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vegetables for bella
Every mother worries about how to get her kids to eat their veggies, right?
Bella has actually done pretty well in this area. Following some advice from our pediatrician, I gave her veggies early, before fruits even. And she loved them. She’d actually eat pureed peas and spinach more readily than pureed peaches. But the challenge came when she started rejecting the purees. She wanted veggies she could pick up and eat; but so often when I cook veggies for us they are too crisp for her, lacking teeth still. And I was too lazy to cook up a separate batch of veggies just for her. So I tried to give her some of the frozen mixed veggies (you know, the corn, peas, carrots and green beans mix) thawed in the microwave. She ate one or two carrots and then spit out everything else. I tried pumpkin muffins, my sister-in-law’s stand-by. And she summarily spat out the first bite. Over the course of a week, I kept offering and eventually she began to eat some. An awful lot ended up crumbled in her lap, but when I gave her veggies from my own plate, when they were neither too hard or too spicy, she’d gobble them up.
Thus my inspiration: give her frozen veggies cooked with adult flavors. My first attempt was a saute of the mixed veggies. I heated a little olive oil and then sauteed a couple of tablespoons of chopped onion. I added the frozen veggies and sprinkled in some herbs de Provence. I put a small bowl of this concoction in the freezer to cool for a minute and then sprinkled the cooled veggies onto her tray. And watched her shovel them in with both hands. She especially targeted the peas and green beans, saving the carrots and corn until the green stuff was gone.
My next experiment was spinach. I sauteed onions, mushrooms and apple chunks and then added spinach and more herbs de Provence. Again she loved it. The spinach went first, and then the mushrooms. The apples were last to go and she only ate a couple before the spitting began.
I don’t know how well this would work for other babies, but for Bella the trick seems to be avoiding the bland. She doesn’t want to be babied, she wants real food with real, complex flavors and lots of texture.
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