Yum!

I do my best, like most parents, to keep my family healthy. One of the ways that I do that is by providing them with healthy food and habits. The girls have all been exposed to various fruits and vegetables since they were old enough for "real food". As a matter of fact, one year as a joke my mom gave Lilly a carton of cherry tomatoes and a can of peas (low sodium). She was THRILLED!! My mother-in-law gets disgusted when we're together and my girls eat green or red pepper slices like most kids would eat potato chips. It's funny, but it's also great that they eat and actually like the healthy foods. The biggest kid I had to deal with? Andy.


When we first got together so many years ago, he didn't eat a lot of the veggies that I like to cook with or have as a raw snack. I told him that I would adjust some meals, but some would just have to have certain things in them and he'd have to pick them out or deal with them. The progression over the years has gone like this:


*Andy would gag over the peppers and onions in my meals, laugh in disgust at my spinach salads, and make a face at anything with fresh tomatoes.
*Then, he'd tolerate the peppers and onions, still laugh at my spinach and gag over the tomatoes.
*After awhile, he'd notice if something didn't have peppers or onions, and ask where they were. He tried spinach and agreed that it's not as bad as he thought. He'd eat tomatoes, but only if diced and in small amounts on a salad or tacos.
*Now, he's a "dork" (his words, not mine) He orders onions on burgers, eats raw onion and peppers on sandwiches and salads, he loves spinach and complains if I make a salad and don't have spinach for it. He likes steamed carrots, cauliflower and broccoli. He even, just in the last week, tried eating cherry tomatoes with me for a snack. Last night, he brought them out on his own.


So yes, according to him I've turned him into a dork because he now likes healthier snacks and foods. I tell him that he may be a dork, but he's a healthy one with a more varied palate. Regardless, he's eating it all and I'm smiling secretly. The other night I made this for dinner...

And he said, "YUM! That looks really good." (I sauteed them for Philly sandwiches) Such a difference from 10+ years ago when the smell alone would have driven him far, far away.

(I also made this the other day for his birthday...could have been better, but I was crammed for time!)