​Applesauce is a family favorite in our house and making it homemade makes it even better. The sweetness of the apples helps balance out the earthiness of the beet in this recipe... and the beet turns it such a beautiful color!

This recipe was developed by Eat Pretty Darling for Veggie Buds Club.

As the saying goes, "we eat with our eyes" so making applesauce a beautiful shade of pink is sure to get your kiddos interested in trying this veggie-packed applesauce!

Check out our shop for products that teach kids to learn to love veggies! This includes veggie activity boxes, kid-safe knives, interactive placemats, and more.

Chocolate and beets together might sound a little strange at first, but the naturally earthy flavor of beets matches really well with rich, sweet chocolate. Don’t have a donut pan? You can cook the batter in a regular or mini muffin pan to make donut muffins.

​This recipe was developed by Happy Kids Kitchen for Veggie Buds Club.

This is the perfect recipe to make with both beet skeptics and beet lovers because what child (or adult) doesn’t get excited by donuts, right? Make sure to get all the ingredients out and ready to go (even measure some ahead for younger children) so you can have more fun and less mess baking up some donuts together!

Check out our shop for products that teach kids to learn to love veggies! This includes veggie activity boxes, kid-safe knives, interactive placemats, and more.

This week is all about PURPLE! The neat thing is, some of the veggies we found had purple outside, but no purple to be found inside. We stuck to root veggies and the color purple and found some new things to try. We’ve been playing the matching game from Veggie Buds Club so much this month that my oldest knew exactly what to look for and their names! He had fun seeing the drawings come to life in real vegetables at the store.
We gathered up Purple carrots, Turnips, Rutabaga, and Beets. I thought it would be a fun week to see how all of the varying vegetables taste different. We sampled each one on it’s own and talked about how they taste. We all agree beets taste like dirt! Turnips were kind of spicy, Carrots were sweet, and Rutabaga was like french fries. I served them with plain yogurt but my oldest also wanted to see what they tasted like with different dips so we later added ketchup and peanut butter.

Ingredients
You can use any root veggies!

• Purple Carrots
• Turnips
• Rutabaga
• Beets
• Avocado Oil to coat
• Salt & Pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 425F. Peel and chop the vegetables to try and make them all similar sizes so they cook the same time.
2. Drizzle oil on veggies and toss to coat in a large bowl. Sprinkle salt and pepper to taste. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and lay the veggies out flat on the tray. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until soft.
3. Serve as a sampler tray with the any dip/s of choice! 

There are more out there, but here’s a list to get started! ​

• Rutabaga
• Beets
• Purple Carrots
• Turnip
• Purple Potatoes
• Eggplant
• Red Cabbage
• Figs
• Purple Cauliflower
• Ube
• Plums
• Purple Asparagus
• Blackberries

​Check out our shop for interactive and fun products that teach kids that veggies are fun and tasty! In our shop you can find kid-safe knives, interactive placements, veggie-themed activity boxes, and more!

These mini veggie burgers include raw beets which can be much milder in flavor than cooked ones. Kids will love to mash the beans, help measure ingredients, and 
choose how to top their own veggie patties. Serve on a bun or on its own with a dip on the side. 

Makes 6 small veggie burgers
Ingredients    

• 1 tablespoon ground flax seed (flax meal)
• 1 1/2 cups cooked black beans (1 15-ounce can, drained and rinsed)
• 1/2 cup peeled and grated raw beet* (about 1 medium-large beet)
• 1/2 cup grated carrot (about 1 small carrot)
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro or parsley (or any soft green)
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
• 2 tablespoons of oat flour (or any flour)
• 6 slider buns, if desired
• Topping suggestions: sliced avocado, sliced tomato, cheese, ketchup, ranch dressing

Instructions

1. Add flax to a small bowl and stir in two tablespoons of water. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, add beans and mash with a potato masher or large spoon until most of the beans are mashed.
3. Add remaining ingredients and flax mixture to the beans. Stir until well combined. 
4. Divide dough into 6 equal sized portions then form into small burger patties. If the bean mixture is too sticky, stir in an additional tablespoon of flour and try again. At this point patties can be covered and refrigerated for up to a day. 
5. When ready to eat, heat oil in a non-stick or well seasoned cast iron skillet over medium heat. Cook burgers until browned and crispy, about 1 minute per side.
6. Serve on slider buns, if desired, with any toppings you’d like 

*You can use a box grater or food processor to grate the beet and carrot. If doing it by hand, hold beet with a paper towel to prevent your hand from getting too red.

