Fooled You!

I’m proud to report that Zachary is a poster child for good nutritional habits. He likes most veggies, and in fact at many meals, eats those first so he can save the meat and/or pasta for later since “he likes that part the best”.

We thought that the good eating habits and the introduction of the “multiple veggies at an early age” plan that we laid out for Zachary would translate over to Liam. But life is like a good left-handed pitcher, always ready to throw a hanging curveball.

Liam got the “good eating” part down fine (including a very funny grumble any time he says the word “hamburger”). Unfortunately, the veggies didn’t make it past the door with him, and he is now in full veggie refusal mode.

Unwilling to acquiesce like so many other parents who cave to the gods of the “brown foods”, we needed a solution. Luckily, the solution was in-house with a gift we received last Christmas: Jessica Seinfeld’s cookbook. While there are many helpful tips and recipes, the heart of the book is this basic premise: If you puree veggies and then mix them in your recipes, you can sneak veggies past security and into your child’s body. Last weekend, we engaged with step one and put the kitchen in full prep mode. We pureed squash, zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, and squash into ice cube trays, froze them overnight, and now have instant sauce and meat mix-ins.

Case in point: tonight’s menu consisted of meatloaf muffins (meatloaf in a muffin size pan to better portion control), mashed potatoes, and peas/celery (celery for me, I don’t do peas). We added cubes of each of the veggies to the meat mixture, and about 3 cubes of cauliflower to the potatoes, and the served it. Everyone gobbled up the meatloaf, and Liam had a good portion of potatoes.

While it’s fun engaging in a short-term spy mission to sneak veggies by, I can totally see up trying to keep this up going forward even if Liam comes around. We could all use more veggies in our diet, and you really can’t tell that they’re being mixed in. Well done Mrs. Seinfeld! We’re glad we didn’t have to turn into this guy that your husband knows well.