Eat Your Veggies! For Kids of All Ages! - Part 1

Sometimes a parent's hardest job is getting kids to eat healthy foods - especially veggies.

As a baby, my first ate anything that was put in his vicinity. He had a preference for orange, but that didn't stop him from eating green...and when he started eating table food, he could be caught examining my plate and my husband's plate to make sure he had everything we had.
He has stayed much the same throughout all of his 12 years... frequently asking to taste a small bit of an unfamiliar food (particularly veggies we bring home from our CSA share).

His brother was similar - until he hit toddler-hood - when he started being particular...frequently more about textures than flavors...and has always been especially cautious about the foods he is trying out for the first time.

Over the years, through persistence and sometimes luck - I have managed to expand my "picky" boy's variety to the point where only we consider him picky - by most modern standards he is as adventurous as they come.
And both boys are mini-epicureans...they do love flavor!

A couple of my tricks-of-the-trade....try something repeatedly, but in slightly differing versions.

This week's version of that was Winter Squash (Pumpkin, Butternut, Acorn etc - any orange fleshed hard skinned squash that saves through the winter).
It has consistently been one of the hard sells....
In the past we have had it - 

* mashed (mixed reviews)

* soup (mixed reviews) - although I can sneak a little into almost any soup...if the primary flavor is squash it's mixed....

*veggie chili - fine - it gets hidden by the chili flavor

*mac'n cheese - ok unless there's too much or the pieces are too big.

*Curried w/ sausage - big hit - but this was a couple years ago and I almost forgot!

*Pizza with squash on top - big hit...my friend made this...
*Cookies - BIG HIT
*Pancakes and Waffles - BIG HIT

This week I made it Roasted - many veggies are helped out by roasting so, having the oven on for a pork loin roast, I put in a sheet pan of squash, and another of beets.

It went over ok the first night, but not so much as a left-over, even after my husband used one of his tricks - adding a little sesame oil (that works well sometimes!)

My younger boy acted as though we were trying to poison him.

I tried to remember ways he had liked other veggies and I know how much he and his brother like curried cauliflower - which doesn't rely on a sauce, but that's another post....but it brought me to this...

It was so simple:

Curried Winter Squash

Start with a Basic white sauce:

melt a pat of butter in a sauce pan

add enough flour to soak up all the butter 

add a cup to two cups of milk depending on how much sauce you want and how thick you want it.

THEN add your favorite curry powder - about 1/2 tsp.

some salt

some pepper

and let the whole mess thicken....

Peel and Cut up the squash in a medium dice - save the seeds for roasting later

put squash pieces in a steamer basket in a deep kettle pot with an inch of water on the bottom.
Cover the pot, bring to a boil and steam the squash until it is tender.

I dipped pieces of squash into the sauce and let both boys pre-test it.
The younger one's immediate response was "MORE!"

I kept the squash separate from the sauce and poured it over the individual servings.
It was well received and there was very little squash left over - this time!
YAY