We are excited to bring you a very special guest blogger this month! Melanie Potock is a speech pathologist who specializes in picky eating. The kids that work with Melanie call her “Coach Mel” because she’s their food coach! After helping thousands of kids learn to eat a variety of healthy foods, Coach Mel decided to write her fourth book on a problem facing so many parents today – How to help kids learn to LOVE veggies. Just like Veggie Buds Club, Melanie embraces her work knowing that all kids can learn to love vegetables! 
Her latest book, Adventures in Veggieland, is based on her professional 3-step plan that takes kids from FUN to YUM! It’s based on Coach Mel's philosophy of the Three E’s: Expose, Explore, Expand. This delightful cookbook walks parents and kids through twenty different vegetables, presented according to season. Each vegetable experience starts with food play – a fun craft or a game that focuses on a new vegetable, like the activity below for exposing kids to beets before exploring simple, tasty recipes that kids make with their parents. The family then expands to fancier recipes, including some veggie-desserts, like super-moist choco-beet cupcakes.  YUM!

These Beet Tattoos are featured in this month’s issue of Parents Magazine and when we asked Coach Mel if we could share them with you too, she said "Of course, and I’ll be sure to tell you the secret to removing them too! Just take a piece of raw potato under running water and it will magically erase the beet tattoos. That is, if your kid will let you remove them. Chances are, your kid will be too proud of how s/he licked and stamped their own temporary tat!"

​When you hear the word chips, do you automatically assume they will be a “less healthy” option or a “sometimes food”??? If so, you are not alone. I have great news that this is not always true! You can actually increase your child’s interest in many kinds of vegetables by making them into “chips”. We love doing this with sweet potatoes, purple potatoes, carrots, and most of all BEETS!!!! Also children love to dip so pairing Beet Chips with a nice Beet and Berry Dip is a definite winner for everyone! 
Today I want to share this recipe with you so you can make Beet and Apple Chips and a yummy Beet and Berry Dip for your family too!

Ingredients

• 6-8 small Purple, Red, or Yellow Beets
• 3-4 apples
• 1 tablespoon avocado oil (or Chosen Food avocado oil spray)
• 1 cup (2% fat or more) plain Greek yogurt (or dairy free yogurt)
• 1/2 cup fresh or frozen strawberries

Instructions

1. Peel and slice beets into thin chip size pieces. You can leave them as whole circles or 1/2 circles.
2. Core and slice apples.
3. Place beet and apple slices on a baking stone and drizzle (or spray) avocado oil over them.
4. Bake at 400 for about 25-35 minutes (or longer) until they are cooked through. Baking time will vary by oven and thickness of the slices.
5. Once the beets and apples are out of the oven set about 1/2 cup aside and blend with the yogurt and berries until smooth. Pour dip into a container and serve with the chips warm or cooled down. 

While making these recipes you can use it as a teaching moment with your children. You can talk to them about the letter B for BEETS, the color PURPLE, and how the intense color of the beets takes over the white of the apples and dip. Also children may find it interesting that they are eating their beets in two forms…one CRUNCHY and one SMOOTH.  The preparation and eating of these may be on the messy side but the nourishment and enjoyment is SO worth it! If your child is an apprehensive eater then they may be more interested in trying this new food after they have prepared it as opposed to just seeing it on their plate. There is never a shortage of fun learning to be had when Kids are in the Kitchen!

You can purchase our favorite kid-safe knives and really get your kids involved in the food prep, you can find them in our shop!

Kids love to bake so this is a great recipe to get your little one interested in trying beets. Not a beet lover yet? You really can't even taste the beets in these tasty cookies!

​This recipe was developed by Happy Kids Kitchen for Veggie Buds Club.

This cookie dough has the brightest magenta color. Unfortunately, the color does fade when baked so make sure to add the beet to the blender together with your children to celebrate the beautiful color it creates. We "eat with our eyes" and these pink cookies are sure to be appealing to young children!

Check out our shop for products that teach kids to learn to love veggies! This includes veggie activity boxes, kid-safe knives, interactive placemats, and more.

Simply dip broccoli florets in washable paint and use them as "paintbrushes" and/or slice broccoli florets in half to make "tree stamps". So simple and so fun!

Download this FREE letter "B" tracing sheet from Veggie Buds Club.

Download these FREE letter "B" coloring pages from Veggie Buds Club.

Have fun with these broccoli activity sheets! Create the letter "B" by using dot stickers or dot paint with Activity Sheet #1. Fill in the letter "B" with broccoli florets with Activity Sheet #2 (bonus if you have a laminator!).

Make a Tic Tac Toe board out of green beans and use two different types of dry beans as the X's and O's! You can also go a step further and create the letter "B" with dry beans and greens beans. Be sure to eat some green beans as a snack while you play!