A normal mama who's kids don't eat everything I cook

I, like most of you out there, have a child who doesn't eat everything and it's really frustating.  Ethan is normally an easy-going boy, however as he's gotten older, he rebels when it comes to meal time.  Specifically, dinner time.  It started over a year ago when he would look at something I made and decide without trying it that he didn't like it and therefore wouldn't eat it.  This led to creating a rule that he had to try everything on his plate, if he didn't like something fine.  The important issue is for him to try things before making decisions.  More times than not, he would discover he did like it.  The longer he spent talking/whining/crying about how he didn't like it, the more resolve I had to encourage him to take a bite.  I've taken it as far as letting him go to bed hungry, and not giving him anything else until he tries the food.  And let me share, how fun (dripping with scarcasm) that can be.  As his blood sugars run low, he becomes crankier and crankier.  But then he learned ok, I'll take a bite, and then mama will give me something else.

Last week I upped the ante, I told him if he tried and ate his dinner for 5 nights in a row, then he could have a z kids bar.  Now he loves bars, usually I'll put one in his snack for school or sometimes he'll have one in the mid-afternoon if he's still hungry after finishing his lunch from school.  I was amazed at how well he bought into it.  I also pushed the envelop about what I made for dinner, making things out of his normal comfort zone, only 3 out of the 5 nights.  I made a red curry soup one night, chicken tettrazzini another.  On Saturday night, we stopped at the grocery store to pick out his treat.  He was thrilled.
So I offered him the same deal this week.  This week hasn't gone as well.  Monday night, I prepared chile-rubbed chicken breasts with agave pan sauce, coconut jasmine rice, and salad.  I need to back up and say that less than 30 minutes before dinner, he was starving...so I let him and his sister share a piece of bread I'd made the night before.  As we sat at the table eating, he ate all his grape tomatoes, a bite of rice and a bite of chicken and said he was too full to finish.  I let it go, but told him that tomorrow there would be no snacks before dinner.   Last night, we had pan seared pork chops with dried fruit, quinoa, and salad.  Yesterday he had nothing after lunch so I knew he would be hungry.  Same thing.  A couple of bites and then I'm full.  At story time before tucking him in, we read Scrambled Eggs Super by Dr. Seuss.  He loves this book, which I find fanscinating as he hasn't eaten scrambled eggs since he was 1 year old.  He suggested last night that for breakfast I make scrambled eggs super-dee-dooper-dee-booper-deluxe-a-la-Peter-T-Hooper.  He wanted to change it up a bit, thank goodness, with some salsa and cheddar cheese.  This morning, I started to get out the ingredients to make breakfast polenta, he came out to the kitchen and asked for scrambled eggs.  I asked him if he was sure.  Yes, I want eggs for breakfast.  I put them on a plate and he carried them to the table.  And then he sat, and he sat.  Claire dug right in, she loves eggs.  He never even tried them and said, I'm full.  I lost it.  There is a difference between not being hungry and wasting food.  He was wasting.  I told him that he wouldn't go to school until he ate his eggs, no more just trying them, he'd asked me to make them.  Claire had school today, and she would go, but he would stay home and sit at the table until he ate.  Shockingly, he finally did eat them after we put a bit of cinnamon on them.  And we were 30 minutes late arriving at school. 

Many times over the past year, I have questioned myself why I keep making him try new things.  Should I just give in and make foods that I know he will eat?  Then I think of the bigger picture: childhood obesity, diverse diet, appreciation for food. And I know that it is so important to keep this war going.  It's not the short term that matters, but the long term, knowing that eventually he will come back around to trying new foods.  I am at such a lose as to how to encourage him to try foods that he hasn't eaten for a while or never tried.  How do you encourage your kids to eat new things?

We'll take ours plain, please

One day at our local grocery store when Ethan was first being introduced to pureed foods, I stopped at the yogurt section.  I picked up a 4 pack of baby yogurt, as I started to place it into the cart, I happened to look at the ingredient list.  Thank goodness I did, the second ingredient was sugar!!  I couldn't believe that a well-known yogurt marketed for babies had such a high sugar content.  I put it back on the shelf, and looked for a plain version.  I found locally-made whole milk yogurt version, Nancy's, which is fantastic for babies.  I buy the largest container possible because we go through it so quickly.  Plus, it minimizes the amount of plastic needed to be recycled and it's much less expensive.  Ethan until a year ago loved plain yogurt.  That was until other influences fed him flavored yogurts.  I, however, refused to buy flavored yogurt.  So he stopped eating yogurt.  Claire's favorite morning snack is yogurt with fruit.  And oh boy, does she love it, I don't think I've ever seen a 2 year old eat yogurt the way she does.  It gets everywhere, including her hair.  Last summer I froze a lot of peaches, I cut them up, froze them on my silpat, and then moved them to ziploc bags for storage.  Throughout the fall and now winter, I've made peach-sauce.  To the peach-sauce, I add vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg.  Claire likes her peaches separated from her yogurt.  I like to mix them together for the sweetness and add in a bit of granola for crunch.  A few weeks ago, I asked Ethan if he'd like vanilla yogurt with a fresh batch of granola and raspberries.  I was shocked when he said, sure.  I put a large scoop of yogurt in the bowl, added a drop of vanilla, and a dash of agave, stirred them together, and finally the frozen raspberries and granola.  He like his sister has been eating yogurt at morning snack time again.  If you start your baby off on plain yogurt then he/she won't know that sugary yogurts exist.  Try it yourself, add more agave or honey in the beginning and slowly reduce the amount as you become used to the tang.

