Green Muffins

The past few days if I mention I'm going to make dinner, Parker follows me out asking to help. Although there hasn't been many things he is able to help with lately, I hate turning down his offers to come out and be of assistance. I want our kids to learn how to cook and to enjoy trying new foods. So I decided that whenever possible, meaning when I have food prep that's kid friendly, I'm going to let Parker help even if it takes a little longer to get the meal ready.

Since tonight's dinner is already in the crockpot I asked Parker if he'd like to help me bake something this morning while Elise was napping. I had copied a recipe from Pinterest for green muffins--what little boy wouldn't like that?! When I told him what we were making, he was SO excited to get started! Did I mention green happens to be his favorite color?  :)

Here is the recipe I used. The bright green color is from spinach! There's a little sugar and some applesauce in the recipe to give them a slightly sweet taste.


I wasn't sure what Parker would think when he saw me putting big leaves into the blender, but I told him they would turn the muffins green and he didn't seem to mind... actually, he added them in like it was just a normal ingredient.

We scooped the batter into a mini muffin pan and Parker pulled up a chair to watch them bake. A few minutes later we had nice puffy green muffins! He couldn't wait to try them. I'm sure he would have grabbed one hot off the pan if I hadn't been there to keep his little fingers back.




We had lunch a few minutes later so along with our sandwiches I gave both kids a couple muffins. Parker loved them. He ate four (or was it five?) at lunchtime. Elise picked hers up and looked at it for a minute before taking a bite. She ate hers a little more slowly, so I'm not sure if she loves them (although she seems pretty happy with it in the picture).

I tried a couple, too.  ....can't say I love them...  but they're okay. And if it's a way to get more veggies into Parker, then I'm totally fine with making them again!  :)