I have a 5 years old son and he is very picky with his food. He doesn't like to eat vegetables and I'm really frustrated. I tried blending it with his juice and sneaking veggies to his plate but to know avail. The only veggie he eats is carrots and potatoes(fries). Do you have any ideas on how to make your little kids like and eat veggies? Do you know any recipes with veggies that kids like?
It's hard to make the kids eat the vegetables. Almost one year ago I started to make soup with greens and they ate it, but it was difficult. I thought everything was good, but after on week I gave up because they were really having a hard time eating it. As everything with kids, we need to be patient...
Italian food is pretty easy to sneak veggies into, since you can hide a lot of stuff in the sauce. A meaty ragu or even a chili would be an easy way to hide stuff like carrots and peppers. You can also cook them down and puree them then blend them into the sauces. Cooks Illustrated has a recipe for cooking a beef loin in the pressure cooker, and for the gravy they simply take the veggies the meat was cooked with, and blend them in a blender then strain them to make the "gravy" - as opposed to the usual butter/flour roux based gravy with beef fat. Roasted red peppers are great blended into a hummus dip. Or for a treat, make a baked spinach and artichoke dip. You can also blend some spinach in with the ricotta cheese filling when making manicotti or stuffed shells. Heck, you could probably blend in some shredded carrot too (or maybe in the sauce).
"You can also blend some spinach in with the ricotta cheese filling when making manicotti or stuffed shells. Heck, you could probably blend in some shredded carrot too (or maybe in the sauce)." - I will definitely try this out soon, it sounds really yummy. My kids do love pasta, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Thanks for the suggestion, I will let you know if this will work. Wish me luck.
So, I was an incredibly picky child, myself. The best way that my mom got me to eat my vegetables was by "disguising" them. The best example I have is of a broccoli dish she used to make. For the first few times that she made it, she had to smother it in this cheesy gravy-type sauce in order for me to like eating them. Over time, however, she subtly used less and less of the cheesy fatty gravy, until I grew accustomed to the taste of the broccoli on its own. Another type of veggie that is very easy to mask the flavor of is zucchini (and squash, as well). To this day I like to sautee them in butter and garlic, and put them on top of pasta. You can also dip zucchini in a mix of melted butter and bread crumbs and bake them into "zucchini crisp chips." Hope those suggestions are helpful, I'll try to post again if I think of any more!
I guess I am lucky because all four of my kids were big vegie eaters. But, I started them out eating vegies when they were babies,, not the ones mixed with meat, but the jars of straight vegies. My grandson is 8 and is a big vegie eater, but then again, his mom did the same thing I did. I believe that if they start eating vegies when they first start eating solid foods it normally will not be an issue later on. Once the started eating jarred vegies on a regular basis, I started cooking up vegies and putting them in the blender. They tasted better so the lilttle ones ate them better.
It is hard to make kids eat right, but there are loads of tricks to get them to eat them. I find that casseroles and spaghetti are the easiest meals to sneak veggies in, just because they cannot see them. Most kids who say they do not like eating veggies will if they cannot see them!
You can also use things like mild salsa. This is one way that I was able to get my picky eater to have more veggies. Another way is to sneak them into desserts. A lot of pureed fruits and vegetables can be substituted into brownie recipes. You might also try making a dip and cutting up other fresh vegetables like cucumbers and celery to go with his carrots. You can make faces out of them for small children and serve them with some ranch or other dip.
I've never been a big fan of hiding vegetables. Just not something I ever wanted to do. My kids always hated something. I would make the things they hated fun & always tried to include them in the cooking process. It's amazing how often they want to taste something they themselves created.
Try looking up some better recipes that specialize in sneaking in some nutrients. I've come across one that works very well which is a macaroni cheese recipe that you could sneak some pumpkin or carrot purée into. I think this is one of the best ones for this task since the cheese masks a lot of the flavor and also squash and carrots aren't too pronounced in flavor.
It is not easy to make kids to have their foods but you should make your son to play on ground games or some running activities by which he got hungry and you can give him Kraft Mac and Cheese which is good for his health.
