There’s a great post at Vegan Lunch Box on how to sneak vegetables into your child’s diet. Among the suggestions from Jennifer and her readers:

In slightly related news: The Laptop Lunch photo pool on Flickr is making me hungry. I just bought one of these little guys for Rockford. I’ve been falling down on the job with packing his lunches, and thus I keep seeing the on-campus cafe popping up in the check register. I’m pretty excited about the Laptop Lunch. Because it’s adorable and I’m a sucker for tiny containers.

One of the first “table foods” that Poppy loved was a crab cake. (She also likes lobster.) Rockford and I have never been known to turn down a crab cake, either, so I’ve been looking for a recipe that met three requirements: delicious; easy; and inexpensive. The recipes that call for fresh crab meat were out of the running. Not only do I have no desire to pick through the crab meat for shell bits, it’s pretty pricey. I tried one recipe using faux crab, and that didn’t work at all. We ended up having some sort of weirdo crabbish casserole.

Anyway.

Rockford’s mom suggested that I try packaged crab, and the grocery store had a buy-one-get-one-free special a few weeks ago on those fancy little packets of crab. So I bought a few and stuck them in the pantry. And tonight, they became dinner.

The following is based on a recipe in “Weight Watchers: Annual Recipes for Success 2007.” The original uses saltine crumbs rather than the panko, and it doesn’t make sandwiches out of the crabbies.

Crabby Patties

Dinner

Originally uploaded by nichole_e.

Serves six

2 cups panko bread crumbs, plus another 1/3 or so cup for dredging

1/4 cup light mayonnaise

1/4 cup reduced-fat sour cream

1 large egg

1/3 cup fresh chives

4 3oz packets of crab meat

1 small tomato, seeded and chopped

1 tablespoon canola oil

Jalapeno-Lime Tartar Sauce

6 English muffins, split and toasted

Combine mayo, sour cream and egg in a large bowl. Stir in 1 cup panko bread crumbs and minced chives. Gently fold in crab meat and tomato. Form mixture into 6 patties. Dredge cakes in remaining bread crumbs. Chill cakes for 30 minutes.

Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add crab cakes and cook 4 to 5 minutes on each side until browned. Serve on English muffins with Jalapeno-Lime Tartar Sauce.

Jalapeno-Lime Tartar Sauce

1/3 cup light mayo

1/3 cup reduced-fat sour cream

2 tablespoons sweet pickle relish

1 teaspoon grated fresh lime rind

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced

1/8 teaspoon salt

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl. Cover and chill until ready to serve.

How does one convince an iron-willed toddler to take a vitamin? Her doctor suggested that, because she refuses to eat fruit and most veggies, we should give her a daily vitamin. I bought some Flintstones yesterday and offered one to her as a “treat.” And she said “No no no!” and shook her little head most emphatically. Today, I tried to sneak one in as she ate her lunch, and she gagged and, again, said “No no no!”

When we had to give JJ a kitty valium, I tucked it in with his dinner and he never noticed it was there. I don’t think that will work on Poppy.

Any suggestions?

UPDATE

Monica also suggested trying to crush a vitamin and add it to P’s yogurt. I pulverized a little Flintstone and stirred the powdered vitamin into some vanilla yogurt, and Poppy devoured it! So three cheers for Monica and her mom, who rumor has it is one “sly, sly foxy lady.” I would like to find a way to do this without being “sneaky” about it, though, so gummy vitamins may be in our future. Of course, Poppy won’t eat jelly beans, either, so we’ll see.

… and …

Beth over at Diary of a Playgroup Dropout asked her readers about this very dilemma!