I love you on vegie night.
Vegetables served up at dinner time occurs 5-6 times a week in our house. It might consist of meat and three veg right there for all to see. The second option is salad veg also naked and identifiable. Finally there’s the hidden alternative. It’s on a stealth mission to get into the mouths of babes undetected.
Vegetable consumption was a whole lot easier when my two were spoon fed. Now it’s a battle royale to get anything into their mouths that may be related to vegetables.
Then there’s the exception to the rule. ‘Oh, are you sure you want TOMATO sauce with that? You know what it’s made out of, don’t you?’ Tomato sauce is not a condiment in our house. It’s almost a food group in itself.
As my eldest finds himself in new situations he is also exposed to a wider range of foods. He recently asked to take carrot sticks to school. He’d tried them at after school care and seen other children taking them for morning break. You’ll eat them there but not here, I think to myself. ‘Yes, Roger Rabbit, you may take carrot sticks,’ I say after my gaping mouth is able to form words again.
My palate has changed as I’m sure the kids will as they get older. From memory there were only 3 vegetables that used to pass through my lips as a child. One of them was peas and they didn’t even make it to the swallow stage. I’d leave them till the end, stuff them all in my mouth and try not to chew. A mumbled, ‘can I please leave the table?’ later and I’d make a hasty retreat to somewhere private where the peas could be unceremoniously dumped much to my tongue’s delight.
I’ll give my eldest credit where credit’s due. He has recently added to his repertoire and now tries things that he can identify. His list of acceptable vegetables now includes: potato, carrots, broccoli, corn on the cob, lettuce, tomato and peas (swallowed). He’s tried some others but they haven’t made the list yet.
Until such time that we have an array of vegetable matter being digested I’ll continue with my covert tactics. Sausage rolls and spaghetti sauce are two of my favourites things to make where vegetables go undercover. I’d appreciate any other ‘vegetables in disguise’ recipes/ideas you have if you’d care to contribute.
They can continue their love/hate relationship with vegies but I’ll still love them just the same.
Image from: here.
Free Little Words 
Your kids can love tomatoes without loving veggies. It calls to mind the adage, “Knowledge is knowing tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is keeping it out of your fruit salad.”
I look forward to reading more of your posts.
That adage is great. I think most people tend to lump the lovely tomato in with the vegetable group because it definitely doesn’t belong in a fruit salad. Thanks so much for taking the time to read and comment and I hope future posts whet your appetite some.
Now I know where all the peas went luv Ivy
Oh crap! I forgot you read this Mum. The things we do as kids, hey!
hahaha, so true, I taken to pureeing veg and adding to all sorts of meals haha, all without them knowing
Please share! What vegies do you put in what meals? What’s easy to cover up flavour wise?
Hey, you ‘liked’ my blog, daysofhilda, and guess what, I’m loving yours! I love your loves and here’s one for my sons: I love you and I love the junk from your pockets that washes up in my front loader – super-clean lollies, toy soldiers, lego etc.
Thanks daysofhilda! Might have to do a post like that one. I love finding a discarded tissue that’s made its way from the pocket and attached itself to every other piece of clean smelling clothing. Oh the joys! Thanks for commenting and I look forward to reading your future posts.
My daughter will only nibble spinach leaves at the moment :)- in a kud friendly ‘salad’ with some dried fruit and nuts.
Last week the juicer was fun.
I am on the search for creative inspiration as it realtes to vegies too.
Oops. Touchy cell phone.
I found this site the other day when I was looking for sneaky veggie ideas. You might find some useful tips there. http://www.word2yourmama.com/2012_08_01_archive.html
Thanks for reading and good luck in your search. Please let me know if you find something great!
Thanks. I will check out that site and let you know if I find something creative.
Much love,
Laurie
My 4 yrar old has been creating a pretty cool salad for a while with a story to go with it. Not sure how much got in her mouth, but at least she is interested in salad. I used to give her a tray of new foods to try as a toddler. Trying that approach again. She found a dressing she likes in a cute little bottle. I got myself some stuff at the store for my own salad too.
🙂
V-fusion juice is good in a pinch. Ok..that’s all I ‘ve got.
Mushrooms are quite easy to hide – I chop them up small and add them to scrambled egg. They don’t get a lot of veg that way (a little mushroom goes a long way) but I feel like I’ve won a minor battle. I still jar feed my youngest at over 2 years old because it’s the only way to get veg in. Also anything in a tomato sauce, like baked beans or pasta shapes, counts as one of the five-a-day. My daughter has recently discovered mash and gravy so I add sweet potato or carrot to the mash (sometimes even a tiny bit of broccoli) but she has it with so much gravy I’m sure it’s not that healthy… The only meal my kids eat with veg is my spag bol and I LOAD it with veg, as many as I can chop up tiny. Sometimes I puree half and add it back as sauce… We parents have to learn to be so sneaky…
I just remembered I used to hide stuff in applesauce.:)
My eldest doesn’t like mushroom and will sniff out the tiniest particle of the stuff and then turn his nose up at the rest. Ny youngest hasn’t eaten potato since he was spoonfed and even then he would spit it out more often than not (I think it’s the texture). Yes, Bolognaise is the perfect one to hide almost anything in. We’ve been trying to add new veg to our plates hoping they’ll follow our good example. I think sneaky is probably easier though. Thanks for taking the time to add your thoughts and suggestions.
A friend left me a comment on my Veggie post about pureeing carrots and putting them in tomato sauce! I am also considering cauliflower. I heard that if you boil the hell out of it, mash it like potatoes, and put some butter, salt, and pepper in it, that it is comparable to mashed potatoes!
Thanks for sharing such great ideas. I think tomato based sauces are the easiest to hide anything in. Cannelloni is another one that we hide loads of veg in (not just the spinach inside the tubes) and you can get away with not pureeing it too because the sauce coats all the chunks of veg. I think my two might sniff out the fact that the mash is really cauliflower incognito. Thanks for popping over.
Not sure if you’ve tried this yet, but my kids love any vegetable that we are able to grow. It’s easy to grow things like lettuce in a sunny window, or kale in a pot outside the front door – and my kids love the idea that we are eating something we grew! Last year we were able to raise broccoli in our garden, and they would go over and help themselves to the fresh stalks when I wasn’t looking. They actually started to squabble about who got the most that day! It was such a big success that my preschooler, when she turned 4, told our pediatrician that her favorite food was kale (which, as you might guess, we had been growing in our garden!) Prior to that, she was a carrots-only girl. Good luck with the veggies!
Thank you for some excellent advice. I know my sister does this with her kids and it has definitely broadened the range of vegetables they will eat. I read somewhere that children need to be offered a new vegetable in many different forms (grated, mashed, raw, etc) and that it takes about 20 tastes before they get used to it on their palate. Also their tastebuds change every year so it pays to reintroduce something every 12 months. Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment.