Tuesday, March 8, 2011

What's That Green Stuff?

At one of Morgan's recent doctor appointments, I made the stark realization that we no longer eat enough vegetables. When we had a garden and grew our own it was much easier, and less expensive, to eat vegis with every meal. (Scrambled eggs with diced tomato is my favorite breakfast.)

This week I decided to try and incorporate a variety of vegis into our meals. My children have become very picky and it seems that green beans are their favorite. We have them in various cuts and frozen or canned. That's about it for variety though.

Watching the Food Network shows with my husband in the evenings has also inspired me to have a desire to expand my cooking techniques. I do love to try new recipes! I am on the hunt for some good, kid-friendly, vegetable dishes.

We tried Sweet Potato, Apple, Bacon Hash this weekend. My husband and I thought it was delish. (Who wouldn't love a vegi side dish with bacon in it.) Morgan thought it was carrots and struggled. Zane struggled with the onion. (I left out the pumpkin seeds.) We will be trying this one again though.

Sunday I made a yummy stew with loads of vegis. Zane pushed all the green stuff to the side. Morgan picked out the meat and whined about the carrots. Hummm... I'm going to have to find a way to disguise these vegis. My mom used to put grated zucchini in lots of stuff and we never knew. I can do this.

The goal: Serve more vegis and still have an enjoyable mealtime with my children.

2 comments:

Dawn said...

What about fresh non-cooked veggies and dips (ranch, hummus). Start with favorites carrot sticks, celery stick (maybe with peanut butter) red peppers (mine) broccoli etc and leave it out on the table before dinner as an after school before dinner snack and see if they will pick at it. Maybe add some in season fruits to the mix as well. The more they eat them and get use to them the easier it will be. We took a broccoli break for awhile for whatever reason and I found my kids didn't want it again until we made it routine and now they love broccoli again. Or take them and have them pick out their own veggies and very month try a new one? Just ideas. Veggie and kids don't mix sometimes.

Unknown said...

I agree. A lot of it is we just got out of the habit. Zane has weird texture issues and is picky about everything he eats, which adds a challenge. He makes me look good at the store though. I ask him what vegis he wants and he picks lots of things, even zucchini and squash. But at home he won't eat it. I'm not giving up though.