It's an on-going struggle to get kids to eat vegetables. This article was in the paper today, and I immediately thought of MDC.
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/10/03/4875202/entice-kids-with-flavors-of-roasted.html
I've had good luck with roasted root veggies. Cubed carrots, turnips, potatoes, leeks, tossed with olive oil, salt and rosemary. It smells fantastic while it's roasting. My kids eat some, not a lot of it, but that's OK.
Roasting is how I got *myself* to eat veggies, and it's working for the kids, too. I roast cauliflower or brussels sprouts tossed in olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper, and they get all crispy outside and soft inside.... mmmmmm...... Never in a million years would I ever have expected to hear my son ask for more brussels sprouts instead of more meat or potatoes at a meal.
I'll have to try roasting cauliflower. I rarely cook it, but I grew up eating it. My SIL made roasted brussels sprouts for Thanksgiving, and they were crazy good. She tossed them with balsamic vinegar before cooking them.
roasting is our favourite way to go too.
dd's favourites since babyhood have been roasted beets (skin and all), butternut squash, cauliflower and brocolli (key is roasting them and then the last couple of minutes broiling them so you burn the brocolli and cauliflower a tiny bit).
i also toast frozen lima beans till they are pretty done and a little dried up so they are crunchy. DD lOVES that too.
an interesting book that i read was Kelly Dorfman's http://whatseatingyourchild.com/
i wonder if her take on lack of zinc affects children's lack of taste for veggies.
however no matter what dd's bf still wont touch veggies.
another recipe for brussle sprout haters.
fry b.s. on stove top till they get blistery (little black drops), then mix in some maple syrup AFTER you take the pan off the flame. i get non veggie eaters to have brocolli and brussel sprouts this way. to really cook the bs i first fry them and then steam them by adding two tbs of water and covering the pan.
Our favorite brussel sprouts are sauteed. Slice sprouts crosswise in very thin slices (so you get circles). Saute in butter with lots of salt and pepper until tender and a bit carmelized around the edges (so some brown). If you really need to amp up the flavor, do this with bacon and bacon fat rather than butter.
If you aren't worried about fat grams, gratin is another option -- sliced and baked with cream and cheese.
Other than that, roasting is definitely a way to make veggies sweeter and thus more likely to be eaten. And baby veggies (we get ours from the farmers market) always seem to be more appealing that full sized ones.
My kids eat a ton of vegetables - as long as they are fresh and raw. Carrots, cucumber, snap peas, broccoli, spinach, cabbage... As soon it is cooked they won't touch it. I like both raw and cooked. The only thing I don't like is going to my in-laws, where they pull carrots and pick peas straight from the garden - they are so naturally sweet and wonderful - and then throw them in a pot of boiling water for 10 minutes. Talking about ruining something beautiful.
Ds loves green salads; if we have a main dish with salad, he eats several servings of salad and nothing else.
Dd wouldn't touch a raw vegetable but loves soups. So I put 1 lb of vegetables in any soup I make and she gets her vegetables from there.
We'll have to try roasted veggies, they sound delicious.
My kids tend to go for the raw veggies, and not like the cooked ones. They don't care for salads (we use a prepackaged Spring Mix a lot), but will happily eat raw kale, or kale chips (one of the few exceptions to cooked veggies). DD1 will also eat cooked green beans, but only a few at a sitting. She'll usually eat one boiled/steamed Brussels sprout. I mostly don't even bother to cook veggies, anymore. They get a bit in soup, spaghetti, etc. (all of them but ds1 are good with cooked tomatoes, which is a relief, as you couldn't pay me to eat them when I was growing up).
DD2 has become hooked on Wonderpets on Netflix, and has become kind of addicted to celery. Her siblings have jumped on board, and we're going through a bunch or two of celery a week right now! They also happily chow down on raw carrots and sugar snap peas, plus the aforementioned kale. DS2 and dd2 also help themselves to raw kale, but dd1 isn't so into it.
I may start trying some roasted veggies. I don't know if the kids will like them, but a lot of them sound delicious to me!
Mine are the exact opposite. Well, my younger is. My older is a human garbage disposal and will eat anything.
My younger will eat veggies by the armful, but only likes them raw. If they're cooked, in a sauce/dip, "hidden" in something which I've never believed in, or in another dish, forgettaboutit. I've had to tell her off for eating peas and string beans right off the plants so there's some left, but as soon as I saute them in butter and garlic, they may as well be old shoes and newspaper. She'll eat it if push comes to shove, but it's no work at all to simply leave things raw.
