Jill Mills - Wild Eats and Adorable Treats: 40 Animal-Inspired Meals and Snacks for Kids

This book offers suggestions for meals and snacks for adults to create for and with their kids. Children should be supervised at all times when helping to prepare and enjoying the recipes contained herein.

Copyright 2015 by Jill Mills

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Animal fact, section openers, and paw print images by Thinkstock.

All other interior images copyright Jill Mills.

Cover design by Laura Klynstra

Cover photo credit Jill Mills

ISBN: 978-1-63450-341-9

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63450-902-2

Printed in China

For Von, Dane, and Levi, who have filled my kitchen
with crazy amounts of fun and my life with pure joy. I love you.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Years ago when my second son was a toddler, I was trying to come up with creative ways to get him to try new foods. He was such a picky eater and refused to try any fruits or vegetables. I decided to start turning his food into animals, characters, and other fun shapes to get him interested in eating healthy foods and trying new textures. I would also seek his input in coming up with fun food ideas, and he would be so proud of what he made. This opened up a whole new world of eating for him and got him to try just about anything!

Kids are so different in what foods they will try and stay away from because of taste or texture. There are some things that would never work with my boys no matter what it looks like; for example, kale. No matter what cute creation I try to make with kale, they are not going to go near it, but I still sneak a bit of it in a cute smoothie and they never know. I try to focus on foods that are practicalthings that I know, based on my experience with my boys, picky eaters will really consider trying. However, we do not focus only on healthy food ideas. We also love creating themed treats for birthday parties, fun desserts to eat at home, and easy-to-make goodies for class parties.

When we began creating these fun treats on a regular basis and the word began to spread, my friends suggested that I start a blog to share our latest creations. At the time I had never even followed a blog and didnt know anything about it. I remember saying, What is a blog? (Yes, I was one of those I-dont-knowanything-about-computers people.)

Ultimately, I decided to start our Kitchen Fun With My 3 Sons blog to show friends and family our cute food ideas and party concepts that we had created. I really had no idea what I was doing, but just learned along the way. I never even considered sharing our ideas with the public, because I didnt think that anyone would be interested. The first time I submitted one of our fun food ideas was to an edible-craft site that my friend Meaghan Mountford (TheDecoratedCookie.com) used to contribute to. I was thinking, There is no way that this will be shared. But I submitted it anyway. I remember being shocked when we noticed that our creation was on a well-known site, and my boys were so excited. That in itself gave us the confidence that others might be interested in re-creating our fun food ideas for their picky eaters and for parties. Our site became quite popular just shortly after that one share! I never dreamed that our blog would turn into what it is today and that our ideas would be loved by so many.

I created the blog with my boys input in every part of it, and we have had so much fun with it these past four years. It has also been extremely rewarding to get weekly emails from our readers who have re-created our ideas and have also had success with getting their picky eaters to try new and healthy foods.

There are some people who wonder why we would take the time creating fun ideas with food. The way I look at it, your kids are only young once, and it goes by way too fast. Creating with food is like doing any other crafts with kids, and its so amazing to see what these young imaginations can come up with. My boys have always blown me away with their creativity, and they have developed lots of our fun food ideas for our blog. I could never do any of this without them. You do not have to think of yourself as being an artist in order to create with food. I have absolutely no artistic background, but they have come up with almost one thousand original fun food ideas on our blog and for well-known name brands. Just know that if I can do it, you can definitely do it as well!

Some people have expressed concern about the time commitment involved in this kind of endeavor. I work a part-time job along with managing our blog and raising three boys with my husband, so I know better than anyone about not having a lot of time for extra activities like making fun food. However, the good news is that it doesnt take that much more time to add on a face or other fun details to a snack, lunch, or dinner. Its especially worthwhile if you have picky eaters or just want to create some fun memories with your kids. I try to come up with easy and simple ideas so that we (myself included) will not have to spend a lot of time making them. Also, I like to make things easy enough to enable the kids to create something all by themselves, or with just a little help. This not only will get the kids excited about making edible crafts, but it will also encourage them to make their own recipes.

I love to come up with fun treat ideas as well. Most kids will always love any treat no matter what it looks like, but there is something extra special about turning treats into a fun animal or character. I just love to see my boys faces when I hand them not just a cake pop, but a monkey cake pop. Fun treats are also great for parties at home and class parties at school. Though some schools do not allow you to bring in your own treats, I feel very fortunate that my boys school lets the parents bring in their own snacks and goodies to hand out to kids. I love getting stopped in my boys school by other kids talking with me about their favorite memories of a fun party we had or a specific fun food idea that we created in the past. It puts a big smile on my face to know that those kids will have those fun memories, and that I had a part in that.