Fin

So, after much procrastination we finally finished the vegetable challenge. Our final vegetable was purple, yes purple, cauliflower. Thinking the novelty might make a difference, I purchased it on the advice of my 4 year-old. Novelty or no, I wouldn’t recommend it. Once cooked it was just weird. The flavor was the same, but the purple reminded me too much of the red cabbage juice pH indicator I’ve made in the past. And let’s face it, since when did purplish-blue vegetables seem all that appetizing? A total of zero children ate it. One was sick, so she doesn’t count. Strike out.

We also added some baby food broccoli (see the post where I made it and unsuccessfully fed it to my baby, being stuck with many frozen broccoli cubes) to the rice. It was good. I’ll have to do that again.

I was asked if I would continue the challenge. Probably not to this scale. I have found some new recipes I plan to incorporate into our dinner table and resurrected several we haven’t made in a while. I’ll still try to broaden our vegetable palate, however. All in all, this was a success in that we realized how few new recipes we needed. We do eat a large variety of vegetables. And, our kids were inspired to try some new things. Not sure if they’ll continue to eat them once the incentive is gone, but at least they tried it once.

So thank you, Jamie Oliver for inspiring us to eat a little healthier and try some new things. Our total vegetable count for the month was 56 different vegetables. We would have hit another if we’d have eaten the turnip in the fridge. I still had several more on my list that I just didn’t have time (or produce) to work in like kohlrabi, shallots, bok choy, jalepenos, and other fresh herbs. Not bad, I’d say. Not bad at all.

I may post our final numbers on who ate what later. But for now, try something new. You just may like it!

Sweet Squash

So I’ve learned that it is near impossible to find pumpkin this time of year, canned or otherwise. I scoured the stores and came up with nothing. Luckily, I discovered a gem in my freezer: one more container of pumpkin! Yay! I had hoped to work that into our count. My kids devour pumpkin bread, with or without chocolate chips. This happened to be without, but was still met with enthusiasm.

That’s good because the acorn squash was not met with such enthusiasm. I try to dress it up with a bit of butter and brown sugar, but it’s a hard sell. Even Emma spit it back out. Speaking of Ems, she’s becoming more picky now (in the last 24 hours.) She’s been introduced to little snack puffs and thinks she should just eat those and crackers instead of real food. Maybe she’s just at that point where she wants to feed herself and I need to start adjusting. The trouble is she doesn’t have molars yet so her mashing abilities are limited. I tried some tiny pasta today. That worked alright. We’ll see what we can come up with. In the meantime, I need to hide the snacky food around mealtimes. :)

Sam I Am

I do so like Green, Eggs, and Ham. Thank you, thank you, Sam I Am! Tonight was a little al improviso. I had planned to make a kohlrabi dish, but couldn’t find it in the store, along with pumpkin. But that’s another story. So I decided to make quiche using leeks instead. That turned into Green, Eggs, and Ham with leeks replacing the onions. I liked it that way. Oh, and for those who don’t know. This is a crustless quiche where you mix Bisquick with eggs and milk and pour over spinach, ham, leeks (onions), and Swiss cheese. Very tasty, and a little catchy for the kids. By little I mean they maybe ate one bite to get the star on the chart. Oh, well. They’re about done with this experiment, as shown by my conversation below.

Here is an excerpt from a conversation with Kate yesterday:

Kate: Mom, is it May?

Me: Yes.

Kate: April was vegetable month so no more veggies! Yay!

Mom: Hmm…we’re not done yet.

Of course, they have been reporting to me daily about their vegetable consumption. Kate even took vegetables in the lunch line and ATE THEM! Whoo-hoo! Bit by bit, they will become eaters of vegetables. At least in time to feed their own children something green.

Speaking of which, I missed Tuesday of last week. It just got lost in the shuffle as I was preparing to leave town. We ate…what did we eat?…Pasta al Forno (aka Ratatouille or my version thereof.) Gotta bill it big. This baked pasta dish has a pink sauce with eggplant, peppers, zucchini, onions, and garlic. It makes a ton so I don’t make it often, but it sure was good.

Two more days to go! What can we cram in?

