Salad Frosting? :dubious:
I hate char and always have. I understand that some people like their food burned; I don’t understand why.
Which is not to say that it’s not worth trying charring things for a picky eater if you haven’t been doing so – they are not me and might like it that way. But if that’s what you’ve been doing, then try not doing that. There is a vast difference in range of how different people like their food cooked.
(I do like brussels sprouts roasted; but I don’t like them charred. I also like them cooked in a bit of water with a bit of butter and salt, tight lid on the pot so they partly steam. I don’t like them boiled for long periods of time in large quantities of water; but some people might.)
Joey P, I didn’t really mean food sensitivity in the modern sense, at least I don’t think so. The tomato sauce not only didn’t cause an allergic reaction, it didn’t cause any physical symptoms that I know of other than that I just couldn’t get the stuff down. I just found something about the flavor nauseating (though I could eat raw tomatoes just fine, and liked them). There were other things I had texture issues with, which have lessened with age but are to some extent still there. Again if they did go down they didn’t cause problems, but I didn’t/don’t want that texture in my mouth.
or balsamic vinegar, flaked fleur de sel and olive oil or butter =) though we have been doing nut oils and avocado oil as well. Beets respond well to a gentle sprinkle of a pinch of turbinado sugar, balsamic vinegar and butter.
for the op, avoid green veggies, and radishes, go with carrots, and other more colorful veggies,
have the child help prepare dinner, some veggies go fabulously well in mac n cheese,
pick a different battle to fight cause you aren’t going to win this one and will just end up making mealtime torture and stressful and breed resentment about food in your kid(s)
let the kids choose what to have for dinner sometimes
this is what I did to not only get my son to eat veggies, but to keep my stress down.
I myself always liked most veggies, and have never had kids. So I can’t talk from that side of things. But I can talk from some experiences I have had.
For spinach, cook it with an egg. I always wondered why everyone else hate spinach as a kid. Then I got a can as an adult and wondered why it wasn’t nearly as good as I remembered. Turns out, both my grandparents and my mom always cooked the canned variety with an egg thrown in–one egg for two cans of spinach.
I also suggest using kid-friendly veggies. As a kid, I noticed that there were certain veggies that most kids seemed to like. Carrots are the go-to, both cooked and raw. Iceberg lettuce is also often a favorite. While I never liked it, celery with peanut butter was one that kids adored. They often tended to like bell peppers, too. Corn is often a favorite, especially on the cob with butter. And, thanks to all the sauce, you can often get away with spaghetti squash, which is actually two veggies.
Don’t be afraid to just keep trying others, too. My cousin was not much of a veggie eater. But, for some reason, he stumbled onto canned green peas and absolutely adored them. He would even eat them as a meal just by themselves.
And, finally, the trick a lot of chefs at restaurants know: add butter. It works on adults, and it works on kids. I’m pretty sure all of those cans of green pees had at least a pat of butter in them.
Cold pickled beets for summer weather! Who doesn’t love pickled beets? And you can use the leftover cooking water to pickle eggs!
Minestrone and other mixed-vegetable soups are a good way to force veggies down their rotten little throats. If they don’t like looking at the vegetables, make potage a la bonne femme (housewife soup) out of potatoes, leeks, onions, celery, carrots, (anything else), and chicken stock, then purée into a smooth soup. Everybody likes that.
Tell the kiddo they are forbidden for him to eat, or that he can oly have them if it is a special occasion. Pretty soon he will be sneaking the carrots out of the fridge.
Not quite the same, when I was almost five, and started Sunday School, I am told I behaved badly. Imagine that. So my dad told me I could not go to SS, I would never get to be in the Christmas program, or have the goodies. Dad tells me after that I wanted to go. I do not actually remember this, but it sounds like me.
Why don’t we have a “like” or “upvote” function? 
Just let the kid eat what they want (within reason, I mean, nothing but candy and ice cream isn’t going to help anyone, but if they want meat more than broccoli, let them roll with it) The things my mom made me eat that I didn’t want to, like peas and green beans, I still loathe decades later. The stuff she never made me eat, like onions and peppers, those I eventually came to like enough that I even eat them now when I don’t need to.
