Veggie Success!!!

For the past few months, Handley has been on a vegetable strike. I was so shocked when this happened, because she had always been such great eater. She would try everything and seemed to like most anything I gave her. I would always hear friends complaining about their toddlers and how they would refuse to eat vegetables, and I would just smile knowing that my child was a "good eater." Well, then my child turned into a toddler and everything changed!

She went from eating everything, to being really picky about what she would eat. For a while it was just waffles, deli meat, fruit and cheese. Thankfully her tastes have widened and she does pretty well eating a good variety of food, but what still baffles me is that she can love something one day, and then refuse to eat it the next! All of my books say that it is a toddlers way of showing their independence and it totally makes since.

I keep offering her a variety of veggies. She does get some from veggies I puree and "sneak" into other foods (Sweet Potato pancakes, Turkey nuggets with carrots, etc.) and I occasionally give her a Juicy Juice Vegetable Harvest with one serving of veggies in it and veggie chips (hey, it is better than nothing)!

The past few weeks I have found a few ways to get her to eat some vegetables.

• Hummus - she loves the stuff and saw me eating some with crackers while she had an early dinner one night. She wanted to dip everything in the hummus, so I let her. After dipping and eating all of her grilled cheese she kept asking for more. I went to the fridge and found cold, left-over green beans and decided to dip those for her. Much to my surprise she LOVED them. I couldn't believe it. I thought I'd found a trick, but it was short-lived. She didn't like it the next day. Darn!
• Rice with Veggies - I saw an ad in one of my magazines for a rice that and an entire serving of veggies mixed in. The rice is actually really good and Handley seems to love it. The one down fall is that it is SO messy and we end up with rice EVERYWHERE. Those of you who know me, know that I can't stand a mess, but if it means she'll eat some vegetables, then I'll deal with the mess.
• Pumpkin Pie Popsicles - If you've been reading my blog from the beginning then you might remember the homemade popsicle incident we had this summer. If you want to read it, click here. Handley loves popsicles and I decided to give the homemade variety one more try since the recipe I found said they tasted like pumpkin pie, but the main ingredient was butternut squash. I made them this weekend and let her try one last night after dinner. She wasn't too crazy about it last night, but we tried it again tonight and she really liked it.

For anyone that is interested, here is the recipe:

Cut one butternut squash in half and scoop out the seeds. Place face down in a baking dish and fill it with about 1 inch of water. Bake on 350 for 45 mins-1 hour or until the squash is soft. After it cools, scoop out the squash into your blender or food processor. Add 1/2 cup of maple syrup, 2/3 cup of light cream or whole milk, and 3/4 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice. Blend all ingredients and spoon into popsicle molds. Freeze and enjoy.