Roast Zucchini Sandwich Spread & Lunches Roundup

Following on from the great success I had with offering Mr 3 Avocado and Spinach Sandwich Spread, I decided to play with the recipe a little to nourish him with more vegetables. In this instance Zucchini.

I first roasted the Zucchini to help bring out the sweetness of the nutritious vegetable and enhance the flavor. The roasted zucchini was then simply pureed in my Mini Food Processor with a sliced hard boiled egg and a couple of tablespoons of cream cheese to make the nutritious and delicious Roasted Zucchini Sandwich Spread. 

The Roast Zucchini Sandwich Spread texture was smooth and creamy and the taste has notes of sweet and savory flavous, all rolled into one - just what a 3 year old loves!  Mr 3 enjoyed the spread in a number of sandwiches, which is saying something because I can NEVER get him to eat zucchini normally. You can also enjoy the spread on toast, mixed through a bowl of plain pasta or as a dip for vegetables or crackers.

While you're roasting the zucchini, you can fill the rest of the roasting tray with whatever vegetables you have on hand. Your extra roast vegetables can make a snack on their own or can be used as yummy sandwich fillers with the spread.

Roast Zucchini Sandwich Spread
2 Zucchini
1 Hard Boiled Egg
2 Tablespoons Cream Cheese

1.  Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F, line a baking tray with foil and grease well. 
2. Cut each zucchini into 6 chunky pieces and place onto the baking tray.
3. Roast the zucchini for 20 minutes, remove from the oven and turn the zucchini over to brown on the other side. Cook for a further 20 minutes.
4. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.
5. Once the zucchini are cool, place in a mini food processor and blend until smooth.
6. Add the hard boiled egg, puree again and finally spoon over the cream cheese, before blending again, until you have a creamy spread.
6. Serve spread on sandwiches, toast or as a nutritious dip for sliced vegetables.

Lunches Roundup

In the lead up to my Chemistry exam in a few weeks, my blogging time is a little limited, so I thought I'd do a lunches roundup in one post, rather than in separate ones as I've done in the past. So, below you'll find two of the yummy meals prepared for the boys this week. One including the above Roast Zucchini Sandwich Spread and the other just a fun meal I put together to broaden the kids horizons. 

In this Muffin Tin Meal, there are sandwiches spread with the Roast Zucchini Spread and cut into shapes. There are also pear hearts, red pepper slices and some little orange elephant food picks. Mr (almost) 2 is really into elephants at the moment, which explains the orange elephants! He loves the sound of a big elephant trumpet, so we were trumpeting all through lunchtime.

My second meal was a bento lunchbox with little food picks holding together kebabs of red grapes and some with peas, corn and tiny meatballs. There's also a portion of dinosaur pasta, topped with little star flowers. Yes, it's a bit of a mish mash of a lunch but it was fun to put together and even more fun to chat with the boys about all the different shapes and colors on the plate.

I feel like I'm onto something with this Roast Zucchini Sandwich Spread. Mr 3 is more likely to eat new food when they are pureed and spread on a sandwich like a simple spread - nothing scary about that!

I do still offer him "whole" vegetables but they are almost always met with a polite "no thank you" - so until I get to a yes, I'm just going to have to hide veggies from time to time in food like sandwiches.

Do you have any sneaky tricks to get your picky eater to eat a food they wouldn't normally eat? 

To recreate the Muffin Tin Meal and Bento Lunchbox, you'll need:

 

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