Toddler Foods, And Recipe: Optionally Vegan Carrot Cookies

Bug will no longer eat dinner.

For breakfast and lunch, he can choose his meal: typically oat-e-os and soymilk and then, invariably, PB&J for lunch.  For dinner, he can have what's on the table, or nothing.  (Unless it's super-spicy, or fish.)    This is the child who begs for goat cheese, who- one week- started eating whole sweet peppers, out of the bag, at the grocery; but offer him homemade lasagna and he throws a fit.

I refuse to make food an Issue, so I repeat to myself, "I put healthy food in front of him and he can choose to eat or not."  He's eating double lunch to make up for it; afternoon snack has been abolished.  He weighs 35 pounds (that's a hearty 2.5 year old), so I wouldn't care except he's hungry and insane for two full hours every single night.

Oh well.  Someday he'll grow out of it, right?  In the meanwhile he and I have embarked on a microgreen-growing project. Likely he will eat two bites and then turn up his pert little nose.  And we bake healthy, protein-y veggie-hiding things together, on the theory that if he helps cook, he might eat it.

Here is a toddler-friendly, low-sugar, high-protein, carrot-containing cookie recipe. Don't expect carrot cake; this is more like the whole-grain breakfast muffin your co-op makes.

Vegan-or-not Carrot Cookies (adapted from Farm Journal Country Cookbook)

1 c flour (white, or half whole wheat)
1 3/4 c rolled oats (quick are better, but I never have them)
1/2 c soy flour
1/4 c sugar
1/4 c molasses
1/2 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
2 t ginger
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
1/2 t salt
1/3 c oil
2 large carrots, finely shredded (use the smaller-grating side of a box grater)
1/2 c raisins
1/3 c water
1/3 c soymilk
1 egg OR 1/4 c boiling water + 2 T ground flaxseed
Optional: chopped nuts, sunflower seeds, shredded coconut

If using flaxseed, pour boiling water over flaxseed, stir, and let cool.  Mix dry ingredients together; pour everything else in and mix very well.  Drop by tablespoons on a very well-greased cookie sheet, or on parchment paper. Bake about 10 minutes at 375 degrees F. 

(I have started making a lot of vegan baked goods because I can no longer bear to buy battery-hen eggs, but them humane-certified free-range ones are expensive and we are poor.)