How To Sneak In Veggies For Picky Eaters

Shhhh! I have a secret for you.

However, my 5-year-old can read, so I have to type quickly.

I have been sneaking veggies into his food for awhile now.

I generally wanted to be one of those mothers who simply insisted her child eat vegetables and he complied or DIDN’T GET DINNER! However, real life set in, dinners got a bit crankier, and, well, I wasn’t as firm as I’d planned.

I read Jessica Seinfeld’s Deceptively Delicious a few years ago. She encourages moms-of-picky-eaters to roast veggies, puree them, label and divide them into individual freezer bags, then pull out bags to add to meals as necessary. I tried this method once, then realized I had two small children and couldn’t spend hours in the kitchen prepping all this.

However, I tucked away the idea of adding pureed veggies to familiar meals. Whenever I’m making my fallback dinner–spaghetti with jarred sauce–and I happen to have a squash, I get that thing a’roastin’ and mash it to a pulp in my sauce. It basically melts into the tomato sauce. It’s also easy to camouflage orange squash of any kind into mac and cheese. Then you feel better about that weird cheese powder…

There are a few benefits.

1. My picky 5-year-old is getting a healthy dose of (Googles…) Vitamin A and C, and a couple of elements from the periodic table.
2. All of us get that same dose, because, let’s be honest, what adult is eating enough vegetables these days?
3. My biologist husband gets to tell me, once again, that a squash is a fruit.
4. My spaghetti sauce tastes better (i.e. sweeter).
5. My mama pride rejoices in my sneaky con.

Why write this post in the middle of a worldwide quarantine?

1. You have all the time in the world to slice and roast vegetables.
2. Squash live forever on your counter.
3. Even when the entire freezer section is picked over, there is always pureed squash, so you can skip the manual labor and go the easy route.

Got any other tricks I could try? My boy is pretty observant, so it’d have to be sneaky.

Currently Reading:
Rhythm of Renewal by Rebekah Lyons – To be honest, I’ve read half of the intro to this book. We watched the video in Bible study over a video conference this week, and I loved it. It even inspired me to lay off social media for two whole days, and I felt great afterward (more on this later, I’m certain).

For more Mama, subscribe and follow me!