Asian Goodness

This salad is the best! This is a variation on a salad that was made at a Stake Relief Society function a while back. It became one of our favorites. It has greens, grilled chicken, and lots of veggies along with mandarin oranges and some little salad toppings to add extra crunch. The best part is that it provides a variety of veggies we don’t usually eat. So today’s veggies are: edamame (without the pods), bean sprouts, water chestnuts, green onions, and various greens (the Dole Spring Mix-my personal favorite.)

Almost there

I can’t believe the month is almost over! We’re doing great! I realize it’s been a few days since I posted so I’d better recap. Kate’s birthday dinner consisted of zero, count them, zero veggies, but at least whole wheat flour and strawberries. So that’s got to count for something.

Friday night we resorted to a grain. Yes, corn. It was funny to advertise this as the “fake vegetable” to the kids like it was a big inside joke. The good news is they like corn. So, it’s a borderline vegetable, right? We’ll count it for now.

Yesterday we enjoyed one of our favorite dishes, fajitas! I had to bill the yellow, red, and orange peppers as 3 separate veggies to get the kids to try each one. They did OK. Top that off with onions, garlic, tomatoes, cilantro, and avocado and you have a great veggie meal!

Today we ate finocchio. For those of you non-Italians, that’s fennel. I had never even heard of fennel before my mission. Just not something we eat much here. It has a mild licorice flavor (that’s black licorice, not strawberry, like my son believed) and is kind of crunchy like celery. I fixed it braised in chicken broth. It tasted mostly like chicken broth, but brought a request from Kate for more. All in all a good find. I think I’ll add it to our menu more in the future.

And, just a quick note, I’ll be out of town for the last two days of the challenge so I may have to postpone the end until I get back, just to make sure we get all the veggies in we can. So far, it’s looking good, though. Maybe next we’ll try everything in the produce aisle! Now that could be fun!

Middle Eastern Fare

I had to make hummus for our Relief Society dinner a few weeks ago. Though the hummus was delicious, I have half a jar of tahini left over. F&W came to the rescue again. You know it’s funny, most issues of this magazine hold a few recipes I’d want to try. This month it was chock full.

The chicken marinade included Greek yogurt and cardamom pods. Now, I barely found cardamom in the spice aisle – ground cardamom – so I wasn’t sure how that would translate. I figured I couldn’t go too wrong since it was a marinade, but decided to go easy. I was also pleasantly surprised to find Greek yogurt readily available. Lots of new things.

So dinner was pitas filled with the grilled chicken, a tahini-yogurt sauce, and lots of sprouts (wheat, radish & clover.) I added tomato slices, which, I thought, worked well. The kids had mixed feelings about the sprouts, but did try them. Luckily we ate the whole container. They just don’t keep. In any case, this recipe is a keeper in my opinion. The sauce Jared deemed “yummus.” Like hummus, but better. It was pretty good with the crudites.

So tomorrow is Kate’s birthday. She wants waffles & eggs for dinner. How to sneak veggies into those? Maybe we’ll try lunch! :)

Veggies to the Max

So yesterday, due to some unforeseen circumstances, we had to abandon the regular dinner plan in favor of frozen pizza. No new veggies there. That was ok since I knew we’d break the bank today with one of my favorite pasta dishes, Pasta D’Estate. Che buono! It has artichoke hearts, zucchini, yellow summer squash, bell pepper, carrots, and we threw in asparagus from the garden as well. Not bad for one dish and oh, so delicious!

Of course, my personal total veggie count is through the roof today since I had pasta salad for lunch along with a loaded green salad. Then the pasta and even the bread had sun-dried tomatoes. My total count today: 18. Whew!

Linger Longer

Our official vegetable today was a cucumber, I think. We had a linger longer at church so it was kind of a free-for-all. Jackson did try cauliflower – maybe just one bite. He declared he liked it, but when offered more, quickly declined.

It was a salad day: pasta salad at lunch and green salad at dinner so the official veggie count today is: 13 (cucumber, red, yellow & orange bell pepper, artichoke, olives, tomato, radicchio, romaine, radish, rutabaga, carrot, snow peas.) Not bad for a day’s work.

Does it really count?