My son is really picky but I’ve found since i have always added spinach to so many things like lasagna, eggs, any noodle dish, and rice dishes since he was little he can now eat it with just a little seasoning and maybe a stir of cream. We love a spoonful of spinach and parmesan smeared on crusty buttered French bread as a meal now.
He’s never liked cabbage but he would eat egg rolls on the buffet so I learned how to make them at home easily, just using bagged slaw mix, egg roll wrappers, and a few seasonings I know he’ll tolerate. We roll them together and bake them instead of frying so they’re much healthier. I used to add ground pork but last time I didn’t add any meat at all and they were just as good. So that covers cabbage and carrots. I tried this with broccoli slaw but it did not end well.
Broccoli is funny. He won’t eat the stems at all, just the very tops of the “trees”. SO the dogs and I eat a lot of stems. I add a thin cheese sauce and milk with some powdered chicken bouillon. He loves it and says my broccoli is the best.
Tomatoes he won’t touch raw, so I get a good brand of crushed and cook my own sauces.
Potatoes are easy. He’ll eat any potato dish. But sweets must be candied with marshmallows. I’ve tried roasting them with various seasoning. He won’t touch them. Then again I wouldn’t either until I was an adult.
That’s pretty much all he’ll eat as far as vegetables go. He won’t touch corn even in corn bread or fritters. No asparagus, cauliflower (which I can’t tolerate either), or Brussels sprouts (Yes I’ve tried them roasted.) He won’t touch any common squash, although I can get him to eat pumpkin as long as it’s made in to a pie or bread. Zucchini bread works too, although it’s really not much zucchini compared to the sugar content. But if you’re just trying to get a vegetable in them, I guess that’s worth considering.
I always liked veggies, but my younger sister to this day basically refuses all cooked veggies and is a picky eater in all sorts of other ways. Her husband is the same way. However, their son ADORES veggies, tofu, and yogurt - my mom has fed them to him since he was a baby. Tom Scud’s theory is that for him, fresh vegetables were the treats he ate at Grandma’s house. Maybe you can find some way to work that angle into your diabolical plan.
They’re not pickled in the versions I’m familiar with, but if you like cold beets, have you ever had the Polish soup chłodnik, or the Lithuanian version saltibarsciai? If not, I suspect you would like those. Very simple and perhaps my favorite summer soups (though I very rarely make it as I’m not in a household of beet lovers. I typically enjoy it when eating out at a Polish or Lithuanian restaurant.)
Pickled Beets from Arthur Schwartz’s JEWISH HOME COOKING, 2008, Ten Speed Press:
2 cups sliced boiled fresh beets
1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
1/2 cup cold water
2 tsp sugar
1 small onion, thinly sliced.
Drain beets, reserving liquid (for pickling eggs!). Combine vinegar and water and stir in sugar until dissolved. Combine beets, vinegar mixture, onion, and just enough of the beet liquid to cover. Cover tightly (Mason jar) and refrigerate overnight. The beets will keep in the fridge for at least a week, getting more vinegary as time passes. (These used to be set out on the tables at NYC delis, along with the dills and half-sours and pickled green tomatoes)
I love cold beet borscht, and I will check out the Polish and Lithuanian soups. Many thanks.
Me. I don’t love, or even like, pickled beets. Which is odd, because I like regular (cucumber) pickles as long as they’re not sweet pickles, and dilly beans, and pickled cauliflower, and so on; but maybe not all that odd, because I don’t much like beets in general. Beet greens, yes, sauteed with garlic, mmmm. But not the beets themselves.
If your broth above is heavy on the celery, I might not like that either, because I don’t like celery. I don’t think there’s anything in the world that “everybody likes”. It’s just necessary to consider the individual people involved.
Having said that: those are indeed good suggestions to try; because a lot of people do like them. And if the pureed soup doesn’t go over well, try varying the ingredients – at least, unless it’s the texture of pureed soup that’s the problem.
I was wondering if Uke was being a bit facetious there as, outside my Eastern European family, I know very few people who like pickled beets, or just beets in general. I love 'em all, but I find if I’m in a group of my peers, I am very much an exception.