My brother and his family were visiting for the first week of school holidays. On the food front this posed two challenges for me. His two sons are picky eaters and they consumed a lot of junk food. As my nephews are older I know that their behaviour influences Brie Boy and Baby Bell.
Fortunately for me, they were busy catching up with friends and this reduced the number of meals we ate together. Here’s my approach for the three dinners and three lunches we shared.
Dinner One
This had to be a quick, easy dinner due to a busy schedule, a large gathering and watching a rugby union test match. I decided to go for soup as it could be premade and then warmed through. My kids like minestrone and I was hoping that they could exert their influence over their cousins by showing them how much they like it.
I pureed half of the lentils/beans as I accept that most kids will have trouble eating these or even seeing them! I serve my minestrone with parmesan cheese and pesto. To start of on the right foot, I gave the boys some of the parmesan cheese to nibble on whilst they were waiting as most kids like cheese.
When I served their soup I sprinkled shaved parmesan on top so they couldn’t quite see all the vegetables in the soup. My two tucked in, the older nephew surprised me and ate all the soup and even tried some pesto. He admitted that he couldn’t really taste all the vegetables in it. The younger nephew has a limited diet and ate the soup and pasta but left the vegetables. Not a bad effort from him. As he was still hungry I had some mince in the fridge just in case. Unbeknown to him I pureed the soup vegetables and mixed through the mince. He loved it!
Dinner Two
It was one of the boys birthday and so I decided we should celebrate with dinner at the local Teppanyaki restaurant. We have been before (here’s my post about it) and it was a great, fun way to eat. I told the boys it was like a big bbq. Again the older boy surprised me and ate the meat, chicken, salmon, tuna and fried rice but passed up on the cabbage as did all the kids. The younger boy said he would only eat the chicken but ended up preferring the meat and without being prompted also ate the tuna. They enjoyed the night and asked to come back when they were next visiting.
Dinner Three
This was an impromptu dinner and was just me and the four kids. I decided to base the dinner around the game “roll the dice” as they don’t play games at dinner and to see if it would encourage them to eat veggies they say they don’t like.
Luckily I had a meatloaf in my freezer which would give them something they were familiar with, however it made with sun-dried tomatoes and leeks so I was crossing my fingers that this would go undetected. The youngest only eats potatoes mashed so I thought I would try roasted potato wedges renamed as chips. For the other vegetables I served broccoli (cooked) carrots, celery and red capsicum (all raw) as I know Brie Boy and Baby Bell happily eat them and might extend peer pressure.
The boys loved rolling the dice to see what they would eat. The older nephew who is more adventurous than this brother and also likes carrots, didn’t complain about anything on his plate and asked for seconds on the meatloaf.
The younger nephew didn’t believe the wedges were chips but then managed to eat three of them as well as all the broccoli. He wasn’t as keen on the carrots, celery and capsicum but did eat a small stick of each after Brie Boy told him they were crunchy and yum.
As I was on a roll I cut up apples, pears and strawberries for dipping in a very quick and easy chocolate fondue (melt white marshmallows, chocolate and cream together – its divine). All fruit was easily devoured.
I almost managed to get ‘five a day’ in one meal.
Lunch One
This was a little bit of what they can’t see, they won’t know. I made hot cheese and ham rolls with a couple of extra ingredients; avocado, tomato salsa my kids (unexpectedly) love with pureed pumpkin mixed through it. The youngest nephew finds it hard to eat anything green and pull off the avocado which Baby Bell ate much to his surprise. The older boy surprised me by commenting how much he liked the salsa.
Lunch Two
A morning at the skate park and a walk along Manly beach led up to a plethora of junk food options for lunch. Our original intention was pub food of grilled fish, salad and wedges but it was late in the day and the kids were hungry. The golden arches were calling to the boys but we managed to divert their attention by showing them how they cooked the meat on an upright spit for doner kebabs and they could have tomato sauce with it. Doner Kebabs for me is a healthier junk food option.
Lunch Three
Pizza restaurant. My nephews only eat ham and pineapple pizza and I had intended to order a special kids pizza of ham, pineapple with capsicum and mushroom tossed thru the tomato paste. However this was thwarted when my brother arrived earlier than expected at the restaurant and preordered from the kids menu for his kids. I ordered my kids their favourite pizza of salami, capsicum, mushroom and olives, however the kids menu pizza was a small serving and they ended up trying some of our pizza without too much fuss. They did pick off the olives.
The boys were drinking soft drink with lunch and this had been their drink of preference all week. I had allowed Brie Boy and Baby Bell to consume some during the week. I told them soft drink was a sometimes food and we had already had some this week and didn’t need more than once a week and was pleasantly surprised they accepted my response.
Overall, I managed to expand my nephew’s vegetable repertoire and my kids didn’t eat as much junk food as first assumed.
The older nephew is nine years old and his acceptance of the food I offered showed me that as kids get older they become less picky. But I agree that it’s a long way to wait when they start showing pickiness around the age of two.
It also reconfirmed my theory that parents are so caught up in wanting their child to eat that they continue to offer safe options as they afraid they will refuse other choices and this prolongs the picky eating.
Hopefully my brother and sister-in-law will start to offer any some less safe options at dinner from now on.
How often do you offer your kids less safe options?
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Hello - I’m all about introducing new food to my toddler. This week it has been smoked salmon and walnut oatmeal burgers both of which she loved. I’ll probably let her try something new 2x-3x/ week. If she doesn’t like it I’ll try again a few weeks later or prepare it differently.