Sneaky Chef???

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nikkiARNGwife

New member
Has anyone tried these recipes with their kids? My 3 y/o is THE PICKIEST eater and it's only gotten worse here lately. We had a battle of wills for 3 hours over a green bean today..anyway, I have the book but I've yet to try any of the recipes.
 
I have both of her books out of the library right now. They're great ways to slip in the veg, and so far it's been easy to adapt a lot of the recipes to gluten free (Devin went GF about a month ago).
 
Leila said:
(Devin went GF about a month ago).
Click to expand...

Is that helping? It's something we're considering for a kid or two lol

I've heard great things about it (esp with adhd kids) but I know I'd have to be dedicated to it to make it work. Is it hard to only have 1 person on it..I know it's not really harmful for ev1 but not sure I can fork the expense right now for a family of 7 to eat gluten free...just babbling..I'd like to know if you are having positive results with it.
 
Honestly, I think it's helping. In D's case, we were looking to combat his violent and aggressive side. About a week after he went GF, the attacks on people in school stopped (he never did it at home), he's handling transitions better, he's accepting criticism well too. He never did those things well before the diet change. I think that if things keep improving, we'll push to Casein free too, though that is even more difficult to do.

The hardest part has been finding ways to make sure it's all truly gluten free. I carry a list of "safe" foods and ingredients when we go shopping and buy based off that. You'd be surprised what can contain gluten. Anything from "natural flavors" to "caramel color." Of course, the best option is to make sure it SAYS gluten free on the packaging.

Our saving grace has been corn pastas, some gluten-free meatballs we found at Costco, Naked Nuggets (also at Costco), and GF pretzels and cereals. Devin is a picky eater, so finding subs for his favorites is a true Godsend!

Read the book Special Diets for Special Kids (and it's follow up--same title 2). It's specifically for GF/CF, but it's worth reading even if you're just going GF.
 
ugh, food battles. I usually bribe them with desert or fruit pops. LOL But I have a very clever 3 year old. The other day I told him that he couldn't have a cookie until he finished his green beans. I got up and started doing dishes. A few minutes later he brought his plate to me and it was clean. I gave him his cookie. But when I dumped his milk into the sink I realized where the green beans had gone. :cursing:

So now he can only have water with his dinner! :p
 
I use it... it's great for my 2 year old... and it was great for my 13 year old niece, who will only eat canned corn or peas and that's it as far as veggies go... and I was using it awesomely until she decided to watch me cook dinner one night and saw me take the puree out of my freezer and got suspicious.

She
has
never
trusted
my
cooking
since.

/sadface.
 
I'm just so tired of the battles. This kid won't even go for bribing and is STUBBORN...yeah he gets that from DH. I mean he wasn't eating those green beans for nothing and even though he got nothing else to eat the rest of the day he didn't seem to care. So..I'm definitely trying some of these recipes. At this point, I just want the food IN him kwim...I don't care how it gets there lol.
 
Nikki - my 5yo is like that, we can sit for hrs. over the dumbest things.

Not that it isn't an issue for you all over, but we solved the green bean dilemma by offering ranch dressing as a dip, and I will reheat his green beans if they do get too cold because we think that's one of the issues with Aiden.
 
He used to be a great eater, and I think some of it is my fault over the past year b/c I haven't been cooking a lot since brian left and when I was pregnant, I went for what was easy with him..so we both got into some bad eating habits. Soo...I can't totally blame him..I just want him to eat healthier and if this works then so be it lol
 
I've tried some of the recipies & I think it really depends on the recipie.

For instance they totally will not eat the mac & cheese with cauliflower or squash. It looks different and cauliflower at least is a strong taste & they don't like it. There was one for muffins with green puree. Horrible!

But the one for breaded chicken with an orange or white puree was really tasty, so was a meatloaf burger type thing and I've never had any problem adding purees to tomato or pesto sauces.
 
Stacey - was the squash one with butternut squash or regular yellow squash? I found a recipe last week that I wanted to do with butternut squash and wanted it to be really good cause my 5yo will scarf Mac'n'cheese down like crazy (as long as it doesn't have any meat LOL).
 
I have it. I haven't tried any recipes, but I have used the white puree (cauliflower & zucchini) and the orange puree (carrots & sweet potatoes) to put in my son's spaghetti-os, mac & cheese & spaghetti sauce (only things he eats much of). I agree with the earlier post that mentioned the cauliflower puree being a stronger taste than the orange, though my 2 year son hasn't seemed to notice.
 
If I could get him to eat ANY type of tomato sauce that would be great and I'm sure a lot of those purees would be unoticable in that. He won't touch spaghetti...wont' even eat spaghetti o's out of a can. I'm telling you he is horribly picky. drives me nuts.
 
i got the book from the library, and liked the concept but haven't made any of those exact recipes. My kids will eat some vegetables on some days, and then no on others. But I can always ALWAYS get my daughter to eat broccoli soup, to which I sometimes add spinach, and she loves corn and peas and occasionally carrots. She won't touch raw veggies, potatoes or any tomato sauce but we're working on it. Because she does eat *some* vegetables I try not to freak on her and just offer lots of broccoli, because she loves it.

My kids loved this soup, which I adapted from a recipe my mom used for me when I was little. In our house we call it "Popcorn Soup" and add a handful of popcorn to it as garnish. You don't have to make purrees ahead of time for this! And it has a nice orange color, but you can tell your kids it's just cheese soup. We call it Popcorn Soup at our house :)


¼ cup butter
1 clove garlic (optional)
¼ cup onion chopped
2 cup carrot chopped
1 cup celery
3 tbsp flour
3 cups chicken broth
2 cups cheddar grated
1cup milk or light cream
Dash cayenne salt and pepper
1 cup popped popcorn and/or crackers to garnish

Melt the butter, add chopped veggies and cook until they soften. Blend in flour,stirl until just cooked and no longer dry and then remove from heat. Wisk in chicken broth. Return ot heat and stir while mixture thickens. Add salt or seasoning to taste. Blend mixture in blender until no visable chunks of vegetables remain. Return to heat add milk, then add cheese a small amount at a time stiring in a '8' until blended.

Serve with a small handful of popcorn in each bowl, or fish crackers. :)

* other blended vegetables in here works well - some red pepper, potato, zuchini, etc. whatever is on hand.
 
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Well...knock me down lol! I just tried the browies with spinach and blueberries...yes, I said spinach and blueberries. It looked really gross as I was mixing it up..but you know, you can just taste a hint of the blueberries and none of the spinach at all..and my DS who hasn't touched spinach in his life..just scarfed one down like it was the best thing he ever had! lol...who'd have thought?! lol
 
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