Last weekend, we went out to pick stinging nettles. This was a fun excursion. Stinging nettles grow wild around our city, although I’ve never had the opportunity to pick them before. They grow near sunny ditches, and we have a lack of both sun and ditches in our particular neighborhood.
When we got home, I steamed the nettles and we ate them for dinner. They were a lovely cross between earthy flavor and leafy green. They are also supposed to be very nutritious. Unfortunately, my daughter took one bite and determined that they were icky. Oh well, at least she tried.
My child has never been one to eagerly eat her vegetables, although she will tolerate the sweet ones: carrots, peas, yams, and corn. If it’s from the garden, she’ll eat leafy greens, but only if they are very recently picked. She’s like most kids: give her a choice between ice cream and spinach, and she’s going to choose the ice cream. Heck, I would choose the ice cream too.
I’m rather late to the game on this one, but this week I’ve been exploring the joys of the smoothie. I have a lot of raspberries in my freezer and I need to use them up before the summer comes. I don’t really like raspberries, although my daughter is rather fond of them. Tonight for dinner I took about six handfuls of frozen raspberries and blended them with yogurt, a little honey, a whole bunch of kale, and an entire box of alfalfa sprouts. I served it at the evening’s meal and it went down nicely, with no complaints. There was no discussion about the tiny flecks of green, just an appreciation of the pink drink.
It’s certainly tempting, this vegetable-disguising business. Does your preschooler eat her veggies? If not, do you incorporate them into meals in a sneaky way?