Quinoa-psicles – A Healthy Toddler Meal Popsicle

A few weeks ago, after my daughter’s 18-month doctor’s check up, I was concerned about my daughter’s very minimal growth and slow weight gain. While I know that we all grow and develop at our own unique rates, I still felt like I could be doing more to ensure that my little beansprout was getting a balanced diet with enough nutrition to grow as a healthy child.

Since my toddler seems to think that food is a material best used for scooping, painting, splashing, throwing, dropping and smearing, I have a very hard time getting her to actually eat any of it. So I reached out to my local group of mamas (are you a mama on Salt Spring Island? Feel free to join our Facebook group, Happy Mamas SSI for support!) for some suggestions as to how to sneak more healthy food choices into that tiny, growing little body.

Being that the weather is quite hot and sunny here on Salt Spring Island at this time of year, I was delighted at the suggestion to make nutrition-packed popsicles. I have made smoothies and purees before (although, not nearly as often as I had originally intended on – ah, the parenting ideal vs. reality), I had never thought of including grains and freezing the smoothies as popsicles.

Being that my little scout will request these from the early morning until bedtime (she runs to the freezer and says “poppa, poppa”), and eats up every little frozen morsel, I’d have to say these are wildly successful.

How to Make Healthy Toddler Popsicles with Quinoa and Greens

To make these popsicles, I simply blended up the ingredients in my blender, poured some into popsicle molds, filled a couple of my reusable food pouches from Squeeze Please, and still had enough for myself and my little to sip on a freshly made smoothie while the rest froze.

Here is all the great nutrition that went into the mix:

• 1 1/2 cups cooked quinoa
• Generous helping of frozen blueberries and strawberries (3-4 cups total, any fruit could be used)
• 5 big spoonfuls of high-fat, plain yoghurt
• 3-4 tbsp Hemp hearts
• 4 large leaves of kale (I used the kale growing fresh from our garden)
• Enough orange juice to make the consistency right (you could use any 100% juice you like)

After tasting, it still needed some sweetness, so I added:

• A couple tablespoons total of Arbonne fibre and Arbonne Vanilla Protein powder (for which there is a giveaway still up here and available to enter until June 25, 2015)

[tweetthis]Toddler doesn’t eat? Make protein and greens popsicles! #toddlerfood #picky eater #momlife[/tweetthis]