There are some variants in that list, but basically he’s a brown food kid. He doesnt do pizza, he won’t do sauce. His mild palate is good news in that he’s never had pop (doesnt want to try it) and doesn’t like candy (other than chocolate). He’ll eat carrots and cucumbers, but that’s about as far as the vegetable tasting goes.

MONKEY SEE MONKEY DO

In the spring, experts were saying the best way was to lead by example.
The report said children will eat vegetables if they see their parents eating them AND enjoying them.

If a child sees you eating vegetables with a smile on your face, they’ll be more likely to want to eat them. But if it looks like you’re choking them down, they’ll have even less interest in eating them.

STICK IT TO THEM

A new study out of University College London tested different methods to get kids to eat vegetables, and found that one worked MUCH better than the others: Bribing your kids with STICKERS.

The researchers found that when parents gave small stickers to three-and-four-year-old kids as rewards for eating TINY pieces of vegetables, over a few weeks, the kids actually started liking those vegetables.

How much is tiny? About the size of a child’s pinky fingernail. Baby steps.

Three months later, the kids who got stickers were more likely to be willing to eat more of their vegetables than kids in other test groups.

WHAT DOESNT WORK

The researchers also found that rewarding kids with food didn’t work. As in, “eat your broccoli and you’ll get ice cream.” Because it made the kids compare vegetables to dessert, and vegetables are ALWAYS going to lose that battle.

And giving your kids praise didn’t work either. As in, “Wow! You’re a great vegetable taster!” Because kids just don’t care about achieving higher status in the realm of vegetable tasting.

Stickers, on the other hand, are awesome.

This Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe is perhaps the simplest recipe ever invented that kids will love making with you. 3 ingredients with complete instructions small enough to fit in a tweet.

1 cup of peanut butter
1/2 cup of sugar
1 egg

Mix them together. Roll into balls and put them on a cookie sheet. Flatten with a fork. Bake for 20 minutes at 325.

That’s it.

Some tips:

We had fun by placing mini chocolate chips on top of the cookies before they went in the oven.

Don’t leave them in longer than 20 minutes.

Take them off the cookie sheet as soon as the get out of the oven and put them on a cooling rack. That sheet is still hot and if you leave them to cool on that, the bottoms of the cookies will burn.

A big glass of milk is mandatory.

When something in on his plate that he doesn’t like, he distinctly informs us “I didnt order this.”

Noodles must be plain. Period.

So my wife and I dont get the luxury of being sneaky chefs and stuffing the sauce with cauliflower, zucchini and vegetables to help him get his fill. But I wonder, is this the right thing to be doing anyway?

We’ve been given the books by Missy Chase Lapine and Jessica Seinfeld, but they sit unopened on the shelf. I read the blog recipes, like this one this morning giving tips to get bananas into ice cream, but I wonder – are we doing our kids any favours by being “sneaky chefs”?

By sneaking the good in with the bad are we just encouraging the craving for the bad instead of nurturing an appreciation for the good?

You may know how to get cauliflower into macaroni and cheese, beets into chocolate cake and zucchini into spaghetti sauce – but that’s not how it’s done in the real world.

For now, we’re still trying the negotiations to get our son to broaden his palate, and it works – sometimes.

Are *you* a sneaky chef? What are your reasons?

Every now and again he’ll grab a banana or slurp up some tomato soup or apple sauce, but basically his meals are pretty bland and of the same thing. everytime.

We just got back from an all inclusive in Mexico and tried to use the deep and varied buffet each night as a way to get him to spread his tastebuds wide and try different things.

No luck.

So for the past 2 weeks, we’ve drawn a solid line in the sand and are not budging until he tries something new each night. Sometimes its a slice of red pepper, or a chicken finger or a quesedilla (all foods he loved as a toddler). It’s been tough, but he’s been good at trying – until we put sauce on his noodles.

It’s sauce. On pasta. And it sent him over the edge.

We want our boys to have a wide, varied and courageous palate, but we definitely don’t want to go the “sneaky chef” route. All that does is get your kids a taste for chocolate cake (and it wont always have zucchini and beets in it).

New commercials for kids’ PediaSure gave us a pause to stop and consider it, (because it showed we weren’t alone in our struggles) but we quickly dismissed it as we do many prefab kid targeted foods. Our kids will eat the good stuff, made by us, grown by people.

Are your pre-schoolers good eaters? How do you convince them that sauce on pasta is a good thing?

Sure buying your baby’s foods at the grocery store is easy, but if you want a little more involvement in what your baby eats, try making it. Once your baby can eat solids, it’s easy to serve foods you already have in your kitchen. Majority of recipes only require you to boil and puree.

