Wednesday, March 4, 2009

How about some veggies?

One of my biggest challenge as a mother has always been getting my girls to eat those dreaded vegetables. As babies, they were okay with the pureed ones, but as soon as they turned one, there was no way to get them to have a balanced meal. Until yesterday.....

I decided to to use the trick of getting the kids involved in making the meal. We made a quick and easy rainbow salad. I had my 7 yr. old wash the vegetables first. She was so excited to be able to take on a chore that would boost her self-esteem. Then I had all three kids cut the washed veggies. I couldn't exactly give them a real knife to do this, so I gave them our butter knives and "easier to cut" veggies such as bell peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes. So, it was safe enough for my eager 2 1/2 yr. old to be a part of this as well. By the end of dinner, I got all three of my kids to eat celery, radish, carrots, cucumbers, etc. It was a success! And the best part was they had so much fun preparing this meal together. I wish I had remembered to take some pictures but as always, I'm so forgetful with the camera. But here's the recipe.

Little M's Rainbow Salad

Ingredients

Veggies: Chopped to bite-sized cucumbers, tomatoes, radish, carrots, red and yellow bell peppers, celery, and mozzarella cheese.

Prepared balsamic vinaigrette- just enough to coat all the veggies.

Little bit of grated parmesan cheese.

Put everything in a large bowl and mix!

3 comments:

Mel at Adventures of Mel said...

You should check out the Deceptively Delicious cookbook by Jerry Seinfeld's wife. I don't have a problem (knock on wood) with getting veggies down my kids, but I use that cookbook some, and the recipes are really good, actually.

bethany said...

My daughter usually loves her veggies and always tries to help me in the kitchen. I think I will make this with her. I am sure she will like it and maybe daddy will even eat it too!

Caitlin said...

I use "The Sneaky Chef" cookbook which is fabulous - she adds vegetable and fruit purees to all kinds of food, from milkshakes to lasagne to brownies - and all the recipes I've tried are really good!