The answer is, sadly, no. With a car full of sleeping children this afternoon, we decided to continue driving and extend our shopping experience. That meant that the planned meal for dinner would be neglected at home in place of fast food. Not the best choice, but that’s how it is. I can’t say that fries counted as a vegetable, though that’s the inclination. I did have a salad and I think Jared had some sort of veggie (i.e. lettuce) on his burger. The closest the kids came were ketchup & fries. Sad, I know, but hey, we’ll do better tomorrow.

Incidentally, Jackson looked at my salad and said, “The vegetable is tomatoes, Mom. Eat your tomato!” So something is sinking in! :)

And lastly, I think the broccoli I fed my baby is wreaking havoc on her digestive tract….and my sleep.

Cafe Rio Cravings

Last night we combined a few of our favorite things: Mexican food, guacamole (also Mexican food), and Cafe Rio (again, Mexican food.) We made a copycat recipe of Cafe Rio’s pork burritos with tomatillo dressing. It is soooooooooo good! Incidentally, if anyone wants to try it, I’ll gladly share the recipe and donate some dressing. I have plenty left over. Just be sure you like cilantro because it’s chock full. Oh yeah, and the veg was tomatillo. Yum! I just wish I hadn’t had to scarf it down so quickly to get out the door to practices & lessons last night. It sure made for a tasty lunch today, though!

Speaking of today, we went back to a favorite, well, at least for me and Jared. I fixed Zuppa Toscana (a potato based soup with smoked sausage.) For you Olive Garden fans, sorry, it’s not quite the same as the restaurant. In my opinion, it’s an improvement, but let’s not get me started on Olive Garden. Ahem…it features kale. This is one of those vegetables you only buy for one recipe and end up with random leftovers that rot in the fridge because you don’t know what else to do with it. Kale does freeze well for the next round of Zuppa Toscana or you can always pawn it off on the baby, which I may do. Or we may get really crazy and try a recipe from Food & Wine for focaccia topped with pecorino, squash & kale. Adventurous, yes, but that’s what this is all about, right?

Homage to Roald Dahl

A while back we picked up a free subscription to Food & Wine magazine. Unfortunately for us teetotalers, it seems more wine than food sometimes. But, there are a few gems in the mix. Tonight’s salad was one of those. It was submitted by Sophie Dahl, Roald Dahl’s granddaughter. We’re huge fans of Roald Dahl. This was no Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse-Maker, but it sure was tasty.

We broke out and went a little crazy with her Warm Winter-Vegetable Salad. It has onion, parsnip, carrot, sweet potato, beet, feta cheese, walnuts,  and our newest addition: celery root. I’d never had celery root, and was surprised to see that it comes with the celery still attached. What do I do with dessicated, fibrous celery? Hmm…well, that’s another post. Suffice it to say, it turned out pretty well. Celery root tastes a whole lot like celery, but has more the consistency of an eggplant: slightly spongy. The whole concoction was good. Kate ate it with gusto, knowing she would be able to add several sticker to the chart. Jackson ate about 1 inch of an onion. He couldn’t be bribed. Hannah just didn’t care. She was more concerned with seconds on the strawberry applesauce.

So hats off to you, Sophie! It pushed us out of our comfort zone, but it was a tasty endeavor.

Ruta what?

Rutabaga. I’ve never tried it, but it enticed me in the produce aisle with a tagline that read, “great in salads.” And so it was. I love that salads can up your veggie count instantly. We had at least 7 different veggies and an assortment of greens. Whoo-hoo! So back to the rutabaga. It was pretty tasty. Crunchy like a radish, but not such a strong flavor, more like kohlrabi. Actually milder than kohlrabi, but very similar. I’m glad I picked it up. Oh, and it was ok with the kids. I tell you, Kate is motivated by the sticker chart. She jumped up from the table after one bite to add her sticker. Again, whoo-hoo!

Garden Fresh

Everyone likes fresh produce, but the best vegetables are those grown in your own garden. Though our garden won’t be planted for at least 6 more weeks, we do get a little springtime treat: asparagus. It is among the first green we see poking up through the dead detritus of winter. There wasn’t much yet, but it will come. We just had to sneak in what we could today (coupled with the ever un-popular brussels sprouts.)

Incidentally, my grocery cart was laden with vegetables today. I’m ready to try just about anything…well, with the exception of okra. Sorry, just not a fan.

