Sometimes that’s all it takes.
My son Zander is very slowly emerging from being a picky eater to a gourmand. If I tell him something is loaded with garlic, he is far more likely to want to eat it than not. He’s also become somewhat fond of raw onions on things like burgers and subs. He really likes scallions, now that I think about it. There’s still plenty he’d rather not eat, and we’re working on a whole lot of cooked vegetable things now that I think about it.
One of the foods that he is not particularly a fan of is a bowl of chili. He doesn’t care much for beans anyway, but a bowl of chili usually leaves him picking and mostly eating the cornbread served on the side.
Well, last week before heading out for a dance competition weekend, I made a pot of chili for Andy to have while we were gone. Since I knew Zander would not be excited about a bowl of chili, I changed things up and cooked up a few pans of steak fries, shredded some cheese, and we had chili-cheese fries. Zander LOVED it and almost cleaned his plate. Same old chili, but presented in a whole new way got him to eat it as fast as he could.
Fast forward past our weekend, and Andy did not eat the chili over the weekend after all. This worked out, as I didn’t need to prepare dinner yesterday when we were all exhausted and recovering. However, I was back at the problem of having a son who would not eat the chili, and if anyone needed the nutrients hiding in that bowl, it was him. I debated what I was going to serve on the side of that chili when it came to me. One of Zander’s favorite food groups is pasta. Sometimes I’ll cook up some macaroni to float in the chili, but I decided this time to serve this chili Cincinnati style.
A pile of cooked spaghetti, followed by a few ladles of chili and a mountain of shredded cheese, and Zander was in heaven. He loved dinner last night, and I found yet another way to get that delicious chili into him. The more I can get him to appreciate it out of the bowl, the closer he will be to eating it when served inside the bowl. Since my chili is packed with tomatoes, beans, pumpkin and peppers, it’s a nutrient loaded powerhouse. Getting all of that packed into my children? Worth a change in perspective.