>>Healthy cooking for my VERY picky eaters!! HELP!!!<<<

Hello all! I started eating very clean some time ago now. My problem is, I have my husband and my two young children to cook for as well. They are VERY picky eaters. They refuse to eat steak, fish, or any kind of meat other than chicken and ground beef. And they won't eat salad, or really any greens other than peas. And my hubby is the worst offender, which is making it ok in my kids eyes to refuse food. So, I am struggling to cook 2 seperate meals every night while trying to make sure homework gets done and playing referee, and all the usual Mom stuff. I'm ok with seperate cooking every once in a while, but doing it every night is exhausting! I need some recipes! I have run out of ideas! :sad:

Replies

  • Why don't you sabotage your favourite veggies into their favourite food? For example, you could have chicken and a little brown rice, but load lots of veggies into a sauce for the chicken. That way, your husband and kids won't know their eating healthy! Hope this helps :)
  • trixiemou
    trixiemou Posts: 554 Member
    How about making a hot pot with the mince. In between the layers of sliced potato you can layer in some Turnip/swede. Diced carrot in with the mince.

    If you grate courgette in any type of casserole it blends in with everything else.

    Make a chicken pie or a mince and potato pie. Again as part of the stock you could blend some vegetables and add this to the stock. Same goes for soups.
  • ckish
    ckish Posts: 341 Member
    You have quite a problem on your hands. If your husband doesn't get on board with healthy eating your kids never will. If you can't talk to him you ptobably have other problems to. If you can talk to him and the problem is that her doesn't like certain foods but he supports the idea of healthy foods in general than you have some work to do. My hubby had a lot of food issues due to his mother doing just what a previous poster recommended - trying to hide veggies in the sauce. It turned out my hubby just doesn't like overcooked veggies or pasta, tough steak, greasy spaghetti sauce, iceberg lettuce, and curdled cream sauces. Because that was all he had lived with he assumed he hated all vegetables, pastas, steaks, salads, and anything with a sauce. He lived on pizza and hamburgers when we met 30 years ago. Luckily he was open to trying the things I would make. Over time he discovered he likes raw or lightly steamed brocolli, romaine lettuce or any other lettuce other than iceberg, a juicy steak, al dente pasta, great spaghetti sauce, and light sauces. He still can't tolerate the texture of onions but he likes the flavor in some dishes so I just puree them in anything that uses onions. Along the way he discovered he doesn't like brussel sprouts in any way shape or form. Thankfully all these food issues were resolved before we had kids. The only rule we had was our kids needed to try soemthing in order to form an opinion. Therefore one kid likes artichokes and another doesn't So when we make artichokes we also make a small batch of steamed carrots. It all starts with your hubby. If you can't get him on board you are fighting a losing battle. I would just make what you want and let your husband worry about what to feed the kids. At some point he will either get tired of it and ask for your help or you will need to make some decisions. Good luck overcomming this challenge.