Pretty much every one of us parents has had at some point a difficult run in with our little blessings and vegetables. It's a challenge, but this is one area where I say, "stand your ground!"
I married my husband when his sons were 8 & 5 and with no mother in the picture and a grandma doing the majority of mothering...well... it just wasn't easy. Grandmas love their grandkids a whole different level than parents and somehow the rules of parenting just don't apply in that relationship. As a result, these boys pretty much considered potatoes a sole source of vegetable and grandma was known to tell them, "As long as you eat your meat you can have dessert." Even when grandma would make a wonderful peach cobbler with fresh peaches, she still didn't make them eat it - she'd just let them have the ice cream!
So, when meals began at our home for those little guys and I realized how vegetables had never entered into their little systems, I began making a different vegetable every evening. Some were complete flops and that I could even blame on my lack of knowledge for the preparation of the vegetable. They still laugh at how they had to eat brussel sprouts. Well, how, when I left the room Dad shoveled in their brussel sprouts.
It was their complete resistance of any sort of vegetable and my intense love of fresh vegetables that sent me on this mission. We were married in May, so the garden was in place. Zucchini is definitely a vegetable that grows in abundance, so I began getting creative. Here are some successful ways that eventually the word zucchini didn't send them in a panic.
The first thing I made was zucchini bread. For those of you who have never tried it, it is rather delicious and comparable to banana bread. In fact, it was a very long time before I told them it was actually zucchini.
The next successful attempt was breaded zucchini. I didn't tell them it was zucchini - in fact I'm not even sure they asked - they just smothered it with ketchup and were happy. Granted, breaded and fried zucchini is not the healthiest thing in the world, but it is very tasty and they were eating a vegetable!
And the last successful venture was finely dicing zucchini and using half as much meat in dishes like spaghetti and adding the zucchini. Zucchini is fairly tasteless and takes on whatever flavors it is with, therefore it is an excellent choice for an added veggie in spaghetti. Plus the rich red sauce hides the funny green - if you're really desparate because you've allowed picky eaters to evolve in your home I would suggest peeling the zucchini then chopping finely before adding. It makes them even less visible. Unfortunately, you do lose some nutrition value, but it's a beginning and more than what they had before you started substituting. You can add it in chili, omelettes, stews and whatever else you can dream up. Zucchini freezes fairly well, so it is easy to preserve and use throughout the winter season. It does turn soggy, so it's not suggest you freeze the zucchnini in hopes of frying or thawing and eating fresh.
The final victory was after a couple of years of regularly hiding the zucchini in various foods, I was even able to get them to eat fresh & raw on salads and with dip. And, that's when as a mom you can smile and pat yourself on the back a little.
Don't give up on your kids yet, if I can walk in and convince stepchildren to eat vegetables then you can too. The key is to remember to stick to your guns, start with super small portions (maybe they have to eat one) and the more they see it the less it will intimidate them. I heard somewhere that a child has to see something eleven times before they're not freaked out by it. The last thing I can suggest is to ignore their reactions, it's all to gain sympathy and a reaction from you.
What I've done in the past with zucchini can be done with many other vegetables as well. It's important to incorporate various things into your meals, even if you have to process them to a runny mass to be able to add them and not have them noticed.
So, to all you parents and guardians struggling with vegetables - Happy Eating!
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