Veggies!!!

September 4, 2009 by admin 

Aside from a side dish at dinner, it hasn’t been easy for me to get my daughters to eat their vegetables. After a few failures and a little frustration I have finally found a few things that seem to work. I can rest easy knowing my daughters are eating their veggies–whether they know it or not!

Breakfast

Bolthouse FarmsCarrot Juice. Yes, carrot juice! Start your child on carrot juice when she is young. It is a fantastically nutritious juice and they will learn to love the taste. I started buying Bolthouse Farm’s 3-pack of 100% Carrot Juice at my local warehouse store as soon as my daughter began drinking cow’s milk. Since then she’s learned it’s breakfast drink.

Carrot juice is naturally rich in powerful antioxidants including Vitamin C and Vitamin A from alpha-carotene and beta-carotene. It is also a natural source of potassium and is fat and cholesterol free. My trick is to mix it with pomegranate juice, which gives it a fun color and a little bit of sweetness.

Fritters are another item I incorporate into breakfast to ensure we eat enough vegetables. I grate zucchini and other vegetables and mix them with an egg and a cup of pancake mix. I form them into patties and cook them in extra virgin olive oil.

Lunch

Roasted and pureed butternut squash frozen into ice cubes is something I always keep on hand. I mix sliced or shredded cheese, cracked pepper and two thawed cubes of squash together and grill it on some multi-grain bread like just like a grilled cheese! I don’t think my kids even know what a regular grilled cheese sandwich tastes like! :)

“Pasta” spaghetti squash is a weekly meal in my home and which we eat as leftovers the next day for lunch. Spaghetti squash is so yummy; you have to give it a try! I cut it in half, season it with olive oil, salt and pepper, cover it with foil and roast it on high for an hour in the oven. Take it out and start pulling on the flesh with your fork and it turns into “pasta!” I saute some bell pepper, onion and whatever other veggies I have on hand and throw it in with the squash. To make it extra tasty you can add a tiny bit of freshly grated parmesan cheese.

I am still in need of new ideas for squeezing veggies into my daughter’s meals other than the normal sliced and diced raw veggies. Those mini peeled carrots are great, but it’s nice to change it up once in a while. Any suggestions?

Butternut squash photo by romanlily, shared via Flickr.

Filed under: Organic Eats
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