On some days we realize the only thing our daughter has eaten is different variations on bread and cheese: mac and cheese, grilled cheese, an omelet with cheese, pizza, bagel with cream cheese- you get the idea. So we've been looking for a few ways to make sure she eats enough veggies...
We're not really into "sneaking" or hiding the veggies because we don't want to reinforce the notion that they taste bad. The mission is to serve them up in interesting and delicious ways, preferably ones that our daughter can't dissect- you know, take out the veggie and just eat the cheese. So here are a few ideas that we've come up with:
• Kale Chips This satisfied our taste tester with flying colors. (not to mention my husband and me as well!)
• Green Smoothies for Kids. We haven't given these to our daughter...yet. But we love them ourselves. We always add a dash of orange juice to ours to sweeten it up.
• Five Food Hacks from Mommy Poppins: We're definitely going to try the Basil Spinach Pesto recipe she mentions!
• Zucchini Muffins: Muffins tend to be a big hit in our house, so we'll be scouring around for other muffin recipes that might even include...dare we say, broccoli?
• Risotto with finely chopped broccoli. Risotto is so rich and creamy, when we chop up the broccoli in our electric mini chopper- it's barely noticeable but she eats a good amount.
Please- share your creative ideas!
(Image: Chow Mama)
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cool post! our 2 yr old son loves green smoothies! we use some fresh fruit and dates to sweeten. he'll eat almost anything that comes out of the vitamix!
awesome post...
we made a sweet spinach cake, in a cupcake form, for my daughter's first birthday, it is delicious & you can't taste the spinach... color is very vibrant and pretty...
http://www.turkishcookbook.com/2007/01/spinach-cake.php
next time I will experiment using something else instead of sugar, maybe bananas, agave, etc...
elif, I totally could've used that spinach cake last week! I love the idea of incorporating veggies into desserts and that cake looks great!
We try to eat natural, whole foods in our home, and I really wanted to make a dessert with something green (or at least Irish-themed)for St. Patrick's day last week without buying food coloring. This would've been perfect. I'll just have to make it anyways this week. Thanks for the suggestion!
Spinach dip, spinach lasagna, tomatoes in the mac and cheese, roasted broccoli (Ina Garten's recipe is amazing), roasted carrots fries. These all pass the test with my 3!
sweet potato fries (excellent frozen option at Costco--I overcook them til almost crispy), broccoli pizza, guacamole with tomatoes, sweet potatoes & cauliflower in mac-n-cheese. Even "confetti" meals (pasta, quesadilla, mac-n-cheese) with mixed diced veggies like peas, carrots, zucchini, corn, peppers, etc. And I do include spinach/zucchini/carrots/peppers in lasagne, pizza, enchiladas (red or white). I don't try to hide them, I just include them.Yum! And I must say that we eat Ina' Roasted Carrots at least twice per week. The sad part is, I have to do all these things to ensure my husband eats his veggies. My 3 year old is no problem!
My daughter will eat any veggie if it came out of a frozen bag and has no seasoning on it! She just doesn't like fresh veggies that we make in an adult manner! Oh well, I say, the frozen ones are healthy too. She will seriously DEMOLISH a bag of frozen carrots or peas in no time flat.
my son will eat any veg you put in front of him but we have a little friend who only eats bananas, tomatoes and corn, that is it for the whole fruit and veg section. I often make little pancakes, like mini hotcakes but add pureed veg to the batter, spinach makes green pancakes and pumpkin makes orange. I made a pile for a playdate and out little friend kept sneaking to the table to pinch another, he ate about half a plate of them.
I always make a massive pile then when they have cooled pop some in the freezer, quick to defrost, they make a quick and health snack.
my kids love spaghetti squash. i serve it with regular tomato sauce. they think its magic! (and it kind of is)
I make the Amateur Gourmet's broccoli recipe and my son gobbles it right up (and hates broccoli any other way):
http://www.amateurgourmet.com/2008/11/the_best_brocco.html
1) This picture make me not want to eat any "greens" ever.
2) "not to mention my husband and I as well!" This should read "ME" not "I". [you check it buy shortening the sentence: "This satisfied ... me"]
My 19-month-old stopped eating veggies and fruits willingly about a month ago. Seriously, he used to gobble up plain steamed broccoli by the handful, and now...nothing. So I've been chopping it and stirring it into whatever else he's eating. I'm getting really good at finely dicing everything! Hopefully this is just a short phase.
He loves smoothies, so I'm going to try blending in some green stuff. :) Thanks for the idea.
Cool ideas! I make a green quiche that the kids really like... add eggs and cheese to greens, and you get "yummy."
http://remarkablydomestic.com/2010/03/06/green-quiche/
And, if you are looking to get the superfood pumpkin into your kids, try this:
http://remarkablydomestic.com/2009/11/22/pumpkin-nuggets/
Yams or sweet potatoes baked for 30-40 min are always popular with our 2 year old.
Now that we're coming into tomato season I roast pans of tomatoes at 200 degrees for 6 hours or so. You can slice them or quarter them, add olive oil, salt to taste, add basil if you'd like, but if your kid isn't into eating greens then skip the basil and cook. Our daughter will eat plenty of these as the tomatoes get almost a caramelized natural sweetness to them.
we've tried so many of the above mentioned ideas with out 2-year old. we can get her to eat sweet potato fries, and that's about it. i even bought some baby yogurt that had veggies mixed in with it, and she avoided the puree. ridiculous. HOWEVER....we've found that she seems to enjoy 'stealing' the fresh cut veggies from the counter after my husband has been chopping them up for our dinner. so he now leaves them a little closer to the edge after he's chopped them up. I did have a break through yesterday where she ate a HUGE amount of baby carrots with a Blue Cheese ranch dressing. i was delightfully shocked.
Thanks Nudik. Yikes, and I'm an English professor, so I guess sometimes we all make mistakes. You meant "by" not "buy" right? Anyway, I appreciate it.
I hope the photo doesn't turn you off from trying the kale chips! They're really good!
These are good tips for kids and husbands!! ;)
My 19-month old son also loves variations on bread and cheese, but from the beginning I've always been adamant about adding greens to the mix. So mac and cheese is made with peas or chopped broccoli, omelets are stuffed with veggies and cheese, bagels are topped with cream cheese and cucumber and tomato, pizza always has a veggie topping, etc. Sometimes he digs right into the cheesy bits, but he's good about eating most of his greens.
we also boil some green lentils and drain them, our daughter eats it like a snack... trader joe's has cooked beluga lentils in a bag, she likes them too...
I wish I did a better job but for now - our little man is obsessed with Naked Juice's green juice.
Really? Do you have to trick your kids to eat their veggies? Never been a problem around here... always started them on veggies first, garden with them, and eat them myself. These are delicious ideas, many of them we have used, but we never ever ever have a meal without veggies. And you might be able to leave the table without eating meat or a starch, but never without eating at least one of the veggies... and usually we give two.