We also finally posted our star chart. The whole family can put stickers on the veggies they’ve tried. You have to have at least 30 veggies by the end of the month to qualify for the prize-winning family outing. Not sure what we’re doing yet, but it will be something crazy fun, I’m sure! (And probably not include any vegetables!)

 

Sweet Goodness

I have been known to sneak veggies in from time to time. Little things like pureed squash in the mac & cheese, cauliflower mashed in with the potatoes, carrots in the spaghetti sauce. But for this dish, I never need to hide. In fact, my daughter asked, “Why are you picking this as the vegetable of the day? We love to eat it!” That about sums it up. So what is this mystery vegetable? Rhubarb. We only know one way to fix it, we lovingly refer to it as Bluebarb Crisp. Yes, blueberry-rhubarb crisp. Admittedly it’s a stretch, but when I have a freezer full of rhubarb, I figure it counts. Why not?

This next week’s menu is loaded with new veggies, however. And, in more legitimate dishes than dessert.

Radioactive torts?

“What is that?” my four year-old kept asking. We make tortellini (aka belly buttons) at our house often, usually with a sauce of peas & cream. So this isn’t too far off their usual. But, the electric green of spinach-walnut pesto is slightly disarming. It reminds me of one time we had the missionaries over to dinner and fed them this same dish. I could tell they were treading lightly and hoping for the best. My usually picky daughter ate them up after asking if there were any other vegetables in it. I suppose garlic counts as a vegetable. My other daughter went more for the cheesy sun-dried tomato & rosemary biscuits. So, it wasn’t a total loss.

My baby even got spinach for the first time. She devoured her spinach, chicken & rice meal. This is good news since I have TONS of spinach left over. I’ll have to make some little frozen spinach baby cubes for her.

P.S. I love my food processor!

Fabulous Friday

So I wimped out today and ordered pizza. Funny thing about pizza is that there aren’t too many vegetables to choose from, really. We settled for two that really aren’t vegetables anyway. How’s that for compromise? Mushrooms, though fungus, and olives, though probably technically a fruit, graced our pizza tonight. I could have used tomatoes, but we’d already done that one. Oops! Tomorrow will be better!

My kids did actually digest a few olives, despite their aversion. It’s all good.

Not a hit

We don’t eat brussels sprouts often, but did find a way to cook them that makes them pretty tasty, in the grown-up’s opinion at least. Cut them in half, drizzle with a little olive oil and salt and roast for 10-15 minutes at 400. Yummy!

My kids had a differing opinion. One at least tried them. But she’s usually up for a challenge. The others just turned up their noses. Whatever. I’m just hoping they won’t cause any gastric distress for my nursing baby.

This week’s menu has been supplemented with left-overs from Easter weekend. So we pulled out the cole slaw for round two along with sweet potatoes. The slaw was again met with resistance, but we plow forward.

Incidentally, my daughter, the one who refuses most vegetables, had an assignment to track her eating for three days. She had to indicate how many times she ate from the different food groups. That was a little eye-opening. She did OK on the fruit, grains, and meat. I think she had zero dairy (not for lack of trying on my part) and a token veggie or two. Looks like we’ll have to make smoothies tomorrow for breakfast.

Kate’s World Famous Soup

A while back Kate came up with a recipe for her World Famous Soup. She asked to make it that day and we’ve made it a few times since. It’s one of those, clean-the-fridge-out soups where you just toss in everything. That worked perfectly for tonight. Our official veggie was green beans, but we added onion, potato, tomatoes, carrots, celery, parsley, bay, peas, and corn. I tried to put some kidney beans in, but she vetoed that.

The best part of making the dinner was not that she helped me, though that was fun. It was the fact that she got into this “restaurant” state of mind. She wanted our dinner to be like a restaurant so after setting the table, she decided she should tidy up a bit since restaurants are always neat and tidy. What a great idea!

She’s probably my best vegetable eater anyway, and she’ll enjoy her World Famous Soup for lunch tomorrow. Incidentally, if you ever see a restaurant named Soups Soups Galore in the future, that may be my girl!

One more thing: my husband was a little surprised to find his "burrito" for lunch today was just lettuce in a tortilla. He was convinced I'd taken this experiment a little too far. Then, thankfully, he found the rest of the ingredients.

