Eggs are an awesome super food but not always portable. Until you make them in a muffin tin! Sweet Potato and Spinach Eggy Cups to the rescue!
Over the past few weeks, I have come across a rule of sorts that is floating around among nutritionists and doctors regarding children’s eating habits. It is known as the “rule of 15.” Basically it means you should a child a food at least 15 times to see if they will end up liking it or not. Once the food is accepted, it can be used as a base for finding similarly colored, flavored or textured foods to expand on the child’s palate.
At first, 15 sounds like a LOT of times especially when your kid keeps spitting it out or whacking it out of your hand. But I really think there is some truth to this and have noticed that it does work if you are persistent.
Thinking about this rule further, I actually think it is probably similar for adults. Personally I use to hate pickles and strongly dislike strong mustard and bananas. Over time, having tried these ingredients so many different ways, and paired with different foods, I actually grew to love them!
The hubs has had a very similar experience, especially with vegetables he use to dislike. This makes me think that much like adults, children’s palates evolve after constant exposure until they can truly accept different and new foods.
Why is this important? Because my Poppy is currently going through a bit of a fussy stage with new foods. And with a mom food obsesssed, vegetable loving mom, I am doing by best to teach my little one to eat everything.
Her new thing is eggs. In the past (around 8-11 months) she loved scrambled and hard boiled eggs! Never fussed or gave any trouble, even if they had spinach or veggies mixed in. Now she won’t even try them! This kills me! Eggs are so good for her! At first I tried everything, even showering the eggs with cheese! Seriously it was like 3 parts cheese and 1 part egg, yet she would still spit them out.
So I gave up for a few weeks. Then recently we started the egg train back up again. She still hated them. This time, I got a big more creative.
But today is the day! I am happy to announce… that Sweet Potato and Spinach Eggy Cups have been accepted by baby Poppy! HOOOORAYYYYY! #momwin!
I made these cute little eggy cups with her with one of her favorite starchy veggies, sweet potatoes, and mild healthy spinach. I also added some cheese for flavor and gooeyness. And low and behold, she loved them!
So for now we are sticking with these and slowly I will change up the veggies and perhaps even venture into the land of scrambled eggs or omelets. But for now the rule of 15 worked and I am ecstatic. My kid is eating eggs and enjoying them. And to me that is all that matters.
Sweet Potato and Spinach Eggy Cups
Makes 10 eggy small cups.
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil (olive oil is fine)
- 1 medium sweet potato, peeled and diced small
- 1 cup baby spinach, roughly chopped
- 1/3 cup grated cheese, I used cheddar
- 5 extra large eggs
- 1 tablespoon milk (any kind)
- Salt and pepper
In a saucepan over medium heat, warm the coconut oil over medium heat. Add the diced sweet potato and a pinch of salt. Sauté for 8-10 minutes until tender. Add the spinach and sauté until wilted. Take off the heat.
Preheat the oven to 350F and generously grease a mini muffin tin. My muffin tin is old so I used muffin parchment liners. And I greased the liners too because eggs have a tendency to stick.
In a bowl, whisk the eggs and the milk well. Then stir in the white cheddar. Add a small dash of salt and pepper. Mix in the potatoes and spinach mixture.
Spoon the egg mixture into the muffin tin up to the top. Bake for 12-14 minutes until just firm but not overdone. Remove them from the tin let them cool on a cooling rack. I then remove the parchment liners if you used any. Store covered Tupperware in the fridge for about a week or pop in the freezer and thaw overnight.
Originally posted 2016-10-17 07:00:00.
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