Here are a few recipes and guidelines to test your ability with baby foods.

2 years ago they declared the synthetic substance dangerous, today they increased the warning. BPA is used to make clear plastics rigid, it is used in the liners of canned goods and it is more often than not in the foods we give our kids.

Statistics Canada has found BPA in the urine of more than 90% of Canadians. The chemical takes on properties similar to estrogen and is being blamed for the earlier onset of puberty in girls. BPA is also being linked to breast and prostate cancer.

2 years ago I cleaned out my cupboards of baby bottles made of BPA that we used to feed our sons. Problem is, Charlie is still fed formula. From cans. That are, most likely, lined with BPA.

The Canadian government declared BPA a toxic substance, that’s the good news. The next news is how to get it out of the system, because it’s omnipresent.

Here’s a list of stories I wrote back when this story first broke to help you learn more about BPA, how to find out if it’s in your cupboards, and the products you can buy to replace the ones that have BPA.

Avent Makes Bottles With BPA
Baby Bottles As Bad As Big Tobacco
What To Do About BPA
Turn Your BPA Bottle Into A Nalgene Nighlight
Canned Food Has More BPA Than Baby Bottles
How To Find Out If Your Bottle Has BPA

Sure, your toddler shouldnt be eating raw fish just yet, but you can grab a vegetable roll or kappa maki (cucumber roll) at your favourite sushi stand or grocery store for less than $5.

We like to cut the 1″ rolls in half again so that they’re not a choking hazard. You have to remember that the sushi rice is very sticky, so if they like dumping things in in one bite, it might get a little gluey in there.

Chopstick Kids are the perfect accessory for your sushi loving toddler. They’re rubber people with holes in each foot for the chopsticks to lock in so they can learn to use the tools and feel like bigs.

Sushi is just one of those great ethnic finger foods that are perfect for kids trying to get the hang of eating with the big boys (and girls). We also like to mix in perogies, samosas and quesedillas.

SIMPLE PUMPKIN PIE RECIPE

1 9-inch baked single-crust pie shell
1-3/4 cups (425 mL) pumpkin puree
1 cup (250 mL) packed brown sugar
3/4 cup (175 mL) evaporated milk
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp (5 mL) cinnamon
1/2 tsp (2 mL) nutmeg
1/4 tsp (1 mL) each ground ginger and salt

Filling: In bowl, whisk together pumpkin puree, sugar, evaporated milk, eggs, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and salt.

Pour into pie shell. Bake in bottom third of 425°F (220°C) oven for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350°F (180°C); bake for 30 minutes longer or until knife inserted in centre comes out clean. Let cool on rack. [from Canadian Living]

There’s nothing better than cooking with kids in the kitchen.

This recipe was adapted from my grandmother’s traditional stuffing. It was created for Season Two of Rob Feenie’s New Classics on Food Network Canada.

If you really want to go above and beyond, check out these wine pairings for thanksgiving dinner – some great grapes to go with the turkey. Now, on to the Bourbon Berry Stuffing recipe!!

Ingredients

* 1 c of Bourbon [or more ]
* 2 stalks diced celery
* 1 large diced onion
* 1 diced apple
* 1 package of fresh poultry seasoning [thyme, rosemary and sage]
* 1 loaf of cubed white bread
* 1 lb of sausage meat
* ½ c of dried cranberries
* ½ c of dried blueberries
* ½ c of blackberries

Directions

* Sautee the onion, celery, apple and poultry seasoning until transparent.
* Add the sausage and brown the sausage meat. Set aside.
* Mix cubed bread, dried berries. Add sausage mixture to the bread mixture.
* Slowly add the bourbon until the mixture becomes moist and sticks together.
* Stuff it in the bird and bake away!!

Tips

* if blackberries are not available, dont worry, just leave them out
* this is a very moist stuffing, the more berries you add, the moister it will be.

Flickr photo by Muffet.

Peanut Butter + Lettuce + Mayonnaise = Magic.

Better than a sugar sandwich (bread, butter and sugar) better than a ketchup sandwich (bread and ketchup) and narrowly ahead of jam and cheese (bread strawberry jam and a slice), the PBLM is the greatest sandwich in the history of the world.

The thick smoothness of the peanut butter, the crunch of the iceberg lettuce and the tang of the mayo are pure heaven. Trust me on this one. Or maybe you have a better best. sandwich. ever. And I’m not the only one, I mean 154 000 google results can’t be wrong.

Lay your BEST SANDWICH EVER recipes in the comments below.