One of the biggest benefits to creating your own flavored yogurt is that you know exactly what you are putting into it.  Whether it's mashing up a banana, defrosting frozen berries, or making vanilla yogurt, it is much cheaper than buying a 4-6 oz container of yogurt.  Even more, you already have the fruit ingredients on hand.  Yes, it may take an extra minute to add your own ingredients than opening the flavored yogurt.  Give it a try and let me know what you think. 

Some other ideas for plain yogurt:
-in place of sour cream
-add 1/4 cup to beaten eggs before scrambling them or making an omelette
-add to muffin batter for moistness

Vanilla Agave Yogurt

Ingredients:
1 cup yogurt
1 drop vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon agave or honey

Mix all ingredients together.  Add your favorite toppings, stir if you like.

An alternative to oatmeal: breakfast-style polenta

This morning I put the water on to boil to make our morning oatmeal.  As the water boiled, I opened the pantry cabinet to find we were nearly out of oatmeal.  Quick, what could I make that will be warm and filling like oatmeal, but something that the munchkins and I will like?  Quinoa? No.  Bulgur? No.  Brown Rice?  No.  Polenta?  Hmm, could I take it away from the usual savory dinner-style? 
I try to keep mascapone cheese in stock, it's the Italian equivilant to cream cheese but slightly sweeter.  I took all the components that we love in our oatmeal and applied it to the polenta.  A little mascapone, a touch of agave, a dash of brown sugar and frozen blueberries. 
I took a taste before calling the kids to the table, making sure that they would eat it.  Delish.  Ethan walked into the kitchen, looked into the pot and asked, "What's that?"  I said, "Breakfast grits." He then asked, "What's in it?"  I replied, "brown sugar (his favorite thing in oatmeal that I knew would be the selling point), blueberries, and a little agave. "  He carried his bowl to the table, sat down, tasted it and said, "Mama, this looks a little like corn meal."  I asked him what he thought.  You see, I've had to rename polenta.  About a year ago, he decided one evening he no longer liked polenta.  The next time I prepared it, I called it cornmeal.  He liked it.  He said, "It's good!"  
Claire liked it so much, she had seconds. 

Breakfast-style Polenta

Serves 4

Ingredients:

4 cups water

1 cup quick cooking polenta or cornmeal

1/3 cup mascapone cheese

1 tablespoon agave syrup or honey

1 teaspoon brown sugar

Fresh or Frozen Berries of your choice to taste

Bring water to boil, whisk in polenta, reduce heat to simmer.  Stir occassionally.  Polenta will thicken over 5 minute cooking time.  Stir in mascapone cheese, agave syrup, and brown sugar.  Serve berries on top.

Enjoy!

Connecting your children to the food they eat

I am not a good gardener.  To be perfectly honest, it terrifies me.  Not getting messy or dirty, but rather I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing in our yard.  We don't have the easiest yard to garden, we have large trees surrounding our backyard so it impedes good growing sunlight. We do, however, have a wonderful deck that gets great sunlight and have containered gardened since we bought the house 8 years ago.  I began with herbs-lavendar, rosemary, thyme, basil and parsley.  The first few years, every year I'd kill the herbs from either lack of water or too much direct sunlight.   A couple of years ago after a trip to Burgerville, we got seeds with our kid's meal.  Ethan and I planted them in our containers, we had snap peas and cherry tomatoes. He was 3 years that summer, I was amazed how he would go down to the deck, and eat them right off the vine.  Last year for Mother's Day, my gift was a trip to Portland Nursery.  We selected cherry tomatoes, an heirloom tomato variety, green and purple peppers, jalapenos, yellow squash, pumpkin, a few varieties of mint, basil, rosemary, and italian parsley.  The tomatoes do fine in containers, the yellow squash and pumpkins not so much.  I knew I needed a larger area to truly garden the way I want, to help further the connection of the food we eat and where it comes from  Ethan especially this year is at the age where the work that is put in will have dividends later.  We're also trying to teach him the valuable lessons of wasting food and money.  Claire is along for the ride this year.  She follows her brother into most anything he proposes.

 From the previous owner, we inherited a middle section in the grass which contained a few roses, a small maple tree, and ground cover.  We've had such mild weather this winter for Portland, last week while Ethan and Claire played outside, I thought, this is the year to rip out the middle section to convert to raised gardens.  I have talked about this for over 2 years.  We continued pulling out the ground cover over the weekend.  As you can see from the photo, we're still not finished but close!  I also ordered a seed catalog for Ethan and me to select seeds for which we're going to grow.  When I told him, he was so excited by the possibity of having an actual garden this summer.
Ethan has become an extremely picky eater of late.  One day, he loves green bell peppers and the next he decides he doesn't.  Like most parents, this is incredibly frustrating.  My hope is that by giving both children a vested interest in our garden, they will be more likely to try the vegetables we grow.