Low--Calorie Vegetable Side Dishes & Snacks

Fill veggie boats with "treasure" fillings for a fun side dish to accompany any main course. Make zucchini boats by cutting 8-inch long zucchinis in half lengthwise. Scoop out the long center area of each half. Supply a smorgasbord of chopped, raw vegetables in a variety of colors, and let the kids create their own treasure to fill their boats. Quickly saute the chopped vegetables in olive oil with a sprinkling of dressing and seasoning mix for zest, and spoon them into the zucchini boats. Pre-cooking the filling shortens the total baking time. Simply top the low-calorie treasure boats with "gold" --- reduced-fat shredded cheese --- and microwave.

With only about 35 calories per sliced half-cup, carrots are a terrific low-calorie snack. Toddlers and young children may find carrot curls easier to bite and chew than mini-carrots or carrot sticks. Use 3- to 4-inch lengths of thin, flexible sheets of carrot cut from the wide end of a regular-sized carrot. A vegetable parer makes evenly thin slices of carrot. Wrap each strip into a ring around your finger and secure each curl with a toothpick. Place the curls into a container of cold water. The flexible curls stiffen as they chill, so keep them in the refrigerator until you're ready to eat them --- they're perfect for dipping in creamy salad dressing. Always remove the toothpicks for your little ones before serving.

Enlist young children to help you make radish roses without using a knife. Press a French fry cutter into a large, trimmed radish, but don't cut all the way through. Gently pull the radish off the bottom of the fry cutter. Chill the cut radishes in a container of water in the refrigerator and the cut sections will magically open like petals. Low-calorie, sliced red globe radishes contain about 12 calories per half-cup.

Make celery trees by slicing lengthwise about halfway into one end of a 3- to 4-inch celery stick, making several cuts about 1/8 inch apart. Place the cut celery into a bowl of cold water in the refrigerator to make the sliced ends open and curve outward. At snack time, your little ones may want to plant a celery tree in a cheese cube or dab some peanut butter or ranch dip on the branches. A plain 4-inch celery tree contains about 3 calories.