Still going

Not much to say today. Red peppers were our veggie, compliments of rice pilaf. The rice also contained lentils so the kids weren’t too thrilled. Whatever. I did make out a menu for the entire month, however. Even though I easily had 30 veggies, putting them together in meals really pushed it a little. Considering many dishes call for several vegetables, I was running out of single “veggies of the day” by the end. But, I managed to squeak them all in.

Easter Week-end

With all our warm weather, we’ve begun exploration of our garden. My husband found a little surprise for me – a tiny green left over from our lettuce mix last year. It tasted like cabbage, but I can now say we’ve already harvested from our garden. Pretty good considering we won’t even plant anything for about a month or so!

The veggie yesterday was a mix of greens. I like the over-priced salad mixes because I can get a reasonable amount of a variety of greens. We were eating taco salad with leaf lettuce, endive, escarole & radicchio. We plant a mix like that in our garden, but in the cold season, we resort to Dole. It added just the right amount of spiciness and crunch.

The bigger success was with the guacamole. My daughter, who wouldn’t touch a raw tomato with a ten foot pole, was devouring the guacamole (which had plenty of diced tomatoes.) Score one for the mom!

Today’s star was sweet potatoes. I had mercy and didn’t make it green beans….yet. I figured sweet potatoes gussied up with butter and brown sugar was a safer bet. We’ll get to the beans soon enough. My kids did grab a few carrots and even tried a bit of hummus for our snack today. OK, I had to bribe them with candy to try the hummus, but the carrot was voluntary.

Lastly, my baby ate beets today and loved them! Good thing I have more.

Day Two

First off, I want to clarify that vegetables are not foreign to my family. We do cook with quite a variety of veggies and the photo below is a sample of what we’ve grown in our garden. The gimmick is to entice them to try more vegetables and hopefully like them. It’s amazing the lengths we’ll go to isn’t it?

In spite of protests, cole slaw was on the menu today. I recently found a really good recipe so I’m game to make it more often. The food of the day, however, was beets. I admit, I think I’ve only served my family beets once. Mostly that is due to the staining quality of their juice. I like them. I don’t think I’ve ever bought them fresh, however. So this was new all around. They were slightly wilted from sitting on the counter a little too long, but cooked up nicely. No frills, no fuss, just boiled with a little salt. Pretty tasty.

The girls both ate them and Kate even liked them. (We did tell them the were kind of like red carrots.) Jackson wasn’t around to try them so he’s off the hook. I’m thinking of pureeing the leftovers for the baby. She should be in on the challenge as well. I’m not sure I could find 30 veggies that are completely baby-friendly so she may have to expand to fruits as well. But she could use some more variety as well. So I’ll start a baby tally.

Other dinner veggies: Cabbage, carrots, onions

Day One

Today is the first day of our challenge. With our family going a few different directions for dinner, we opted to use lunch as the target meal today. The vegetable: celery. Now, my children have had ample opportunities to eat celery, but usually pass. Today my girls each ate one celery stick to qualify for their gold star. My son tried. He chewed a bite and promptly spit it back out. At least he tried.

I’m already meeting resistance. When discussing the menu for tomorrow, my eldest daughter exclaimed, “I hate cole slaw!” Hmm…should I rethink tomorrow’s target veggie?

Other veggies today: carrots, tomatoes, lettuce (plus I had garlic, onions, peppers, cucumber and several fresh herbs for my Relief Society dinner tonight. Yummy!)

Getting Started

So this whole idea started when we watched Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution the other night. I was horrified by the fact that six year-old children were completely unfamiliar with even simple vegetables. I can feel a little better that at least my children are acquainted with vegetables. That doesn’t mean they eat them.

The challenge is simple: eat a different vegetable each day for one month. We’ve already made a list of over 30 vegetables. It’s a good start. I can’t  honestly say I believe this challenge will end in my children begging me to eat more vegetables, though it might be nice. I’m more in it so I can get a little more creative in my menu planning. That said, most of the dishes already in my mind are things we’ve eaten before. The difference is we’re not tacking on the token vegetable at the end of the meal (read peas, carrots, corn, green beans, or potatoes.) Corn isn’t even a vegetable, it’s a grain and potatoes, well, tubers are still ok.

Wish me luck! I have fresh beets on my counter and am ready to roll!