Who's A Picky Eater?

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It was a similar scene to the night before:

"Kaia, you need to eat."

"I am."

"No, take bigger bites. And stop using your hands."

15 minutes later...

"Mama, can I be done?"

"No, you still haven't eaten anything."

"I don't like it."

This is what 80% of our mealtimes are like....lucky us! In the interest of not eating the same 6 meals every single week (We usually eat out or order pizza once a week), I have been trying to branch out from the steady favorites (which are not even really favorites...every week we eat soy burgers, and every week Kaia does not eat them!) and into a few new recipes at a time. So far, the results have been mixed. I made pasta with a butter sage sauce and was convinced that she wouldn't have anything to do with it. Guess what? She loved it! Then I made spaghetti with fresh basil, tomatoes and ricotta cheese. I thought that it was delicious, but Kaia wouldn't touch it. Skye wouldn't touch it (which is saying something, because she eats just about anything). With a 50% success rate (Jabiz and I loved it), I wouldn't say that it was a hit.

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That night, Kaia and I were snuggling in bed together, watching some cooking videos (I'll throw in a shout-out here to Jessica Seinfeld. Yep, she's Jerry Seinfeld's wife, and I have been a fan of hers since her  first cookbook came out. She now has a cooking website called doitdelicious.com that has videos of her making various dishes. I am obsessed with it, even though most of the recipes involve cooking meat or fish. I am obsessed with anyone who cooks well and makes it look easy. Her new book is out and I am coveting it, in case anyone wants to get me a Christmas present. Hint hint. No, seriously.) We started talking about cooking. I told her that it is very important to know how to cook, and that someday when she's older, we will take a cooking class together (I will also throw in here that my mother DID take me to cooking lessons when I was young, but I obviously wasn't the most gifted student in the class. Hence my need for more cooking lessons as an adult. Hopefully, Kaia will be a better student than I was.)

She looked up at me with a very concerned expression on her face and said, "Can we not cook anything that has that pesto stuff or tomatoes in it?"

I was confused, "But you love pesto!"

"No, mama- not pesto, but that stuff in pesto."

"You mean basil?"

"Yes, basil. No basil in our cooking. Or tomatoes."

"Why not?"

"Because it's gross."

"Oh. So you thought that my spaghetti was gross?"

"Yes."

Sigh.

So the search continues for some new, meat-free recipes that my kids will like. Being a vegetarian takes away popular meal options for kids, such as chicken fingers or fish sticks. I'll post any successes, as well as failures.

In the meantime, does anyone have any recipes or ideas that my picky eater might like?