If you Give a Garrett a Muffin

I stumbled across this blog called Our Family Eats last night. I spent a few hours reading what she had to say about chemicals in our food and the affect they have on some children’s behavior. It was an interesting read. Definitely worth considering. And, in a very Small World moment I realized she lives just a town over from me.

I’ll be honest and say that I’m not a huge stickler about what Garrett eats. In fact, I relate more to Clark Griswold and his non-nutritive cereal varnish and non-caloric silicon-based kitchen lubricant than I do to organic and chemical-free lifestyles. When G was a baby I was much more militant about his first foods and what all he was eating. Now that the preschool years are here I have really slacked off on trying to control his diet 100%. Partly because he spends a good portion of time at babysitter/Grandma/Nana houses where I don’t have any control, and partly because I just don’t recipe plan like I should. Also? Tossing prepackaged easy-for-him-to-eat foods like Go-gurts and Lunchables in his lunch box are way too easy when we are running late for school in the mornings.

Now that preschool is starting back I really want to get into a steady routine of life. Lazy summertime days are over, so it’s time to suck it up and get back in our groove. I am making myself and Garrett a pledge this school year– NO MORE LUNCHABLES. I got so bad about buying them last year for his lunch, and those things are crazy full of sodium and nitrates and other bad stuff. So, this is me saying no more for this year.

Since he LOVES helping me in the kitchen I have been getting him more involved in making and preparing his food. It’s so much fun to watch him get excited about baking things. Plus if he helps to make something he will usually eat it. One thing we’ve always loved to make together is muffins. Ever since we started reading If you Give A Moose a Muffin last year, Garrett has been a little bit obsessed with making muffins.

Today I wanted to make something from scratch, so I googled around and found a blog called “How to Make the Best Muffins Ever”.

Allrighty then. Sounds good to me.

So I took the recipe for oatmeal muffins and tweaked it just a little bit. I traded out half the flour for whole wheat, added some wheat germ, flax seeds and two small jars baby food prunes and some strawberry applesauce from a Motts fruit cup.(Can you tell I cleaned out the pantry today!). I also chopped up and added about 3/4 cups Cracker Barrel Fried Apples.

Here’s our muffins after we got them all mixed up and in the tin.

And Garrett licking the inside of the strawberry applesauce cup.

And here’s the result!

I’m not sure I’d label them The Best Muffins Ever, but they were good, they were healthy and Garrett chowed down on them.

Do you cook with your kids? I’d love to see what all you’ve baked lately!