pot of beans to avoid BPA from the canned ones, which besides taking a bit of forethought (soaking overnight) is really easy to do. I just add a clove of garlic when cooking, and salt to taste near the end (adding salt earlier can make the beans tough).

Recipe:

Strawberry Banana Muffins

Yay, strawberries are in season!!! Hopefully you have time to celebrate with this deliciously different way to use them. (It's also a good way to get rid of browning bananas.) I substituted 1 cup of the all-purpose flour for whole wheat pastry flour, which gave them some wheat without the heaviness.

12 regular muffins or 8 large muffins

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
3/4 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten (or 6 Tbs. water + 2 tbs. flax seed meal)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 large ripe bananas, mashed
1 cup fresh organic strawberries, cut into bite sized pieces
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 12 cup muffin pan with paper liners or grease with butter or a vegetable spray.

2) In a medium sized bowl whisk together the sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, and mashed banana. Add the melted butter, and stir to combine. 

3) In a large bowl combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Gently fold in the berries, making sure they are coated with flour. This helps to prevent the berries from sinking during baking. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir only until combined.  

4) Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups. Place in the oven and bake until a tester inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean, about 20 to 25 minutes.


Product: Earth's Best Organic Sesame Street Crunchin' Crackers

I stray away from processed food as much as I can, but bought these on a whim while cruising the aisles of the Santa Monica Coop. I love crackers myself, and thought it would be nice to give my daughter something new and playful to eat. As it turns out, she loves them. She especially enjoys the Elmo and Big Bird shapes, but must also enjoy the taste, since she's always asking for more.


You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance. -Franklin P. Jones