You can imagine my excitement when, after a few small successful attempts at feeding Biggie spaghetti, she sat down to eat this dish and actually looked like she was enjoying it.
Mind you, I hid the excitement and acted like it was no big deal, in the hopes that she would just START EATING NORMALLY OMG if I didn’t make a song and dance about it. Some dinners fare better than others, some barely get touched. When this spaghetti first was served the night before, she didn’t even eat one strand. Reappearing at lunch the next day, there was little prompting and more eating than I thought there would be.
While I don’t stress about her typical toddler eating habits, it is just so much nicer when the repertoire is expanded and something approximating an adult dish is finally accepted. We’ve even had success with plain vegetables lately and I’m thrilled – but more about that later!
This one will eat whatever. Just not very much of it! But she looks awfully cute doing so.
By all means use store-bought pasta if you want/need/like, (I can’t be sure if it was the extra-soft texture of the homemade version that enticed Biggie to eat it) but this is a very light wholemeal spaghetti that I really enjoyed, and it was easy to make. It did feel awfully dry when it went through the machine, but a careful hand ensured it came out more or less in one piece! Also feel free to throw in more veggies to the sauce, I just used what I had on hand and that wouldn’t change the overall colour.
(NB – this makes A LOT of pasta, so you can halve it if just for the kids, or freeze. Or have some for your own dinner!)
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PinDescription
Handmade wholemeal pasta and tomato sauce with hidden veggies for fussy toddlers.
Ingredients
- 500g plain flour (a mix of wholemeal and white)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 Large eggs
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1 can diced tomatoes
- 1 Small carrot, grated
- 1/2 Small red capsicum
- 1/2 Small onion
- 1 clove garlic, minced
Instructions
- Mix the flour, salt, olive oil, eggs and milk until it forms a dough (you may need to add some extra water or to make it come together for a smoother dough – wholemeal sucks up a lot of fluid!).
- Knead 10 minutes until dough is springy and elastic, then let rest. I usually leave at least an hour.
- Break into pieces and feed them through your pasta machine, on successively thinner settings until you’re satisfied (I usually go to at least 3).Then feed through the spaghetti attachment.
- In a small pot, add tomatoes, carrot, capsicum, onion, garlic and a splash of olive oil, if you like, and heat until the veggies are soft.
- Blend in a blender or food processor until pureed.
- Meanwhile, heat a big pot of boiling water and a pinch of salt.
- Cook spaghetti 3 minutes or until soft.
- Mix all together and serve with extra cheese.
Yay for food getting eaten! I can only imagine how frustrating that would get!
I don’t try it all the time, or it would be an endless day of food rejection! and most of the time, I go into it knowing she’s probably not going to eat it, so when she actually does its a nice bonus 🙂
I am glad that your food is being eaten Stacey ,I must admit I have never ever made pasta(hangs head in shame) good on you x
oh my gosh, it is so much fun!
I’m going to serve this tonight along with the pumpkin soup I made yesterday.Love the panda pj’s,my 6 year old has them and they are a favorite!
aren’t they adorable?! I hope the pasta went well!
Loving the pics and way to go for making your own pasta. Robyn xx
Why thank you!
Homemade wholemeal pasta! Never even thought of doing that ! Although everyone, bar me, hates it so I may have to eat all of it myself 🙂
haha wholemeal pasta, or pasta in general? wholemeal pasta isn’t great, although I like the Barilla brand spaghetti, and of course making it myself. The trick is the half-half flour!
Haha no they just hate wholemeal pasta so most of the time I cook two batches ( because I am a knob!)- white for them, wholemeal for me. I only buy the Barilla brand too. It was the only pasta I could eat when I had GDM so I’ve just continued eating it:)
I used to cook a batch of half white, half wholemeal in an attempt to get used to it! I still can’t do wholemeal penne… 🙁
Thanks so much for hosting! I’m hoping my 11 month old is going to enjoy pasta….my 4 year old HATES it. I think it’s a texture thing….
Well Pepper is nearly 11 months and she got a real kick out of it! Abby’s never liked it so far 🙁
OMG just LOOK at Pepper!
I have never seen such cuteness!
I must admit I think I would throw a little tanty if I went to the trouble of making pasta and then Toddler C didn’t eat it!
Never fear, *I* ate it! I made a giant batch to use for our dinners anyway, and then threw a little in the pot the next day for her lunch.
Yum! That sauce sounds so easy! My trick is using Atta flour (for pasta, pizza, scrolls, everything) – to the best of my knowledge it’s wholemeal, but behaves a lot like bread flour!
That’s an excellent tip! I’ve never used it.