My method for getting my kids to try any new food is this: I wait until snack time. Get the new food, cut it up into small pieces with a bunch of other things - divided up of course, not all mixed- in bite-sized pieces. Some things they really, really like, a few things they like/are okay with and used to eating, and one or two things they're not comfortable with or haven't seen before. I set them on a big plate. And I leave.
There's no pressure to try, no comments if they don't, and no prep work involved for them. IME, if people of any age are comfortable with roughly 75% of the things on a plate, they're much more willing to try the thing they're uncomfortable with.
So for instance my youngest and pickiest might get a plate with grapes and mandarin slices (loves), granola bar bites and carrot rounds (likes), bits of salami (neutral on) and something she's never seen before, like our recent adventure with pineapple.
9 times out of 10, she'll try the unknown food, because the other food has served as a kind of primer that everything on that plate is "safe" and that I'm not giving her something horrible. That, combined with the no-pressure atmosphere and no consequence if she doesn't eat it, makes it very easy for her to try. She knows no one is going to stand over her and make her take x bites of it, or scold her, or hold it until the next meal until she gets too hungry and tries it out of desperation, or any of the other time-honored parenting tactics that have created a generation of wonderfully healthy eaters and healthy minds about food. (eyeroll) If she doesn't try it that time, oh well, it's just a small amoutn and I'll keep it off the snack plate for a few days/weeks then try it again. Eventually almost everything gets tried.
Mine are the exact opposite. Well, my younger is. My older is a human garbage disposal and will eat anything.
My younger will eat veggies by the armful, but only likes them raw. If they're cooked, in a sauce/dip, "hidden" in something which I've never believed in, or in another dish, forgettaboutit. I've had to tell her off for eating peas and string beans right off the plants so there's some left, but as soon as I saute them in butter and garlic, they may as well be old shoes and newspaper. She'll eat it if push comes to shove, but it's no work at all to simply leave things raw.
My method for getting my kids to try any new food is this: I wait until snack time. Get the new food, cut it up into small pieces with a bunch of other things - divided up of course, not all mixed- in bite-sized pieces. Some things they really, really like, a few things they like/are okay with and used to eating, and one or two things they're not comfortable with or haven't seen before. I set them on a big plate. And I leave.
There's no pressure to try, no comments if they don't, and no prep work involved for them. IME, if people of any age are comfortable with roughly 75% of the things on a plate, they're much more willing to try the thing they're uncomfortable with.
So for instance my youngest and pickiest might get a plate with grapes and mandarin slices (loves), granola bar bites and carrot rounds (likes), bits of salami (neutral on) and something she's never seen before, like our recent adventure with pineapple.
9 times out of 10, she'll try the unknown food, because the other food has served as a kind of primer that everything on that plate is "safe" and that I'm not giving her something horrible. That, combined with the no-pressure atmosphere and no consequence if she doesn't eat it, makes it very easy for her to try. She knows no one is going to stand over her and make her take x bites of it, or scold her, or hold it until the next meal until she gets too hungry and tries it out of desperation, or any of the other time-honored parenting tactics that have created a generation of wonderfully healthy eaters and healthy minds about food. (eyeroll) If she doesn't try it that time, oh well, it's just a small amoutn and I'll keep it off the snack plate for a few days/weeks then try it again. Eventually almost everything gets tried.
That's an awesome idea- I'm gonna try it with my picky dude!
Something I just discovered that works for my 3- and 4-year olds: Peanut sauce. Seriously. If it's peanut butter, the 3-year-old will eat it, no matter what. The 4 yo will usually try anything once. I had stir-fried some bok choy for my lunch and decided to throw in some peanut butter at the last minute b/c it was still out from making the boys' sandwiches. When I sat down, they both looked and wanted to try some. Both liked it and asked for more. Never in a million years would I have guessed that... Although lately the 4 yo has been eating all the raw veggies and leaving his sandwich over. Go figure.
A few things that work for us:
serving vegetables first so they go in while the kids are hungry
soy sauce and all of it cousins
well done rather than al dente
vegetables as a a well prepared dish (honey roasted carrots, green beans in soy sauce butter) rather than blanched or steamed
a bit of salt and fat
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