In my house, we eat a lot of vegetables, because I love them, haha. Actually I've loved vegetables since I was little kid. Spinach and asparagus were always my favorites... I was really weird!
Anyways, some of the things I do to include vegetables:
I buy fresh vegetables in large quantities at the store. When I get home, I wash and chop up the vegetables immediately, and put them in serving-size baggies. I also make up homemade vegetable dip and hummus. Then whenever anyone opens the fridge, there is always fresh veggies and dip to snack on. Some of the vegetables I use are carrots, celery, cucumber, radishes and daikon (a chinese radish), kolrabi, broccoli and cauliflower.
Every week we try a new vegetable (and also a new fruit), and I let the children pick the new vegetable or fruit out in the store. That makes it more fun for them, and they are more likely to eat it. Recently the kids tried Taiwan cabbage in a stir-fry and starfruit.
I try to add lots of vegetables to casseroles, chilli, and spaghetti sauce. For example, my chilli contains corn, onions, green peppers, celery, and carrots. My spaghetti sauce has meat, but it also has onions, garlic, mushrooms and zucchini. I cut up a whole zucchini squash to add to a large batch of sauce. It makes the sauce go further and seem more "meaty", therefore you don't need to use as much meat.
We have a salad every night with supper. In order to make it fun for the kids, I set up a "salad bar" in the kitchen, and the kids can make their own salad before they sit down to eat. I try to have lots of choices... like 2 kinds of lettuce, spinach leaves, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, avocado... as well as toppings like mushrooms, feta cheese, egg and bacon bits. The rule is, the kids must start the salad with lettuce (and most kids really like lettuce, so it's not a problem), but then they can add whatever else they like.
If you can afford it, a juicer is a good thing to invest in, because you can whip up a fruit juice concoction, but add a small amount of veggies to it, and you can't taste the vegetables at all. Alternately, V-8 makes a fruit juice now that also contains some vegetable juice.
My kids also like eating celery with cheez whiz, peanut butter, and/or raisins.
Hope these suggestions help. I'm going to have to try some of the recipes Millie suggested to you!
Does anyone have any suggestions of how to add more vegetables to your diet? Any good recipes? I need some good ideas for my family. Thanks.
Linear Mode
