My kids have been bred to love Italian dressing and green olives. When they were very young, my husband would dip his finger in Italian dressing and let them suck on it. When they started solids, he would give then little pieces of green olive. So anything drenched in Italian dressing is a winner. I love that they love peppers and all these raw veggies, because I know that I was afraid of them when I was their age!
Lately, I've been having Kenna help me make pasta salad to get the kids to eat their veggies. She loves to cut the olives and add the dressing. It's easy and since she helped make it, she knows what is in there and loves to eat it as a snack during the day.Here is what we added this time:
Colorful Pasta Salad1 bag of Wacky Mac multi-colored spirals
1 cucumber
1 green pepper
1 red pepper
green olives
black olives
1/4 c. Parmesan cheese
1 bottle of Italian Dressing (use light or fat free for a nice light salad)
Cook pasta to desired tenderness, drain and set aside. Chop veggies and olives. Combine all ingredients and chill before serving.Add or subtract any veggies, cheese or proteins that your family likes:
broccoli
cheese cubes
pepperoni
shrimp
zucchini
What do you add to your pasta salad?
Looks wonderful and I love to see kids in the kitchen!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great pasta salad - especially for the summer. And it's a bonus that it's so healthy - a delicious way to eat your veggies!
ReplyDeleteYum! I wish my kids would eat this!
ReplyDeleteI love 'kids corner' and this pasta salad looks tasty...
ReplyDeleteMy kids will eat this, but probably pick out the pasta and leave most of the veggies. We liked cooked/cubed chicken breast in it, too. My husband loves this salad. Except we've never tried green olives. My husband did the same thing to babies, except it was pickles--made them taste it real young!
ReplyDeleteI have a great chili recipe that calls for chocolate and green olives. I call it everything but the kitchen sink chili cause that's about what's in it. I hadn't, however, thought of putting them in this salad. Yummy! I'm definitely going to make this. What I did when our kids were younger is I chopped all the veggies and let them make their own bowl of salad. They could put in whatever veggies they wanted. Anything left went into the big salad. The rule was at least three veggies. Because they chose them they were more likely to eat them. We did the same with a pasta dish that was warm. They would choose the veggies. I would saute them and then throw in a handful of cooked pasta, warm through and serve it for them. They always cleaned it up that way.
ReplyDeleteYour daughter is a total cutie pie! I love pasta salads like this, we had them growing up too, and they always bring back memories.
ReplyDeleteGreat way to get the kiddos in the kitchen. Looks terrific and your daughter is so pretty!
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful salad! I love all the colors!
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