Toddler-friendly cooking during quarantine

Happy May, everyone! Silly Bean was very excited to turn to a new page on our calendar and yells "Happy May!" to any neighbors we see when we're outside, flowers, trees, his stuffed animals... everyone. We've been really thankful for the beautiful weather lately--we don't have to wear coats on our daily outdoor excursions!

Saturday was such a beautiful day!

I've been seeing a lot of posts about "what I've been eating/cooking during quarantine" and wanted to do a Silly Bean version of that type of post. Unfortunately we don't have many great photos of any of our food--we're usually too hungry! But I thought it would be fun to share some recipes with you all anyway, in case you're looking for some toddler-friendly, family-friendly meal ideas.

Some of you have asked how we have Silly Bean help in the kitchen. I don't have any photos right now (might take some later and update this post later on), but we use the Guidecraft Kitchen Helper.  It's a little pricey but if we got a second-hand one off Craigslist. We love it because it is sturdy and also folds up so you can put it away when you're not using it.

Silly Bean has a lot of allergies, probably more than would interest you to read here, so tl;dr Silly Bean basically has a vegan plus chicken and white fish diet. In general I try to make recipes "healthier"- having a balance of veggies, protein, and grain/carb, lowering the salt content, using natural sugars, etc. but you can adjust according to your tastes/family accommodations.


Instant Pot Japanese Chicken Curry

I don't usually cook curry due to the lingering smell, but this was an exception!

A few weeks ago, I was really craving this pressure cooker Japanese beef curry our friends made a few times for us in the past,  but Silly Bean is allergic to beef so I searched for a chicken alternative, and voila! Silly Bean absolutely LOVES cooking with our Instant Pot as well, so it was a good opportunity to get him in the kitchen helping (as opposed to taking out all of the kitchen utensils and trying to use them! 😝).

This recipe is delicious. Even without the sauce, cooking the chicken this way gives it so much flavor. We love the thickness that the potatoes give the sauce, and yes it is getting warmer outside, but the warm feeling of it in your belly is just so, so good!

Silly Bean does not like the curry flavor in general (in this recipe it's curry powder and garam masala) so before mixing in the curry roux, I took Silly Bean's portion out and called it "chicken stew," which he enjoyed much more than with the curry in it.

We also didn't have any curry roux cubes at home so I followed this easy curry roux recipe and made my own! You can keep it in the fridge for a few days, and I used about half of the roux made for this chicken curry recipe.


Garlic Noodles
Answer me this: what toddler doesn't like carbs?? Plus, I love carbs...and our family loves garlic, so this recipe was a must-try! And I have to say this was so so good and we have been making it on repeat because it's easy and tasty--and did you know that one serving of pasta has 7grams of protein? We usually have this with a side of roasted broccoli, or any other veggies we have in the fridge, and sometimes some baked chicken if we had some leftovers.

For the sauce, I used vegetarian stir fry sauce instead of oyster sauce since my husband and Silly Bean don't eat oysters, soy sauce, garlic powder, and lowered the amount of brown sugar suggested. We always nom this up quickly and I always wish I make a larger portion so that we have leftovers!


White Fish Over Pinto Beans and Tomato Sauce

usually we put spinach or kale with the beans, but we ran out here!

I don't usually fall for clickbait, but when Facebook advertised a link called "Crowdsourcing Recipes During a Pandemic: One chef's story of helping home cooks find inspiration in their own pantries," I just had to look at it. As you probably know by now, I love being resourceful and utilizing what we already have in creative ways. So when I scrolled down and saw that we had some (or at least some variation of) of the ingredients for "pan-seared halibut over white bean and tomato sauce," I added this to our meal plan for the week.

We hadn't really served white fish (aside from canned tuna, which he didn't enjoy) to Silly Bean before, mainly because he is allergic to salmon and I felt wary about trying another fish. But during this pandemic, having frozen fish in the freezer is so helpful--it thaws easily and doesn't take long to marinate or season while cooking. In our version of this recipe, we used frozen halibut that I thawed and marinated with salt, garlic powder and onion powder for about half an hour. We used canned pinto beans (any brand is probably fine) and sautéed it with garlic and onions, then added the Trader Joes' marinara sauce we had in our pantry. The second time we made this I used a sauce that I made in order to use up the sweet potatoes we had at home (basically cooked and blended up onions, canned diced tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and a pinch of salt). I think any tomato based sauce would probably go well with the beans.

Silly Bean surprisingly liked this meal. Yay for another protein that Silly Bean can eat without having a reaction!


What recipes have you and your family enjoyed during the quarantine?