I’d be lying if I told you I don’t love seeing what kinds of weird foods I can get my boys to eat.
Don’t get alarmed- everything I give them is safe, (mostly) healthy, age appropriate, and allergy tested. I don’t give them, like, dog food or anything. (They are boys though, and I’m pretty sure all of them have tasted it at least once. Hey, I’m only one person here!)
No, what I mean is, my kids have very, very mature palates. Tonight, I fed my sixteen month old twins white pizza with spinach and tomatoes (only minus the mushrooms because I forgot to buy them when we were at the store yesterday; mushrooms are the default pizza topping for four out of five members of our family). For lunch, all three of my boys had homemade lentil soup with their sandwiches and fruit- and the soup was MADE by my four year old! (with my careful supervision and assistance, of course).
Yes, he’s four now. On his birthday a few weeks ago, I decided to make him a special birthday lunch, since we had planned to go out for dinner. His birthday lunch was a surprise so I didn’t ask before I started cooking; I just made what I know he likes. That day? Linguine with clam sauce. Yep, I feed these kids seafood out of a can, mixed with chopped up garlic and served on a big ol’ bed of carbs. There was not a bite left over. They also all love salmon- ANY way I serve it, but this recipe has proven to be a huge hit with just about anyone I’ve ever served it to (including Laken, who was here to visit in May and requested the recipe. See this post if you want to laugh at me some more about my demented sense of time).
I’ve fed them lentils prepared this way too, found via Pinterest and adapted to basically substitute all the healthiest aspects of the recipe: whole milk for the coconut milk, spinach in place of the kale, regular soy sauce instead of the gluten-free tamari variety, and boring ol’ button mushrooms instead of the mixed variety (my relationship with Pinterest is a whole other post. Coming soon, I hope).
Of course, kids are kids, so they do occasionally turn mealtimes into their own opportunities to demonstrate their opinions (usually based on lunar phases, which side of the bed they woke up on, or just on a minute-to-minute basis). For instance, our oldest (“Monkey”) just finished a phase of strongly disliking cooked broccoli (he likes it again now. He says.) Twin A (“Scooter”) doesn’t have many definite dislikes; rather, his tastes are often based on his mood, and he just spits out whatever the offending morsel is. And he makes the funniest faces when he tastes something he doesn’t like. Twin B (“Squirt”) feeds what he doesn’t want or like to the dog. (Cantaloupe is something Clohe has had a lot of in the past few months.) However, Squirt will typically finish everything on his plate, as long as he is in control of the fork and the plate. Or, sometimes even just having the plate on his high chair tray where he can see what his options are is enough to satisfy him. He’s not big on the unknown. And he’s kind of independent. Not sure where that comes from…
Have a great weekend friends. It’s officially football season now, so eat well and share your favorite recipes with me; I just gave you three!
xoxo,
~d
Today and To-Merrow 