Raw Veggies, How DO You Get Them into Your Kids??

The only way my kids really ENJOY raw veggies is to pick them out of the garden and eat them on the spot.  Dirt and all.  And I let them, because after all, dirt has to be better for them than Ranch dressing, right?

But now that the deer have destroyed our garden, what do we do?  Anyone?  Anyone?

I plan to figure this out as a home school science experiment.  So stay tuned - my preschoolers will make a chart of veggies and see what we like plain, what needs a little help in the form of the healthiest condiments I can imagine, and what veggies just will not go down without bribery.  We're going to study the letter "V" with veggies.  Crossing my fingers ...

Our new almost healthy snack

So, sometimes after I have run the Sahara Desert Marathon ... no, wait.  Sometimes after I nurse a baby at  3 am, and I FEEL like I've just run the Sahara Desert Marathon, and I'm super thirsty and super hungry in the middle of the night, I need a tall glass of water and a snack.  Sometimes I also need to sneak some broccoli into my daughter's diet.  (on the days she decides she hates it, which are interspersed with the days she says she loves it).

I searched for a healthy broccoli bread.  I kept getting "Healthy Broccoli Cheddar Biscuits".  Are they healthy?  This is my I-don't-think-so face.  But, they do contain veggies, and my kids are not struggling with weight problems.  So in a pinch, I'll pretend there is NOT a stick of butter in the recipe.

I got this from http://healthyandgourmet.blogspot.com, and then adapted it a bit.  There are lots of versions online, though.

Cheddar-Broccoli Biscuits

Makes about 2 dozen

2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, cold

1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp milk

2 cups shredded cheddar

2 cups chopped broccoli

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (optional)

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix the butter into the flour so until the butter becomes the pea-sized. (You can also do this in a food processor, using the pulse mode.)

2. Empty the flour mixture into a large mixing bowl, and add all of the milk. Stir with a rubber spatula to bring the mixture, together to form a ball. Add the broccoli, grated cheddar, and pepper flakes (if using) and using the spatula or your fingers, incorporate well into the dough.

3. On a floured surface, flatten the dough to about 3/4 inch thick. Using a round 2 1/2 " cookie cutter, cut out the biscuits and place on baking sheet, spacing evenly apart.  

(I also just molded them together and plopped them on the cookie sheet, and they worked out great.  Less symmetrical, but great!)

4. Bake at 400 degrees F for 30 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool before serving, although these taste so much better when still warm.

We don't do red pepper around here, and I skimped quite a bit on the cheese.  You can of course use lower fat milk or cheese to help.  But hey, if you're puttin' in a stick of butter, why bother?  They are good, though!  Definitely have a broccoli smell and taste.  You're not necessarily being stealthy with the broccoli here, but the cheddar makes the broccoli go down easily!

The Sweet Potato Bowl - Our First Triumph

When we started this quest, I was pregnant.  So I thought that the sweet potato bowl recipe from the Engine 2 Diet was just wonderful because I craved avocados as much as I craved milkshakes.  Not true!  The bowl is even good now that I'm not pregnant!

This was the first thing we found in aaaallllllll of our reading that we actually loved and could eat on a regular basis.  In fact, we eat it almost every day for lunch.  For a year.  Still yummy.

The E2 guys tell you to mix up (per person):

1/2 cooked sweet potato
1/2 chopped red bell pepper
1/2 mango
1/2 avocado
1/2 cup (I think) black beans
1/2 squeezed lime
some balsalmic vinegar

It's good that way, but we've made adjustments.  We skip the vinegar all together.  I hate mango, so we use peaches when in season.  (My husband keeps the mango.)  Any kind of bell pepper will do (for when affording red bell pepper requires taking out a loan), and I like to increase the sweet potato, beans, and lime juice.  You can used canned black beans, but they're LOADED with sodium, so we get dried beans and cook a huge batch for the week.  It's cheaper, too.  In a pinch, we've used kidney beans, chick peas, or pinto beans (though I don't recommend the pintos).

Will the kids eat it?  Of course not!  Soooo ...  I blend up the black beans with whatever veggies I think I can slip in and serve them with a little cheese on a tortilla.  Bean and cheese burrito!  Watch out Taco Casa! My daughter loves avocado, so I give her some on the side.  Both kids love mangoes or peaches, so I chop that up as a fruit salad (with banana, or apple, or whatever is on sale) for them, too.  Viola!  Lunch for all, without having to cook completely separate meals!

I think we seriously may have given this up all together if not for the sweet potato bowl.  Thank you, Engine 2!

The Carnivores Strike Out into New (Scary) Territory

My husband started it.  He read "Eat to Live" and the "Engine 2 Diet", and he was convinced that our intake of meat was way too high.  He was right.  He was convinced that vegetables should be the major staple of our diet.  He was right.  He was convinced we would all come along willingly.  Boy, was he wrong.

We like meat.  We like veggies, too.  But we LIKE meat.  We LOVE cheese and dairy. Why give it up?  But as most of you wives can imagine, my husband found a healthy diet that he was in to.  So of course I'll cook it!  Usually the hardest part of health is getting him on board.  We began to look at our meals differently, and a year later, we're still wading through how to feed two hungry adults, two (soon to be three) picky kids, and not splurge on Sonic every Saturday to get by.  Surprisingly, I'm starting to enjoy the diet that I thought I was cooking for the sake of my husband.

My main difficulty with this endeavor has been finding realistic, inexpensive meals.  It takes work to find practical recipes for my family.  Maybe some families love to have dinner discussion over tofu and spinach balls, but we're not quite there yet.  After a million attempts to Google "healthy kid vegetarian meals", and getting results like "kids' tofu and tarragon sushi rolls"  (really???), I decided that this was going to take some effort if it was going to stick for my family.  So, for all of us with children who prefer mac and cheese to quinoa, here is an attempt to collect practical, healthy, mostly vegetarian food ideas.  I've tried slipping meatless "meat" balls into my kids' spaghetti.  They're not buying it.  The menu is going to have to be a little more clever than that, until they are older and can choose health for themselves.

So here's to stealth health!  Not everything will be right for everybody, but maybe if we all collaborate, we can live better together.

Enjoy!